Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/229

Rh clearer or better; his Contraction seemeth wrought and laboured. To me he appears as a Man, that considered and studied Perspicuity and Brevity to that Degree, that he would not retrench a Word, which might help him to express his Meaning, nor suffer one to stand, if his Sense was clear without it. Being more diffused, would have weakened his Language, and have made it obscurer rather, than clearer. For Multitude of Words only serve to cloud, or dissipate the Sense; and tho' a copious Style in a Master's Hand is clear and beautiful, yet where Conciseness and Perspicuity are once Rh