instead of his friends."* There is a double ellipsis in this sentence. You must first supply as being before the words at the mercy, and insert as before in the state of the dead. "I beg of you," says Steele, "never let the glory of our nation who made France tremble, and yet has the gentleness to be unable to bear opposition from the meanest of his own countrymen, be calumniated in so impudent a manner, as in the insinuation that he affected a perpetual dictatorship,"† At first reading, one is at a loss to find an antecedent to the pronouns who, his, and he. On reflection, one discovers that the phrase, the glory of our nation, is figurative, and denotes a certain illustrious personage. The trope is rather too adventurous, without some softening clause, to suit the idiom of our tongue. The sense would have appeared immediately, had he said, "Never let the man, who may justly be styled the glory of our nation

The instances now given will suffice to specify the obscurities in style which arise from deficiency. The same evil may also be occasioned by excess. But as this almost invariably offends against vivacity, and only sometimes produceth darkness, there will be a more proper occasion of considering it afterwards. Another cause of obscurity is a bad choice of words. When it is this alone which renders the sentence obscure, there is always ground for the charge of impropriety, which hath been discussed already.

ANOTHER Source of obscurity is a bad arrangement of the words. In this case the construction is not sufficiently clear. One often, on first hearing the sentence, imagines, from the turn of it, that it ought to be construed one way, and on reflection finds that he must construe it another way. Of this, which is a blemish too common even in the style of our best writers, I shall produce a few examples : "It contained," says Swift," a warrant for conducting me and my retinue to Traldragdubb, or Trildrogdrib, for it is pronounced both ways, as near as I can remember, by a party of ten horse." The words by a party of ten horse must be construed with the participle conducting, but they are placed so far from this word, and so near the verb pronounced, that at first they suggest a meaning perfectly ludicrous. "I had several men died in my ship of calentures."§ The preposition of must be construed with the verb died, and not, as the first appearance would suggest, with the noun ship immediately preceding. More clearly thus, "I had several men in my ship who died of calentures." I shall remark, by the way, that though the relatives who and which may, agreeably to the English idiom, be sometimes omitted in the oblique cases, to omit them in the nominative, as in the passage last quoted, almost always gives a maimed appearance to the expression. "I perceived it had been scowered with half an

* Spectator, No. 456. T.

Voyage to Laputa.

+ Guardian, No. 53.

§ Voyage to the Honyhnhnms.

eye.”*

The situation of the last phrase, which is besides a very bad one, is liable to the same exception. "I have hopes that when Will confronts him, and all the ladies in whose behalf he engages him, cast kind looks and wishes of success at their champion, he will have some shame." It is impossible not to imagine, on hearing the first part of the sentence, that Will is to confront all the ladies, - though afterwards we find it necessary to construe this clause with the following verb. This confusion is removed at once by repeating the adverb when, thus, "I have hopes that when Will confronts him, and when all the ladies cast kind looks." The subsequent sentence is liable to the same exception: "He advanced against the fierce ancient, imitating his address, his pace and career, as well as the vigour of his horse, and his own skill would allow." The clause as well as the vigour of his horse, appears at first to belong to the former part of the sentence, and is afterwards found to belong to the latter. In all the above instances of bad arrangement, there is what may be justly termed a constructive ambiguity; that is, the words are so disposed in point of order, as would render them really ambiguous, if, in that construction which the expression first suggests, any meaning were exhibited. As this is not the case, the faulty order of the words cannot properly be considered as rendering the sentence ambiguous, but obscure.

66

It may indeed be argued, that, in these and the like examples, the least reflection in the reader will quickly remove the obscurity. But why is there any obscurity to be removed? Or why does the writer require more attention from the reader, or the speaker from the hearer, than is absolutely necessary? It ought to be remembered, that whatever application we must give to the words is, in fact, so much deducted from what we owe to the sentiments. Besides, the effort that is exerted in a very close attention to the language, always weakens the effect which the thoughts were intended to produce in the mind. 66 By perspicuity," as Quintilian justly observes, care is taken, not that the hearer may understand, if he will; but that he must understand, whether he will or not."§ Perspicuity originally and properly implies transparency, such as may be ascribed to air, glass, water, or any other medium, through which material objects are viewed. From this original and proper sense it hath been metaphorically applied to language, this being, as it were, the medium, through which we perceive the notions and sentiments of a speaker. Now, in corporeal things, if the medium through which we look at any object be perfectly transparent, our whole attention is fixed on the object; we are scarcely sensible that there is a mediuin which intervenes, and can hardly be said to perceive it. But if there be any flaw in the medium, if we see through it but dimly, if the object be imperfectly represented, or if we know it to be misrepresented, our attention is immediately taken off the object, to the medium.

*Guardian, No. 10.

Battle of the Books.

Spectator, No. 20.

§ Non ut intelligere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intelligere curandum. Instit. Lib. viii. Cap. 2.

We are then desirous to discover the cause, either of the dim and confused representation, or of the misrepresentation of things which it exhibits, that so the defect in vision may be supplied by judgement. The case of language is precisely similar. A discourse, then, excels in perspicuity, when the subject engrosses the attention of the hearer, and the diction is so little minded by him, that he can scarcely be said to be conscious, that it is through this medium he sees into the speaker's thoughts. On the contrary, the least obscurity, ambiguity, or confusion in the style, instantly removes the attention from the sentiment to the expression, and the hearer endeavours, by the aid of reflection, to correct the imperfections of the speaker's language.

So much for obviating the objections which are frequently raised against such remarks as I have already made, and shall probably hereafter make on the subject of language. The elements which enter into the composition of the hugest bodies are subtile and inconsiderable. The rudiments of every art and science exhibit, at first, to a learner, the appearance of littleness and insignificancy. And it is by attending to such reflections, as to a superficial observer would appear minute and hypercritical, that language must be improved, and eloquence perfected.*

I return to the causes of obscurity, and shall only further observe, concerning the effect of bad arrangement, that it generally obscures the sense even when it doth not, as in the preceding instances, suggest a wrong construction. Of this the following will suffice for an example: "The young man did not want natural talents; but the father of him was a coxcomb, who affected being a fine gentleman so unmercifully, that he could not endure in his sight, or the frequent mention of one who was his son, growing into manhood, and thrusting him out of the gay world." It is not easy to disentangle the construction of this sentence. One is at a loss at first to find any accusative to the active verb endure; on farther examination it is discovered to have two, the word mention, and the word one, which is here closely combined with the preposition of, and makes the regimen of the noun mention. I might observe also the vile appplication of the word unmercifully. This, together with the irregularity of the reference, and the intricacy of the whole, renders the passage under consideration one of those which may, with equal justice, be ranked under solecism, impropriety, obscurity, or inelegance.

PART III. From using the same word in different senses.

ANOTHER Source of obscurity is, when the same word is in the same sentence used in different senses. This error is exemplified in the following quotation: "That he should be in earnest it is hard to conceive; since any reasons of doubt, which he might have in this

* The maxim Natura se potissimum prodit in minimis is not confined to physiology. Spect. No. 496. T.

case, would have been reasons of doubt in the case of other men, who may give more, but cannot give more evident, signs of thought than their fellow-creatures."* This errs alike against perspicuity and elegance; the word more is first an adjective, the comparative of many; in an instant it is an adverb, and the sign of the comparative degree. As the reader is not apprized of this, the sentence must appear to him, on the first glance, a flat contradiction. Perspicuously either thus, "who may give more numerous, but cannot give more evident signs or thus, "who may give more, but cannot

give clearer signs."

It is but seldom that the same pronoun can be used twice or oftener in the same sentence, in reference to different things, without darkening the expression. It is necessary to observe here, that the signification of the personal, as well as of the relative pronouns, and even of the adverbs of place and time, must be determined by the things to which they relate. To use them, therefore, with reference to different things, is in effect to employ the same word in different senses; which, when it occurs in the same sentence, or in sentences closely connected, is rarely found entirely compatible with perspicuity. Of this I shall give some examples. "One may have an air which proceeds from a just sufficiency and knowledge of the matter before him, which may naturally produce some motions of his head and body, which might become the bench better than the bar."† The pronoun which is here thrice used in three several senses; and it must require reflection to discover, that the first denotes an air, the second sufficiency and knowledge, and the third motions of the head and body. Such is the use of the pronouns those and who in the following sentence of the same writer: "The sharks, who prey upon the inadvertency of young heirs, are more pardonable than those who trespass upon the good opinion of those who treat with them upon the foot of choice and respect." The same fault here renders a very short sentence at once obscure, inelegant, and unmusical. The like use of the pronoun they in the following sentence almost occasions an ambiguity: "They were persons of such moderate intellects, even before they were impaired by their passions."§ The use made of the pronoun it, in the example subjoined, is liable to the same exception: "If it were spoken with never so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it, which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity, nay, people elegant and skilful in observations upon it." To the preceding examples I shall add one wherein the adverb when, by being used in the same manner, occasions some obscurity: "He is inspired with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue, and a scorn of whatever men call great in a transitory being, when it comes in competition with what is unchangeable and eternal."T

Bolingb. Ph. Es. i. Sect. 9.
Guardian, No. 73.

Spect. No. 502.

† Guardian, No. 13.

§ Spect. No. 30.

Guardian, No. 13.

PART IV. - From an uncertain reference in pronouns and relatives.

A CAUSE of obscurity also arising from the use of pronouns and relatives is, when it doth not appear at first to what they refer. Of this fault I shall give the three following instances: "There are other examples," says Bolingbroke, "of the same kind, which cannot be brought without the utmost horror, because in them it is supposed impiously, against principles as self-evident as any of those necessary truths, which are such of all knowledge, that the Supreme Being commands by one law, what he forbids by another."* It is not so clear as it ought to be, what is the antecedent to such. Another from the same author: "The laws of Nature are truly what my lord Bacon styles his aphorisms, laws of laws. Civil laws are always imperfect, and often false deductions from them, or applications of them; nay, they stand in many instances in direct opposition to them." It is not quite obvious, on the first reading, that the pronoun them in this passage doth always refer to the laws of Nature, and they to civil laws. "When a man considers the state of his own mind, about which every member of the Christian world is supposed at this time to be employed, he will find that the best defence against vice is preserving the worthiest part of his own spirit pure from any great offence against it." It must be owned that the darkness of this sentence is not to be imputed solely to the pronoun,

PART V. From too artificial a structure of the sentence.

ANOTHER Cause of obscurity is when the structure of the sentence is too much complicated, or too artificial; or when the sense is too long suspended by parentheses. Some critics have been so strongly persuaded of the bad effect of parentheses on perspicuity, as to think they ought to be discarded altogether. But this, I imagine, is also an extreme. If the parenthesis be short, and if it be introduced in a proper place, it will not in the least hurt the clearness, and may add both to the vivacity and to the energy of the sentence. Others, again, have carried their dislike to the parenthesis only so far as to lay aside the hooks by which it is commonly distinguished, and to use commas in their place. But this is not avoiding the fault, if it be a fault; it is only endeavouring to commit it so as to escape discovery, and may, therefore, be more justly denominated a corruption in writing than an improvement. Punctuation, it will readily be acknowledged, is of considerable assistance to the reading and pronunciation. No part of a sentence requires to be distinguished by the manner of pronouncing it, more than a parenthesis; and consequently, no part of a sentence ought to be more distinctly marked in the pointing.

*Bolingb. Phil. Fr. 20. Guardian, No. 19.

† Phil. Fr. 9.