―― A modern newspaper-statement, though probably true, would be laughed at, if quoted in a book as testimony; but the letter of a court gossip is thought good historical evidence, if written some centuries ago. A re-arrangement of this, in accordance with the principle indicated above, will be found to increase the effect. Thus: ―― Though probably true, a modern newspaper-statement quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence. By making this change, some of the suspensions are avoided and others shortened; while there is less liability to produce premature conceptions. The passage quoted below from “Paradise Lost” affords a fine instance of a sentence well arranged; alike in the priority of the subordinate members, in the avoidance of long and numerous suspensions, and in the correspondence between the sequence of the clauses and the sequence of the phenomena described, which, by the way, is a further prerequisite to easy apprehension, and therefore to effect. “As when a prowling wolf, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve, In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold: Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, Cross-barr’d and bolted fast, fear no assault, In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles: So clomb the first grand Thief into God’s fold; So since into his Church lewd hirelings climb.” The habitual use of sentences in which all or most of the descriptive and limiting elements precede those described and limited, gives rise to what is called the inverted style: a title which is, however, by no means confined to this {347} structure, but is often used where the order of the words is simply unusual. A more appropriate title would be the _direct style_, as contrasted with the other, or _indirect style_: the peculiarity of the one being, that it conveys each thought step by step with little liability to error; and of the other, that it conveys each thought by a series of approximations, which successively correct the erroneous preconceptions that have been raised.