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The words also in each may be divided into three classes, the metaphorical, the new-coined, and the antique; for at present we have no concern with words proper: and three parts may also be distinguished in the art of disposing them; which, I have already observed, are juncture, concinnity, and number.
They are confined to a proper compass, either by certain rules of composition, as by a kind of natural pause, or by the use of particular forms of expression, which have a peculiar concinnity in their very texture; such as a succession of several words which have the same termination, or the comparing similar, and contrasting opposite circumstances, which will always terminate in a measured cadence, though no immediate pains should be taken for that purpose.
Gorgias, it is said, was the first Orator who practised this species of concinnity. The following passage in my Defence of Milo is an example. "Est enim, Judices, haec non scripta, fed nata Lex; quam non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, verum ex Natura ipsa arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus; ad quam non docti, sed facti; non instituti, sed imbuti simus."
Hegesias took the former for his model, and had so vain a conceit of his own taste for Atticism, that he considered his predecessors, who were really masters of it, as mere rustics in comparison of himself. But what can be more insipid, more frivolous, or more puerile, than that very concinnity of expression which he actually acquired?" "But still we wish to resemble the Attic Speakers."
This is the reason why our numbers are not to be so conspicuous in prose as in verse; and that in prose, what is called a numerous style, does not always become so by the use of numbers, but sometimes either by the concinnity of our language, or the smooth juncture of our words. To conclude this head; If it should be enquired, "What are the numbers to be used in prose?"
Now, I won't deny that this primitive Kantian and Laplacian evolutionism, this nebular theory of such exquisite concinnity, here reduced to its simplest terms and most elementary dimensions, has received many hard knocks from later astronomers, and has been a good deal bowled over, both on mathematical and astronomical grounds, by recent investigators of nebulæ and meteors.
But the harmony of language does not result entirely from the use of numbers, but from the juncture and composition of our words; and from that neatness and concinnity of expression which I have already mentioned. But there are likewise certain forms of expression, which have such a natural concinnity, as will necessarily have a similar effect to that of regular numbers.
There is no such writing as this in any of the works of Tacitus, who, though curt and concise, is always remarkable for concinnity and clearness of expression as well as for perspicuity and consecutiveness of idea.
But it is time to return to our subject. Our words, then, should be so disposed that every following one may be aptly connected with the preceding, so as to make an agreeable sound; or that the mere form and concinnity of our language may give our sentences their proper measure and dimensions; or, lastly, that our periods may have a numerous and measured cadence.
The ancient Orators, a considerable time before it was practised and recommended by Isocrates, were fond of using it; and particularly Gorgias, whose measured cadences are generally owing to the mere concinnity of his language.
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