Part 4 / Book 3 — CHAPTER III.
Reading edition
OF THE THINGS THAT MAKE AN ORATION FLAT.
The things that make an oration flat or insipid, are four:
1. Words compounded. And yet a man may compound a word, when the composition is necessary for want of a simple word, and easy, and seldom used.
2. Foreign words. As for example, such as are newly derived from the Latin; which though they were proper among them whose tongue it is, are foreign in another language: and yet these may be used, so it be moderately.
3. Long, impertinent, and often epithets.
4. Metaphors indecent and obscure. Obscure they are, when they are far-fetched. Indecent, when they are ridiculous, as in comedies; or too grave, as in tragedies.