Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/149

Rh Modish Ladies that change their Plate for China: For which, my Lord, I think the laudable Traffick of old Cloaths is much the fairest Barter.

After this Regard to the Purity of our Language, the next Quality of a just Style is its Plainness, and Perspicuity. My Lord, this is the greatest Commendation we can give an Author, and the best Argument that he is Master of the Language he writeth in, and the Subject he writeth upon, when we understand him, and see into the Scope and Tendency of his Thoughts, as we read him. All Obscurity of Expression, and Darkness of Sense, do Rh