“Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words—­health, peace, and competence; But health consists with temperance alone, And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.”—­Pope.

“Observe the language well in all you write, And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight.  The smoothest verse and the exactest sense Displease us, if ill English give offence:  A barbarous phrase no reader can approve; Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love.  In short, without pure language, what you write Can never yield us profit or delight.  Take time for thinking; never work in haste; And value not yourself for writing fast.”—­Dryden.

UNDER RULE XIV.—­OF EXAMPLES.

“The word rather is very properly used to express a small degree or excess of a quality; as, ’She is rather profuse in her expenses.’”—­Murray cor. “Neither imports not either; that is, not one nor the other:  as, ‘Neither of my friends was there.’”—­Id. “When we say, ‘He is a tall man,’—­’This is a fair day,’ we make some reference to the ordinary size of men, and to different weather.”—­Id. “We more readily say, ‘A million of men,’ than, ’A thousand of men.’”—­Id. “So in the instances, ’Two and two are four;’—­’The fifth and sixth volumes will complete the set of books.’”—­Id. “The adjective may frequently either precede or follow the verb:  as, ’The man is happy;’ or, ‘Happy is the man;’—­’The interview was delightful;’ or, ‘Delightful was the interview.’”—­Id. “If we say, ’He writes a pen;’—­’They ran the river;’—­’The tower fell the Greeks;’—­’Lambeth is Westminster Abbey;’—­[we speak absurdly;] and, it is evident, there is a vacancy which must be filled up by some connecting word:  as thus, ’He writes with a pen;’—­’They ran towards the river;’—­’The tower fell upon the Greeks;’—­’Lambeth is over against Westminster Abbey.’”—­Id. “Let me repeat it;—­He only is great, who has the habits of greatness.”—­Id. “I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.”—­Matt., xviii, 22.

   “The Panther smil’d at this; and, ‘When,’ said she,
    ‘Were those first councils disallow’d by me?’”—­Dryd. cor.

UNDER RULE XV.—­OF CHIEF WORDS.

“The supreme council of the nation is called the Divan.”—­Balbi cor. “The British Parliament is composed of King, Lords, and Commons.”—­Comly’s Gram., p. 129; and Jaudon’s, 127.  “A popular orator in the House of Commons has a sort of patent for coining as many new terms as he pleases.”—­See Campbell’s