Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	word_n	year_n	young_a	126	3	5.6627	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47666	Of the art both of writing & judging of history with reflections upon ancient as well as modern historians, shewing through what defects there are so few good, and that it is impossible there should be many so much as tolerable / by the Jesuit Father Le-Moyne.	Le Moyne, Pierre, 1602-1671.	1695 (1695)	Wing L1046; ESTC R26152	66,036	250

People and teach those that may be Ignorant A Sentence after Aristotle is a general Proposition that declares what there is of Good to be followed or Ill to be avoided According to this Definition received by all the Masters as on the one hand all that they say of a particular though never so well pointed with never so much Wit cannot be called a Sentence so on the other They must not place in the Rank of Sentences General Maxims and Universal Axioms of Sciences out of the reach of Morality There are then to take the Matter after this Definition but two Kinds of true Sentences The one Simple and made of one Proposition the other Composed and made of two the first of which is supported by the second and both together according to Aristotle make an Enthymeme or half Syllogism For Example If I say 't is hard to detain Fortune and get the Mastery of her This Universal and Moral Proposition but alone and without a Second makes but a Simple Sentence but if I add a Second that supports it and say Fortune naked and slippery as she is remains a Prize to none but easily escapes the Hands of all that would retain her A Sentence composed after this sort will be double and such Sentences Aristotle call Enthymemes because the second Proposition being placed before the first and joyn'd by the Particle then which they call Illative is made a Regular Argument and rightly formed 'T is fit notwithstanding we should know that Sentences which are evident and have a Clearness in themselves have no need of a second Proposition to explain them that would be to light the day and read before the Sun with a Candle But those that are not very clear nor certain that lean to the Equivocal and Paradox carry some apparent Contradiction and enter the Understanding with Difficulty must not be left without the help of a Second that may make their entrance more easie by giving them a Clearness and Support That old Sentence A Covetous Man wants as much the things he possesses as those he possesses not is very true but because in the Terms that compose it there is an Opposition that obscures the Truth there must be a second Proposition that may unfold and make it understood The Covetous enjoying as little what they have as what they have not 't is true to say they want one as much as the other CHAP. II. Of the Use of Sentences And the Rules to be observed THIS Knowledge presupposed we may proceed to the use of Sentences in which there are four Principal Rules to be observ'd Sobriety Discretion Justice and Gravity They must be used Soberly and seldom not with the Intemperance of those are Angry if any thing falls from their Mouths or Pen but what is Picquant and Sententious A Poem Discourse or History with such a Stile could not be better compared than to a Garden where all the Trees were Hollies and Herbs Thistles A Sentence has been called the Seasoning of a Stile it must be used then but by Grains not made a Feast of And since the Composure and easie fullness by which she enters so agreeably the Ears and Sense is broken by this fall of Sentences without Connexion one upon the other 'T is like the stile a Roman Prince reproached Seneca with An Amass of Materials without Cement To which may be added Nature suffers not Precious things to grow in heaps nor Excellence to be found in a Multitude And the greatest number of these perpetual Retailers of them expose for the most part Doublets for Diamonds and Venetian Pearls for those of the East Sobriety fuffices not but to the right use of Sentences there must be in the second place a great Discretion to chose the Persons to whom they are lent and Places where they are to be employed In the Choise of the Persons the Historian must have regard to the Age Sex Quality and Rank they have held And as he must not lend them to Young People nor the Vulgar so not to Women unless to a Livia Zenobia Mamilla Pulcheria Eudoxia and others such-like who have wherewithall to sustain the Grandeur of their words their Actions and that of their Dignity Those that are not of this Rank ought to hold their Peace and the Historian must not permit them to speak much if it be not on occasions where some singular Event or Violence forces a sensible Resentment The Criticks are displeased with those Euripides sends a Nurse and those spoke by a Servant in Plautus are paid with Injuries Let the Historian reserve them then for Men whose Authority Experience and Quality have the weight they demand A Sentence is a Dogme of Morality or Policy a Precept shortned into three words and we expect not such things from a Page or Follower from the Pen of a Young Gallant or old Debauchee Grave Persons whether with the weight of Years Office or Dignity have only right to Dogmatise give Lessons and Precepts And do not we see in the Book of Job that one of his Friends a great Speaker of Axioms is reprehended by God that being Ignorant and ill instructed he affected to wrap up a heap of undigested Sentences in a flux of words without Art or Order The Discretion of an Historian ought to extend to the Choise of Persons and Places where they are to be put They are Ornaments I confess but cease to adorn where they are in Confusion Gold Precious Stones and Pearls have their places upon the Body and Cloaths Freizes Cornishes and Sculptures in Palaces and Temples and out of those places they would be Monstrous and offend the Sight And I dare say Quintilian that said Sentences were to Eloquence as Eyes to the Body did not intend a Body all Eyes from Head to Foot Their Ordinary places are Harangues where they may be display'd with greater Liberty and Judgment where they serve to confirm what they pronouce or decide Elogies upon Eminent Persons Reflections made and Instructions given after the Relation of some great Action or extraordinary Event But it must be remembred they ought not to be introduced by force and as fixed in those places they must be found as it were by chance without Force Affectation or looking for in such a manner that in the Composure of the stile they may appear rather as Shadows arising from the Dye than Laces sew'd upon the Stuff And in this consists the Justice which in the third Rule the Historian must observe in the Vse of Sentences CHAP. III. Another Important Rule to be observed in the Use of Sentences to the Exclusion of Points contrary to the Gravity of History Seneca wrongfully censured for that by Quintilian THE last Rule is Gravity which permits not the Historian to retail himself or lend to whomsoever he makes speak any Sentence that has not Weight and Substance is not Solid and Serious By this Rule he must abstain from playing with Antitheses Equivocals