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EXERCISE.

1. The clock struck, and the wretched Altamont exclaimed with vehemence,- "Oh! time! time! it is fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart! How art thou fled forever! A month! O for a single WEEK! I ask not for years! though an AGE were too little for the much I have to do."

2. The sword of Washington! * The staff of Franklin ! † O, sir, what associations are linked in adamant with these names! Washington, whose sword was never drawn but in the cause of his country, and never sheathed when wielded in his country's cause! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the printing-press, and the plowshare! What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of human kind! Washington and Franklin ! Washington, the warrior and the legislator! Franklin, the mechanic of his own fortune!

3. How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man! -
How passing wonder, He who made him such!
Who centered in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvelously mixed,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!

4. A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine!
Dim miniature of Greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!

Wash'ing-ton, (George,) the father of his country, and first president of the United States, born in Virginia in 1732, and died Dec. 14, 1799.

+ Franklin, (Benjamin,) a distinguished philosopher, born in Boston in 1706, and died in 1790.

Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost. At home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own.

5. How reason reels!

O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distressed! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed;

What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

6. Oh! deep-enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the panting spirit sigh,

It is a dread and awful thing to die!

7. Mysterious worlds! untraveled by the sun,
Where Time's far wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears;
"Tis heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!

8. Daughter of Faith, awake! arise! illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt and dispel, ye specter doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness † on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed, by the star of day!

* Si'nai or Si'na-i, a mountain of Arabia, near the head of the Red Sea, celeDrated in Scripture history as the place where the law was delivered to Moses.

↑ Cim-me ́ri-an dark ́ness, the appellation given by the ancients to the continual obscurity said to hang over a town on the Palus Mæotis The country is now called Crimes.

E

The strife is o'er!-the pangs of nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes!

SECTION VI.

ANTITHETIC EMPHASIS.

ANTITHETIC emphasis is the stress of voice placed upon words and sentences when in contrast.

This kind of emphasis, in some instances, appears to result more from the antithetic relation of the words to each other, than from any very prominent importance attached to their meaning.

RULE 5. Two or more words, opposed to each other in meaning, are emphatic by contrast.

EXAMPLES.

1. We are bound to be honest, but not to be rich.
2. Beauty is transitory, but virtue is everlasting.
3. Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
4. Knowledge is the treasure, but memory the treasury.
5. Hatred stirreth up strifes, but love covereth all sins.
6. Industry tendeth to wealth, but idleness to poverty.
7. Vice punishes itself, but virtue secures its own reward.

8. Beauty is like the flower of spring; virtue is like the stars of

heaven.

NOTE. Any word, whether important in itself or not, may become amphatic when contrasted with another.

EXAMPLES.

1. They went out from us, because they were not of us.
2. Had they been of us, they would have remained with us.

QUESTIONS. What is antithetic emphasis? What is the rule for antithetic emphasis? Give examples. What words are contrasted? What is the note? Give au example. What words are contrasted!

3. Writers should be careful not to use or for nor. 4. A sentence should neither close with of nor on. 5. When you came in, he went out.

EXERCISE I.

1. The character of Demosthenes is vigor and austerity; that of Cicero,† gentleness and insinuation. In the one, you find more manliness; in the other, more ornament. The one is more harsh, but more spirited and cogent; the other, more agreeable, but withal looser and weaker.

2. Europe was once a great field of battle, where the weak struggled for freedom, and the strong, for dominion. The king was without power, and the nobles, without principle. They were tyrants at home, and robbers abroad.

3. Between fame and true honor, a distinction is to be made. The former is a blind and noisy applause; the latter, a more silent and natural homage. Fame floats on the breath; honor rests on the judgment. Fame may give praise, while it withholds esteem.

4. Delicacy and correctness mutually imply each other. No taste can be exquisitely delicate, without being correct; nor can it be thoroughly correct, without being delicate. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning true merit; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretensions. Delicacy leans more to feelings; correctness, more to reason and judgment. The former is more the gift of nature; the latter, more the product of culture and art. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed most delicacy; Aristotle, § most correctness. Among the moderns,

• De-mos ́the-nes, the most distinguished of the Grecian orators, born 381 B. O. † Cic ́e-ro, the greatest of Roman orators, and a consul of Rome, born 106 B. c. Lon-gi ́nus, (Cassius,) a Platonic philosopher, and rhetorician. He died A. D.

275.

Aris-tot-le, one of the most celebrated philosophers of Greece. He died 822 B. C.

Addison is a high example of the delicate; and had Dean Swift written on the subject, he would have given a fair example of the correct.

5. One man relishes poetry most; another takes pleasure in nothing but history. One prefers comedy; another, tragedy. One admires the simple; another, the ornamental style. The young are amused with gay and sprightly compositions; the elderly are more entertained with those of a graver cast. Some nations delight in bold pictures of manners, and strong representations of passions; others incline to more correct and regular elegance, both in description and sentiment. A French sermon is, for the most part, a warm, animated exhortation; an English one is a piece of cool, instructive reasoning. The French preachers address themselves chiefly to the imagination and the passions; the English, almost solely to the understanding.

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1. Homer was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist: in one, we most admire the man; in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with attractive majesty. Homer scatters with generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence.

2. Upon the whole, as to the comparative merit of these two great princes of epic poetry, Homer and Virgil, the for

*Ad ́di-son, (Joseph,) one of the finest writers of miscellany in England. He was born in 1672, and died in 1719.

+ Dean Swift, an eminent writer of great wit, born in Ireland in 1667. Virgil, a very distinguished Roman poet, born at Andes, near Mantua, 70 B. C.

§ Blair, (Hugh,) a celebrated pulpit orator, a rhetorician and an author, born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1718, and died in 1800.

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