is a good specimen of his style, and shows that he was not by any means limited to common and colloquial

terms:

"Gentlemen, I can not conclude without expressing the deepest / regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion by authors who profess to promote the civil liberties of the world. For under what other auspices than Christianity have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been reasserted? Under what other sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happiness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? What work of civilization, what commonwealth of greatness has this bald religion of nature ever established?"

Careful study will show that the compliments upon the style of Erskine are extravagant. His words were few, and not the best chosen, and a wider range of study, though he was evidently familiar with Latin, would have much improved both his thoughts and style.

Dr. Johnson himself gave perhaps the best defense of his own style that can be given, though in his earnestness he seems to have deviated from it, when he said, "Big thinkers require big words."*

Those who recommend the exclusive employment of either the simpler or the more complex words of our rich English language, both err. The short simple words undoubtedly make the deepest impression, while the longer words contribute to copiousness, elegance, and accuracy. The student should obtain a mastery over both.

Of the Johnsonian style, Dr. Whately says: “It

* See Lord Brougham's Rhetorical Dissertations (London Edi

WHATELY'S CRITICISM OF JOHNSON. 43

1

happens, unfortunately, that Johnson's style is particularly easy of imitation, even by writers utterly destitute of his vigor of thought; and such imitators are intolerable. They bear the same resemblance to their model that the armor of the Chinese, as described by travellers, consisting of thick quilted cotton covered with stiff glazed paper, does to that of the ancient knights: equally glittering and bulky, but destitute of the temper and firmness which was its sole advantage. At first sight, indeed, this kind of style appears far from easy of attainment, on account of its being remote from the colloquial, and having an elaborately artificial appearance; but in reality there is none less difficult to acquire. To string together substantives connected by conjunctions, which is the characteristic of Johnson's style, is, in fact, the rudest and clumsiest mode of expressing our thoughts: we have only to find names for our ideas, and then put them together by connectives, instead of interweaving, or rather felting them together, by the admixture of verbs, participles, prepositions, etc. So that this way of writing, as contrasted with the other, may be likened to the primitive rude carpentry, in which the materials were united by coarse external implements, pins, nails, and cramps, when compared with that art in its most improved state, after the invention of dove-tail joints, grooves, and mortises, when the junctions are effected by forming properly the extremities of the pieces to be joined, so as at once to consolidate and conceal the juncture."*

On this subject Ralph Waldo Emerson remarks: "In Parliament, in pulpits, in theatres, when the speakers rise to thought and passion, the language becomes idiomatic; the people in the street best understand the best words."*

REMEMBRANCE OF WORDS.

45

CHAPTER VI.

HOW TO OBTAIN A GOOD VOCABULARY.

20. Degrees of Memory in Relation to Language. — THERE is a great difference between such a knowledge of a word as enables a person to understand its meaning when it is either heard or read, and such a mastery over it as enables the person to command it either in speech or rapid writing. Many persons can understand the most of what is uttered to them in familiar conversation in a foreign language who can not express themselves readily and correctly in that language. Thousands of scholars can read foreign languages who could not write a page of them accurately. A speaker who uses many and elegant words will often interest and delight an auditory of uneducated persons, not one of whom could use the words which he hears and understands, and some of which perhaps he never heard before.

21. Analysis of Memory. - The faculty of memory, when analyzed, is found to embrace acquisition, retention, and reproduction. First, the knowledge must be acquired; second, it must be retained, and, finally, it must be reproduced when needed.

Each of these departments of the memory can be strengthened only by attention and exercise. Each particular department must be specially exercised. The acquisition of words can be secured by a study of dictionaries, by accurately observing every new term that is heard or seen, and particularly by translating from one language into another. It should be heeded by the student that a familiarity with words can not be secured accidentally, any more than any other valuable power.

In like manner words, once comprehended and stored in the memory, must be employed frequently, or they will not be ready to do the bidding of their master when needed. The frequent and careful use of the pen is a great aid to the memory. The oft-quoted apothegm of Bacon should be regarded: "Reading maketh a full man, conference [conversation or use] a ready man, and writing an exact man."

22. Advice of Bacon. -The following advice of this illustrious author, though comprehending more than directly applies to the present subject, is all pertinent to a study of Rhetoric:

"If a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep, moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend."

In the above extract, the careful reader will note that several words are used with a signification that is now either obsolete or not common. They are, “had need have" for needs to have, "confer" for converse, "cunning" for skill, "that" for that which or what.