After establishing this maxim, we can be at no loss about its application to the subject in hand. The following rule is laid down by Diomedes[79]. “In verbis observandum est, ne a majoribus ad minora descendat oratio; melius enim dicitur, _Vir est optimus_, quam, _Vir optimus est_.” This rule is applicable not only to single words, but equally to entire members of a period, which, according to our author’s expression, ought not more than single words to proceed from the greater to the less, but from the less to the greater. In arranging the members of a period, no writer equals Cicero. The beauty of the following examples out of many, will not suffer me to slur them over by a reference. Quicum quæstor fueram, Quicum me sors consuetudoque majorum, Quicum me Deorum hominumque judicium conjunxerat. Again: Habet honorem quem petimus, Habet spem quam præpositam nobis habemus, Habet existimationem, multo sudore, labore, vigiliisque, collectam. Again: Eripite nos ex miseriis, Eripite nos ex faucibus eorum, Quorum crudelitas, nostro sanguine non potest expleri. _De oratore, l. 1. § 52._ This order of words or members gradually increasing in length, may, so far as concerns the pleasure of sound singly, be denominated _a climax in sound_. The last article is the music of periods as united in a discourse; which shall be dispatched in a very few words. By no other human means is it possible to present to the mind, such a number of objects and in so swift a succession, as by speaking or writing. And for that reason, variety ought more to be studied in these, than in any other sort of composition. Hence a rule regarding the arrangement of the members of different periods with relation to each other, That to avoid a tedious uniformity of sound and cadence, the arrangement, the cadence, and the length of these members, ought to be diversified as much as possible. And if the members of different periods be sufficiently diversified, the periods themselves will be equally so. SECT. II. _Beauty of language with respect to signification._