essential to, a good reasoner, is doubtless true. Thus, too, is it
with grammar. As Dr. Latham, condemning the usual school-drill in
Lindley Murray, rightly remarks: "Gross vulgarity is a fault to be
prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit--not
rules." Similarly, there can be little question that good composition
is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon
practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination,
and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts
needless. He who daily hears and reads well-framed sentences, will
naturally more or less tend to use similar ones. And where there
exists any mental idiosyncrasy--where there is a deficient verbal
memory, or an inadequate sense of logical dependence, or but little
perception of order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity; no amount
of instruction will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, some practical
result may be expected from a familiarity with the principles of
style. The endeavour to conform to laws may tell, though slowly.
And if in no other way, yet, as facilitating revision, a knowledge
of the thing to be achieved--a clear idea of what constitutes a
beauty, and what a blemish--cannot fail to be of service.

2. No general theory of expression seems yet to have
been enunciated. The maxims contained in works on composition and
rhetoric, are presented in an unorganized form. Standing as isolated
dogmas--as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly
apprehended, nor so much respected, as they would be were they
deduced from some simple first principle. We are told that "brevity
is the soul of wit." We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved.
Blair says that every needless part of a sentence "interrupts the
description and clogs the image;" and again, that "long sentences
fatigue the reader's attention." It is remarked by Lord Kaimes,