-_Formey's
Belles-Lettres_, p. 114.

"Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze."--_Cowper_.

LESSON II.--NOUNS.

"There goes a rumour that I am to be banished. And let the sentence come,
if God so will. The other side of the sea is my Father's ground, as well as
this side."--_Rutherford_.

"Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic
power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and
the earthquake has its power. But there is something among men more capable
of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that
is--the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world."--_Daniel
Webster_.

"And Isaac sent away Jacob; and he went to Padan Aram, unto Laban, son of
Bethuel the Syrian, and brother of Rebecca, Jacob's and Esau's
mother."--See _Gen._, xxviii, 5.

"The purpose you undertake is dangerous." "Why that is certain: it is
dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my Lord fool,
out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safety."--_Shakespeare_.

"And towards the Jews alone, one of the noblest charters of liberty on
earth--_Magna Charta_, the Briton's boast--legalized an act of
injustice."--_Keith's Evidences_, p. 74.

"Were Demosthenes's Philippics spoken in a British assembly, in a similar
conjuncture of affairs, they would convince and persuade at this day. The
rapid style, the vehement reasoning, the disdain, anger, boldness, freedom,
which perpetually animate them, would render their success infallible over
any modern assembly. I question whether the same can be said of Cicero's
orations; whose eloquence, however beautiful, and however well suited to
the Roman taste, yet borders oftener on declamation, and is more remote
from the manner in which we now expect to hear real business and causes of
importance treated."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 248.

"In fact, every attempt to present on paper the splendid effects of
impassioned eloquence, is like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels
and pearls on the grass, but run to water in the hand; the essence and the
elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form, are
gone."--_Montgomery's Life of Spencer_.

"As in life true dignity must be founded on character, not on dress and
appearance; so in language the dignity of composition must arise from
sentiment and thought, not from ornament."--_Blair's