Cutis sive cortex. Compositio.--The third is the skin and coat,
which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of
words; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon
which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot
find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped:
after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.
Carnosa--adipata--redundans.--We say it is a fleshy style, when
there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more
than enough, it grows fat and corpulent: arvina orationis, full of
suet and tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper
and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--oratio
uncta, et bene pasta. But where there is redundancy, both the blood
and juice are faulty and vicious:- Redundat sanguine, quia multo
plus dicit, quam necesse est. Juice in language is somewhat less
than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the
sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language
is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and
shows like stones in a sack.
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