2. Hamlet. Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain. They are of Norway, sir.
Ham. How purpos'd sir,
I pray you?

3.

Cap. Against some part of Poland.
Ham. Who

Commands them, sir?

Cap. The nephew of old Norway, Fortinbras.
Show men dutiful?
Why so didst thou: Seem they grave and learned?
Why so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why so didst thou.

Latter member of an antithesis of equal force in
its constituent parts:

1. Says he this in jést or in earnest.
2. Is it the thunder's solemn sound
That mutters deep and dréad,
Or echoes from the groaning ground,
The warrior's measur'd tread?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance,
That from the thicket streams,
Or do they flash on spear and lance,
The sun's retiring beams?

3. Cæsar was celebrated for his great bounty and generosity; Cato for his unsullied integrity: the former became renowned by his humanity and compassion; an austere severity heightened the dignity of the latter. Cæsar was admired for an easy, yielding temper; Cato for his immovable firmness.

4. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning the true merit of a work; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretensions to merit. Delicacy leans more to feeling; correctness more to reason and judgment. The former is more the gift of nature; the latter, more the product of culture and art.

5. Homer was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist: in the one we more admire the man; in the other,

the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a constant

stream.

1.

2.

EXERCISES ON THE RISING INFLECTION.

RULE I.

Questions which may be answered by Yes or No.
-Is this then worst?
Thus sitting, thus consúlting, thus in arms?

-while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering hére,

Heaven's fugitives; and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of sháme,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns

By our delay?

3. Is there any one who will seriously maintain that the taste of a Hottentot or a Laplander, is as delicate and as correct as that of Longinus or an Addison? or that he can be charged with no defect or incapacity, who thinks a common news-writer as excellent an historian as Tacitus?

4. Can we believe that a thinking being, which is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at its first setting out, and in the very beginning of its inquiries? *

*In long sentences of the interrogatory form, the tone becomes rapid and slight in the utterance of the subordinate parts of the question. The reading falls, in such passages, into the manner of parenthesis. This modulation of voice takes place in the above example, at the word 'after,' and continues to the pause at 'power.'

Negative, or less forcible, part of an antithesis:

See Table of Contrasted Inflections.

Condition, supposition, concession:

1. If the parts of time were not variously coloured, we should never discern their departure or succession. If one hour were like another; if the passage of the sun did not show that the day is wasting; if the change of seasons did not impress upon us the flight of the yéar, quantities of duration, equal to days and years, would glide unobserved.

2. Banish gentleness from the earth; suppose the world to be filled with none but harsh and conténtious spirits; and what sort of society would remain?— the solitude of the desert were preferable to it.

3. This, though it may make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.

Exceptions by emphasis :

1. If there were no other effects of such appearances of nature upon our minds, they would teach us humility,—and with it they would teach us charity.

2. If the sun himself which enlightens this part of creation were extinguished, and all the host of planetary worlds which move about him were annihilated; they would not be missed by an eye that could take in the whole compass of nature, any more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore.

3. A young lady may excel in speaking French and Italian; may repeat a few passages from a volume of extracts; play like a professor, and sing like a siren; have her dressing-room decorated with her own drawing-table, stands, flower-pots, screens, and cabinets; nay, she may dance like Sempronia herself; and yet we shall insist that she may have been very badly educated.

Comparison:

1. As cold water to a thirsty sóul, so is good news from a far country.

2. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.

3. He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Exception by emphasis:

As a madman who casteth firebrands, árrows, and death, so is the man who deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, "Am I not in sport?"

Connexion:

1. I am found, said Virtue, in the vále, and illuminate the mountain: I cheer the cottager at his toil, and inspire the sage at his meditation: I mingle in the crowd of cities, and bless the hermit in his cell.

2. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest, and flower of the valley.

3. Though Homer lived, as is generally believed, only two or three centuries after the Trojan war, yet, through the want of written records, tradition must, by this time, have fallen into the degree of obscurity most proper for poetry; and have left him at full liberty to mix as much fable as he pleased with the remains of true history.

Exceptions by emphasis:

1. He called me a poacher and a villain; and collaring me, desired I would give an account of myself.

2. If the departing from that measure, should not remove the prejudice so maliciously raised, I am certain that no farther step you can take, will be able to remove it; and therefore I hope you will stop here.

Introductory phrase, or incomplete sense:

1. For some time after my retréat, I rejoiced, like a tempest-beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbour.

2. When the pleasure of novelty went away, I employed my hours in examining the plants which grew in the valley.

3. That the stars appear like so many diminutive and scarce distinguishable póints, is owing to their immense and inconceivable distance.

4. So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected contingencies.

5. He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place, but by the variation of objects.

6. I was looking very attentively on that sign in the heavens, which is called by the name of the balance, when, on a sudden, there appeared in it an extraordinary light, as if the sun should rise at midnight.

7. As I was humouring myself in the speculation of these two great principles of action, I could not forbear throwing my thoughts into a kind of allegory or fable.

8. Having with difficulty found his way to the street in which his decent mansion had formerly stood, his heart became more and more elated at every step he advanced.

Exceptions by emphasis:

1. That prejudice will sometimes overcast the clearest judgments, every day's observation furnishes abundant proof.

2. Addicted to duplicity, even in the earliest years of youth, he willingly devoted his maturer years to every form of baseness and intrigue.

3. He who had so nobly sustained himself in the darkest hours of adversity, was found unequal to this favourable turn of fortune.

Commencing series;-last member:

1. Dependence and obédience belong to youth. 2. The young, the healthy, and the prósperous, should not presume on their advantages.

3. Humanity, justice, generosity and public spirit, are the qualities most useful to others.