The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture. 12.^tha

Friday. Decr. 17. 1762.

Of Composition

Before we ^b enter on the different parts and Species of Composition it will be proper to acquaint you with the method in which we are to proceed.

Every discourse proposes either barely to relate some fact, or to prove some proposition. In the first [is the end] ^c the discourse is called a narrative one. The latter is the foundation of two Sorts of Discourse: The Didactick and the Rhetoricall. 1 The former proposes to put before us the arguments on both sides of the question in their true light, giving each its proper degree of influence, and has it in view to perswade no farther than the arguments ^d themselves appear ^e convincing. The Rhetoricall again endeavours by all means to perswade us; and for this purpose it magnifies all the arguments on the one side | 150 and diminishes or conceals those that might be brought on the side conterary to that which it is designed that we should favour. Persuasion ^f which is the primary design in the Rhetoricall is but the secondary design in the Didactick. It endeavours to persuade us only so far as the strength of the arguments is convincing, instruction is the main End. In the other Persuasion is the main design and Instruction is considered only so far as it is subservient to ^g perswasion, and no farther.

{One who was to give an account of any controverted point, as of the disputes about the rights of two princes to a throne, would state the claims of each in the clearest light, and shew their severall foundations in the customs and constitution of the country without being or at least appearing to be any way inclined to the one more than the other. But if one was to plead the Cause of one of the contending parties before some supreme court or another Prince (as Edward was made the Judge betwixt Bruce and Baliol) 2 he would not probably think it his business, nor would it be his duty, to ^h lay the cause open before him, he would give all the strength he could to those arguments that supported his side and soften or pass over with little attention those which made against him.}

ⁱ There are two different Sorts of facts, one externall, consisting of the transactions that pass without us, and the other internall, towit the thoughts ^j sentiments or designs of men, which pass in their minds. The ^k Design of History, compounded of both of th<ese> is to relate the remarkable ^l transactions | 151 that pass in different nations, and the designs, motives and views of ^m the most remarkable men in those times, so far as they are necessary to explain the great changes and revolutions of States which it is intended to relate.

In our observations on this I shall observe the following division. 1¹ I shall consider what facts are proper to be narrated. 2^dly In what maner. 3^dly How they are to be arranged. 4th In what stile these may be most conveniently expressed. 5^thly and lastly What writers have succeeded ⁿ most happily in all these branches. {As there are two kind<s> of objects which may become the subject of description I shall consider first the Description of Simple Objects, first of Simple Visible objects, then of Simple Invisible objects. Then we shall consider the description of compound Visible objects as of an Action; next of compound invisible objects as a character; and last of all of the Historicall Style or description of Actions and Characters.—In treating of which I shall observe 5 things etc.} ^o {We shall then proceed to Didactick and Rhetoricall compositions} ^p

The Distinction made by the ancients [was] came pretty nearly to the same. They divided Eloqu| 152ence into three Parts, according to the three Species which were most in the use amongst them. The first they called the Demonstrative, 2^d Deliberative; and 3^d Judicial. ^q {It is rather reverence for antiquity than any great regard for the Beauty or usefullness of the thing itself which makes me mention the Antient divisions of Rhetorick} ^r

The demonstrative is so called not because it was that sort which is used in mathematicall demonstrations but because it was chiefly designed to Demonstrate or Point out the Eloquence of the Orator. This was one of the most early sorts of Eloquence. Discourses of this kind were merely for ostentation delivered in the assemblies of the whole People, and were thence called πανηγυρικοι ^s The Subjects of such discourses were generally ^t the Praises or the discommendation of some particular persons, communities or actions, exhorting the people to or deterring them from some particular conduct. As it was more safe to commend than discommend men or actions, these discourses generally turned ^u that way, and hence what we call | 153 Elogiums came to be denominated by the name of Panagerick.

The Deliberative was such as they used in their councils and assemblies on matters of Consequence to the State; and the Judicial was that used in proceedings before a court of Justice.

^v In treating of this dis<course I shall> proceed in it in the same order as I proposed to follow when I come to treat of historicall discourses. 1^st of the Facts, 2^d the manner of treating them, 3^d the arrangement, 4^th The Stile, and 5^th The Writers.

{We shall begin with the historicall, and the most simple part of it is the narration of one simple fact. These are either externall or internall. After having explained their difference we proceed to shew how they are to be expressed, in what order they are to be arranged and in what expressions the idea of them will be best conveyed. Then we shall treat of the expressing a sentiment, and last of all of describing a character. History comprehends all these and we shall therefore treat of it next. ^w }

First then we are to treat of the facts that are to be described or related. These as we observed are either externall or internall. | 154 We shall begin with the first as most Simple and easily conceived. Mr Addison observes that ^x fact<s> may be agreable either from their being grand, new or beautifull. 3 As those facts ^y that are agreable will be apt to make the greatest impression we shall consider them first and then we can easily apply the rules laid down for them to objects of other kinds. The Idea <of> a fact ^z that is grand may be conveyed ^a in two ways, either by describing it and enumerating various particulars that concern it or by relating the effect that it has on those who behold it. {The first of these viz. describing the thing itself by its Parts I call, for it is necessary to give names to things, direct description, the other indirect.} ^b Milton 4 makes use of the first method ^c in his description of Paradise, and of the 2^d in the account Adam gives the angel of the effect Eves presence had on him. ^d He makes use of the first again where he described the view which Satan had of the burning | 155 lake. Shakespear again uses the 2^d Manner in the description of Dover Cliff in King Lear. 5

The manner of Describing an object ^e often makes it agreable when there is nothing in the Object that is so.—There would surely <be> nothing agreable in a picture of a dunghil, neither is the object agreable nor can there be anything extraordinary in painting it. {remember mechanicall part whi} For the same reason it would be altogether unsufferable in prose. It might be tollerable if it was done in good language and flowing verses as it would shew the art of the writer. It might please still more if this was done in Burlesque, but neither here does the pleasure arise from the object itself but from the consideration of the ingenuity ^f of the artist in turning grand and sublime expressions to describe | 156 such an object in an accurate manner. Even when there is no burlesque the applying grand expressions or such as seem not easily applicable to the subject please us from the same cause. Thus Mr Greys[’s] ^g description of the appearance of Harlequin on the Stage 6 will always be agreable. The art required in adapting the Stile and manner and versification of Spencer to ^h an object so different gives us a great opinion of the capacity and skill of the writer. Had it been in prose there would have been nothing agreable in it as all the art of the author in which alone the beauty of it consists would have been lost. ^l

New objects are never agreable in description merely from being new. There must be something | 157 else ⁱ in them than mere novelty before they can please us much. New objects may have somewhat agreable when we ^j realy behold them and have them present before us, because then they may strike us with wonder ^k ; The whole object is at once conceived; But in Discriptions, the Idea is presented by degrees; The object opens slowly up so that the Surprise cannot be great at the novelty of the object. Mr Addison observes that there is no author who abounds <more> in descriptions of this Sort than Ovid. 7 In his meta<mor>pho[r]ses ^m every change that happens ⁿ is described in all its stages; we hear of men with the heads and paws of Bears, women who are beginning to take root in the ground and their ^o hair and hands sprouting into leaves. 8 Mr Addison seems to be pleased with these descriptions, | 158 but to me ^p they don’t at all seem pleasing, both for the reason I already mentioned, and because they are so very much out of the common course of nature as to shock ^q us by their incredibility. For my part, when I see Tithonus 9 in a picture with the wings and legs of grashopper, I feel no pleasure at seeing such an unnaturall and inconceivable object. Novelty indeed joined to any other quality that makes an object agreable heightens the pleasure we feel in the description of it. ^r

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[1 ]See i.152 below, and Introduction, p. 14.

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[2 ]Interest in the Great Cause (1292) in early eighteenth–century Scotland is shown by among other things the popularity of John Harvey’s epic The Life of Robert Bruce, King of Scots (1729: reprinted several times, in 1769 as The Bruciad: an epic poem). Documents in the Cause: Edward I and the Throne of Scotland, ed. E. L. G. Stones and G. G. Simpson (1978).

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[3 ]Spectator, 412: ‘the Sight of what is Great, Uncommon, or Beautiful’ Ibid. 413: the pleasing imaginative effects of the ‘Great, New, or Beautiful’ Cf. the opening sections of Astronomy (EPS 33–47) on wonder, surprise and admiration.

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[4 ]Paradise Lost, iv.205 ff. (but it is Eden ‘viewed’ by its enemy Satan); viii.596 ff.; i.59 ff.

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[5 ]King Lear, IV.vi.11 24; but the imagined view aims at an effect on Gloucester. The description was much discussed in the eighteenth century, e.g. by Johnson (Boswell’s Life, ed. Hill–Powell ii.87); Addison, Tatler 117.

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[6 ]Not Grey or Gray. It might be an aural error for Richard Graves (1715–1804), whose friend William Shenstone revived the fashion of Spenserian imitation with The Schoolmistress (first version 1737) and wrote on the subject in letters to Graves in the 1740s. But the poems by Graves in Dodsley’s Collection of Poems iv and v (1755–8) include nothing of this sort.—Harlequin appears in innumerable plays and pantomimes of the time.

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[7 ]Spectator 417 defines the art of Ovid in the Metamorphoses as the continuous and well–timed exploitation of novelty; cf. Addison’s notes on his translation of Metamorphoses ii–iii in Works (Bohn edn), i. 139–53.

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[8 ]Examples commented on by Addison: Met. ii.477 (Callisto changed to a bear by jealous Juno, then by Jupiter to a constellation named the Bear); ii.367 ff. (Cycnus to swan); ii.657 ff. (Ocyrrhoe to mare); ii.346 (Phaeton’s sisters the Heliades), i.548 ff. (Daphne), also x.489 (Myrrha), all transformations to trees; ii.542ff. (Coronis to raven); iii.198 ff. (Actaeon to stag).

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[9 ]Tithonus changed by his love Eos (the Dawn) to a grasshopper as the only way of releasing him from shrunken decrepitude as a man, since she had conferred immortality on him: see J. G. Fraser’s note to Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, III.xii.4 ff. on the scholiast to Iliad, xi.1 (LCL ii.43). Pictures such as Smith might have seen have not been identified.

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