GRAMMAR instructs us how to express our thoughts correctly.

RHETORIC teaches us to express them with force and elegance.

The former is generally confined to the correct application of words in constructing single sentences.  The latter treats of the proper choice of words, of the happiest method of constructing sentences, of their most advantageous arrangement in forming a discourse, and of the various kinds and qualities of composition.  The principles of rhetoric are principally based on those unfolded and illustrated in the science of grammar.  Hence, an acquaintance with the latter, and, indeed, with the liberal arts, is a prerequisite to the study of rhetoric and belles-lettres.

COMPOSITION.

It may be laid down as a maxim of eternal truth, that good sense is the foundation of all good writing.  One who understands a subject well, will scarcely write ill upon it.

Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, requires in a writer, the union of good sense, and a lively and chaste imagination.  It is, then, her province to teach him to embellish his thoughts with elegant and appropriate language, vivid imagery, and an agreeable variety of expression.  It ought to be his aim,

  “To mark the point where sense and dulness meet.”

STYLE.—­PERSPICUITY AND PRECISION.

STYLE is the peculiar manner in which we express our conceptions by means of language.  It is a picture of the ideas which rise in our minds, and of the order in which they are produced.

The qualities of a good style, may be ranked under two heads. perspicuity and ornament.

PERSPICUITY, which is considered the fundamental quality of a good style, claims attention, first, to single words and phrases; and, secondly, to the construction of sentences.  When considered with respect to words and phrases, it requires these three qualities, purity, propriety, and precision.

Purity of language consists in the use of such words and such constructions as belong to the language which we speak, in opposition to words and phrases belonging to other languages, or which are obsolete or new-coined, or employed without proper authority.

Propriety is the choice of those words which the best usage has appropriated to the ideas which we intend to express by them.  It implies their correct and judicious application, in opposition to low expressions, and to words and phrases which would be less significant of the ideas which we wish to convey.  It is the union of purity and propriety, which renders style graceful and perspicuous.

Precision, from praecidere, to cut off, signifies retrenching all superfluities, and pruning the expression in such a manner as to exhibit neither more nor less than an exact copy of the ideas intended to be conveyed.