Figura.—­The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in language—­that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm, which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and weighed.

Cutis sive cortex.  Compositio.—­The third is the skin and coat, which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped:  after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.

Carnosa—­adipata—­redundans.—­We say it is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than enough, it grows fat and corpulent:  arvina orationis, full of suet and tallow.  It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked—­oratio uncta, et bene pasta.  But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are faulty and vicious:- Redundat sanguine, quia multo plus dicit, quam necesse est.  Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.

Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa.—­Ossea, et nervosa.—­Some men, to avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill blood or juice, they lose their good.  There be some styles, again, that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence.  These are bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos.

Notae domini Sti.  Albani de doctrin. intemper.—­Dictator.—­ Aristoteles.—­It was well noted by the late Lord St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of truth:  imposture held up by credulity.  All these are the cobwebs of learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish.  Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle.  The damage is infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity.  Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied?  Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or deface; we may improve, but not augment.  By discrediting falsehood, truth grows in request.  We must not go about, like men anguished and perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties