But it requires a long and attentive course of practice to avoid the blemishes of those who were unacquainted with this numerous species of composition, so as not to transpose our words too openly to assist the cadence and harmony of our periods; which _L. Caelius Antipater_, in the Introduction to his Punic War, declares he would never attempt, unless when compelled by necessity. "_O virum simplicem_," (says he, speaking of himself) "_qui nos nihil celat; sapientem, qui serviendum necessitati putet_." "O simple man, who has not the skill his art to conceal; and yet to the rigid laws of necessity he has the wisdom to submit." But he was totally unskilled in composition. By us, however, both in writing and speaking, necessity is never admitted as a valid plea; for, in fact, there is no such thing as an absolute constraint upon the order and arrangement of our words; and, if there was, it is certainly unnecessary to own it. But _Antipater_, though he requests the indulgence of Laelius, to whom he dedicates his work, and attempts to excuse himself, frequently transposes his words without contributing in the least either to the harmony, or agreeable cadence of his periods. There are others, and particularly the _Asiatics_, who are such slaves to _number_, as to insert words which have no use nor meaning to fill up the vacuities in a sentence. There are likewise some who, in imitation of _Hegesias_ (a notorious trifler as well in this as in every other respect) curtail and mince their numbers, and are thus betrayed into the low and paltry style of the Sicilians. Another fault in composition is that which occurs in the speeches of _Hierocles_ and _Menecles_, two brothers, who may be considered as the princes of Asiatic Eloquence, and, in my opinion, are by no means contemptible: for though they deviate from the style of nature, and the strict laws of Atticism, yet they abundantly compensate the defect by the richness and fertility of their language. But they have no variety of cadence, and their sentences are almost always terminated in the same manner. He therefore, who carefully avoids these blemishes, and who neither transposes his words too openly,--nor inserts any thing superfluous or unmeaning to fill up the chasms of a period,--nor curtails and clips his language, so as to interrupt and enervate the force of it,-- nor confines himself to a dull uniformity of cadence,--_he_ may justly be said to avoid the principal and most striking defects of prosaic harmony. As to its positive graces, these we have already specified; and from thence the particular blemishes which are opposite to each, will readily occur to the attentive reader.