poetry, oratory, &c. are certain measures, proportions, or cadences, which render a verse, period, or song, agreeable to the ear.

Poetical numbers consist in a certain harmony in the order, quantities, &c. of the feet and syllables, which make the piece musical to the ear, and fit for singing, for which all the verses of the ancients were intended. See Poetry.—It is of these numbers Virgil speaks in his ninth Eclogue, when he makes Lycidas say, Numeros memini, si verba tenerem; meaning, that although he had forgot the words of the verses, yet he remembered the feet and measure of which they were composed.

Rhetorical or prosaic numbers are a sort of simple unaffected harmony, less glaring than that of verse, but such as is perceived and affects the mind with pleasure.

The numbers are that by which the style is said to be easy, free, round, flowing, &c. Numbers are things absolutely necessary in all writing, and even in all speech. Hence Aristotle, Tully, Quintilian, &c. lay down abundance of rules as to the best manner of intermixing daëtles, spondees, anaepeta, &c. in order to have the numbers perfect. The substance of what they have said, is reducible to what follows.

1. The style becomes numerous by the alternate disposition and temperature of long and short syllables, so that the multitude of short ones neither render it too hastily, nor that of long ones too slow and languid: sometimes, indeed, long and short syllables are thrown together designedly without any such mixture, to paint the slowness or celerity of anything by that of the numbers; as in these verses of Virgil:

Illi inter se magna vi brachia tollunt; and Radit iter liquidum, celores neque commovet alas.

2. The style becomes numerous, by the intermixing words of one, two, or more syllables; whereas the too frequent repetition of monosyllables renders the style pitiful and grating.

3. It contributes greatly to the numerousness of a period, to have it closed by magnificent and well-founded words.

4. The numbers depend not only on the nobleness of the words in the close, but of those in the whole tenor of the period.

5. To have the period flow easily and equally, the harsh concurrence of letters and words is to be studiously avoided, particularly the frequent meeting of rough consonants; the beginning the first syllable of a word with the last of the preceding; the frequent repetition of the same letter or syllable; and the frequent use of the like ending words. Lastly, the utmost most care is to be taken lest, in aiming at oratorial numbers, you should fall into poetical ones; and instead of prose, write verse.

Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Pentateuch, taking its denomination from its numbering the families of Israel.

A great part of this book is historical, relating to several remarkable passages in the Israelites' march through the wilderness. It contains a distinct relation of their several movements from one place to another, or their stages through the wilderness, and many other things, whereby we are instructed and confirmed in some of the weightiest truths that have immediate reference to God and his providence in the world. But the greatest part of this book is spent in enumerating those laws and ordinances, whether civil or ceremonial, which were given by God, but not mentioned before in the preceding books.