But how inartistic it is! how thoroughly | no proper names and capital letters to fix bad in conception, composition, and style! the eye, is an intolerable weariness, and to In the first place it occupies some seven them it is evident that style can be only a printed pages of uuusual extent and close- name. Somewhat above them come the ness, each of which is at least equal to (intellectually) middle classes. They are two of the ordinary octavo pages of an not absolutely confined to personal advenEnglish classic author. Let any one, if ture, real or fictitious, or to interesting he can, imagine one of the great masters facts. They can probably enjoy the betwho could both draw and compose, Hume ter class of magazine articles, superior or Middleton, Clarendon or Swift, giving biographies, travels, and the other books us a character of fourteen pages. A that everybody reads and nobody buys. portrait on the scale of Brobdingnag, with This class will even read poetry if the all features and all defects unnaturally poet's name be known, and would conemphasized and enlarged, could hardly sider it a grave affront if it were hinted to be more disgusting.* them that their appreciation of style is but dull and faulty. A certain amount of labour is therefore required on work which is to please these readers: labour, however, which is generally bestowed in a wrong direction, on ornament and trick rather than on really artistic construction and finish. Lastly there is the highest class of all, consisting of those who really

It is not necessary to multiply examples, which if all the defects of contemporary style were to be noticed and illustrated, would occupy a space longer than the present article. In all but a very few writers we shall observe with certain variations the same defects - inordinate copiousness of treatment combined with an utter inability, or at best an extreme un-possess, or might possess, taste, culture, willingness, to frame a sentence of due proportion and careful structure. It should certainly be possible to trace the origin and examine the nature of a phenomenon so striking and so universal.

and intellect. Of these the great majority are now somewhat alienated from pure literature, and devoted rather to social matters, to science, or to the more fashionable and profitable arts of design. Their demand for style in literature is confined chiefly to poetry. They also are

The secret of the manner will not long escape us if we notice or can disengage the intention with which, willingly or un-interested more by their favourite subjects willingly, this manner has been adopted. treated anyhow, than by subjects for which Nor is this intention very hard to discover. they care little treated well, so that even It is, as it appears to me, a desire to pre- by them little encouragement is given to sent the subject, whatever it may be, to the cultivation and little hindrance to the the reader in the most striking and arrest-decay of prose style. ing fashion. The attention of the reading Intimately connected with the influences public generally has, from causes to be that arise from this attitude and temper presently noticed, become gradually con- of the general reader, are certain influcentrated almost wholly upon subject-mat-ences which spring from such prevalent ter. Among what may be called, intellectually speaking, the lower classes, this concentration shows itself not in the preference but in the exclusive study of novels, newspapers, and sometimes of socalled books of information. A book must be as they say "about something," or it fails altogether to arrest their attention. To such persons a page with (as it has been quaintly put) no "resting-places,"

I cannot refrain from noticing an instance from this writer of the absurdity into which the passion for picturesque epithet betrays many contemporary authors. At Newbury, we are told, "the London trainbands flung Rupert's horsemen roughly off their front of pikes." Here roughly is in the Polonian sense "good." Visions of the sturdy and pious citizen dis comfiting the debauched cavalier are aroused. But let us consider it with the sobriety proper to history and to art, and perhaps we shall ask Mr. Green to show us how to fling an enemy softly off a pike. Roaring like a sucking-dove would be nothing to this gymnastic

effort.

forms and subjects of literature as present themselves to the general writer. The first of these forms, and unquestionably the most constant and pervading in its influence, is now, as it was in De Quincey's days, journalism. No one with the slightest knowledge of the subject will pretend that the influence of journalism upon writing is wholly bad. Whatever may have been the case formerly, a standard of excellence which is in some respects really high is usually aimed at, and not seldom reached, in the better class of newspapers. Some appropriateness in the use of words, rigid avoidance of the more glaring grammatical errors, and a respectable degree of clearness in statement, are expected by the reader and usually observed by the writer. In these respects, therefore, there is no falling off to be complained of, but rather a marked

improvement upon past times to be per-logue, unless managed with consummate skill, distinctly tend to develop and strengthen the crying faults of contemporary style, its picturesqueness at any cost, its gasping and ungraceful periods, its neglect of purely literary effect.

ceived. Yet, as regards the higher excelences of style, it is not possible that the influence of journalism should be good. For it must at any cost be rapid, and rapidity is absolutely incompatible with style. The journalist has as a rule one of two things to do; he has either to give a rapid account of certain facts, or to present a rapid discussion of certain arguments. In either case it becomes a matter of necessity for him to adopt stereotyped phrases and forms of speech which, being ready cut and dried, may abbreviate his labour and leave him as little as possible to invent in his limited time. Now there is nothing more fatal to the attainment of a good style than the habit of using such stereotyped phrases and forms. With the imperiousness natural to all art, style absolutely refuses to avail itself of, or to be found in company with, anything that is ready made. The rule must be a leaden one, the mould made for the occasion, and broken after it has passed. Every one who has ever seriously tried to write must be conscious how sorely he has been beset, | and how often he has been overcome, by the almost insensible temptation to adopt the current phrases of the day. Bad, however, as the influence of journalism is in this respect, it is perhaps worse in its tendency to sacrifice everything to mere picturesqueness of style (for the word must be thus misused because there is no other). The journalist is bound to be picturesque by the law of his being. The old phrase, segnius irritant, is infinitely truer of pseudo-picturesque style as compared with literature which holds to its proper means of appeal, than it is of literal spectacle as compared with narrative. And the journalist is obliged at any cost irritare animos, and that in the least possible time.

Lastly, there must be noticed the enormous influence necessarily exerted by the growth of what is called scientific study (to use the term in its largest and widest sense), and by the displacement in its favour of many, if not most, of the departments of literature which were most favourable to the cultivation of style. In whatever quarter we look, we shall see that the primary effort of the writer and the primary desire of the reader are both directed to what are called scientific or positive results, in other words to matter instead of manner. In using the word science here, I have not the slightest intention of limiting its meaning, as it is too often limited, to physical science. I extend it to every subject which is capable of being treated in a scientific way. And I think we shall find that all subjects and all kinds of prose literature which are not capable of this sort of treatment, or do not readily lend themselves to it, are yearly occupying less and less the attention of both artists and audiences. Parliamentary oratory, which furnished a vigorous if a somewhat dangerous stimulant to the cultivation of style, is dead utterly. Pulpit eloquence, which at its worst maintained stylistic traditions, and at its best furnished some of the noblest examples of style, is dying, partly owing to the persistent refusal of the men of best culture and abilities to enter the clerical profession, partly to the absence of the serene security of a settled doctrine and position, but most of all to the demands upon the time of the clergy which modern notions enforce, and which make it utterly imposThis tendency of journalism is assisted sible for the greater number to devote a and intensified by that of another current proper time to study. Philosophy, anform of literature, novel-writing. A very other great nurse of style, has now turned little thought will show that if the novel- stepmother, and turns out her nurslings writer attains to style it is almost a marvel. to wander in "thorniest queaches" of terOf the four constituent elements of the minology and jargon, instead of the novel, plot, character, description, and ordered gardens wherein Plato and Berkedialogue, none lend themselves in any ley walked. History even, the last or algreat degree to the cultivation of the most the last refuge of a decent and comehigher forms of style, and some are dis-ly prose, is more busy about records and tinctly opposed to it. The most cunning plot may be developed equally in the style of Plato and in the style of a penny dreadful. Character-drawing, as the novelist understands or should understand it, is almost equally unconnected with style. On the other hand description and dia

manuscripts than about periods and paragraphs. Only criticism, the youngest and most hopeful birth of time as far as prose style is concerned, has not yet openly apostatized. It is true that even here signs of danger are not wanting, and that already we are told that criticism must be

scientific, that its reading must not be des- | former. The conditions of modern life ultory, and so forth. But on the whole are unfavourable to the attainment of the there is little fear of relapse. The man peculiar mood of somewhat arrogant inwho would cut himself a coat from an- difference which is the characteristic of other's cloth must bring to the task the the scholar. Every one knows Dean knowledge and genius, the care and la- Gaisford's three reasons for the cultivabour, of a skilled fashioner if he is to tion of the Greek language; and I for my make good his claim of ownership. The part have no doubt that one of them most man who has good work in perpetual con- accurately describes an important feature templation is not likely to be satisfied of the Wesen des Gelehrten. It may not with the complacent production of what be necessary for him "to read the words is bad. of Christ in the original; " it may not be of There is, moreover, one influence, or absolute importance that he should "have rather one set of influences, hostile to the situations of affluence opened to him." attainment of style in the present day But it certainly is essential that he should which I have as yet left unnoticed, and "look down on his fellow-creatures from the approach to which is guarded by a proper elevation ;" and this is what the ground somewhat dangerous to the tread. tendency of modern social progress is It will, I think, appear to any one who making more and more difficult, at any contemplates the subject fully and impar- rate in appearance. You cannot raise tially that style is essentially an aristo- the level of the valleys without diminishcratic thing; and it is already a common- ing the relative height of the hills; and place to say that the spirit of to-day, or you cannot scatter education and elementperhaps the spirit of the times immedi- ary cultivation broadcast without diminately behind us, is essentially democratic. | ishing the value of the privileges which It is democratic not in any mere political appertain to superior culture. The old sense, but in the intolerance with which it republic of letters was, like other old reregards anything out of the reach of, or. publics, a democracy only in name, but in incomprehensible to, the ordinary Philis- reality a more or less close oligarchy, looktine, working by the methods of Philistia. ing down on metics and slaves whose deIntellectual and artistic pre-eminence, ex-gradations and disabilities heightened its cept in so far as it ministers to the fan-courage and gave a zest to its freedom. cies of the vulgar (great or small), is per- In letters, as in politics, we are doing our haps especially the object of this intolerance. Every one has witnessed or shared the angry impatience with which the ordinary Briton resents anything esoteric, fastidious, or fine. And the charms of prose style especially merit these epithets, and The general characteristics of style are not to be read by any one who runs, which the influence, combined or partial, or tasted by any one who swallows in of these forces has produced have been haste. Gaudy ornament is intelligible, already indicated, but may perhaps now graphic drawing is intelligible; but the be summed up. Diffuseness; sacrifice of finer cadences of the period, the more in- the graces of literary proportion to real or tricate strokes of composition, fall unre- apparent clearness of statement; indulgarded on the common ear and pass un-gence in cut-and-dried phrases; undue noticed by the common eye. To be tickled, to be dazzled, to be harrowed, are impressions of which the uncultured man is capable; they require little intellectual effort, and scarcely any judgment or taste in the direction of that little. But the music of the spheres would form but a sorry attraction in a music-hall programme, and Christopher Sly is not willing to accept nectar in exchange for a pot of even the smallest ale. And if the angry resentment of not a few readers gives the votary of style but little chance of an audience, it must be admitted that the lack of what I have called an aristocratic spirit gives the audience little chance of a per

best to change all this; and the possible result may be, that every one will soon be able to write a Daily Telegraph article, and that no one will aspire to anything beyond.*

aiming at pictorial effect; gaudiness of unnatural ornament; preference of gross and glaring effects en bloc to careful composition. Certain authors who are either free from these defects or have vigour enough to excuse or transform them must now be noticed.

For reasons obvious, though various, it is not my intention to discuss in any way

I have for the present thought it better to leave out of consideration the probable effect of the dimin ished study of classics in modern school and university education. That this effect is decidedly adverse to the cultivation of style is sufficiently obvious, but the subperhaps the diminution itself is too recent for its effects ject is too complicated to be incidentally treated, and to have been as yet much felt.

But if we have to quarrel with Mr. Ruskin because he has not sufficient command of the unquestioned beauties of his style, because he is not, in Carew's words —

at the present time the style of the author | same unperturbed perfection of manner; of "Sartor Resartus." Mr. Carlyle being can convince us, carry us with him, or thus removed, there can be little question leave us unconvinced but admiring, with who must take the foremost place in a dis- the same unquestioned supremacy and the cussion as to the merits and demerits of same unruffled calm. Swift can write a modern English prose style. And yet, jeu d'esprit and a libel on the human race, audacious or paradoxical as the assertion a political pamphlet and a personal lammay seem, it is at least doubtful whether poon, with the same felicity and the same in strictness we can assign to Mr. Ruskin vigour. Berkeley can present tar-water a position in the very highest rank of and the Trinity, the theory of vision and writers if we are to adopt style as a crite- the follies of contemporary free-thinking, rion. The objection to his manner of with the same perfect lucidity and the writing is an obvious one, and one which same colourless fairness. But with Mr. he might very likely take as a compliment: Ruskin all depends on the subject, and it is too spontaneous in the first place, and the manner in which the subject is to be too entirely subordinate to the subject in treated. He cannot even blame as he can the second. I hope that it may be very praise; and there must be many who are clearly understood that I can see passages ready to accept everything he can say of in "Modern Painters " and in the Stones Tintoret or of Turner, and who feel no of Venice" (for I must be permitted to neg- call to object to any of his strictures on lect the legions of little books with parody- Canaletto or on Claude, who yet perceive provoking titles which have appeared in painfully the difference of style in the the last three lustres) which, for splendour panegyrist and the detractor, and who of imaginative effect, for appropriateness would demand the stricter if less obvious of diction, for novelty and grandeur of justice, and the more artistic if apparconception, stand beyond all chance of ently perverted sensitiveness, of the successful rivalry, almost beyond all hope thorough master of style. of decent parallel among the writings of ancient and modern masters. But in every case this marvellous effect will, when carefully examined, be found to depend on something wholly or partially extrinsic to the style. Mr. Ruskin writes beautifully because he thinks beautifully, because his thoughts spring, like Pallas, ready armed, and the fashion of the armour costs him nothing. Everybody has heard of the unlucky critic whose comment on Scott's fertility was that "the invention was not to be counted, for that came to him of its own accord." So it is with Mr. Ruskin. His beauties of style "come to him of their own accord," and then he writes as the very gods might dream of writing. But in the moments when he is off the tripod, or is upon some casual and un-Delphic tripod of his own construction or selection, how is his style. altered! The strange touches of unforeseen colour became splashed and gaudy, the sonorous roll of the prophetic sentence-paragraphs drags and wriggles like a wounded snake, the cunning interweav-common with all the youth of Zion an iming of scriptural or poetic phrase is patched and seamy. A Balaam on the Lord's side, he cannot curse or bless but as it is revealed to him, whereas the possessor of a great style can use it at will. He can shine on the just and on the unjust; can clothe his argument for tyranny or for liberty, for virtue or for vice, with the same splendour of diction, and the

A king who rules as he thinks fit The universal monarchy of wit, but is rather a slave to his own thoughts and fancies, a very opposite fault must be found with the next writer who falls to be mentioned. "We do not," says an author with whom I am surprised to find myself in even partial and temporary agreement, "we do not get angry so much with what Mr. Matthew Arnold says as with his insufferable manner of saying it." In other words, there is no fear of omitting to notice a deliberate command and peculiarity of manner in Mr. Arnold, whether that manner be considered "insufferable" or no. For myself I must confess, that though I have very rarely felt the least inclination to get angry with anything which the author of " Culture and Anarchy" may have chosen to say, and though I have in

mense debt to acknowledge to his vindication of our faith and freedom from the chains of Philistia, yet I could very frequently find it in my heart to wish that Mr. Arnold had chosen any other style than that which appears to afford him such extreme delight. Irony is an admirable thing, but it must be grave and not grimacing. Innocence is an admirable thing,

but it should not be affected. To have a of English prose the descriptions of the manner of one's own is an admirable Pilgrimage of Grace in the "History," of thing, but to have a mannerism of one's Sir Richard Grenvil's last fight in the own is perhaps not quite so admirable. It" Short Studies," of the wreckers at Balis curious that his unfortunately success- lyhige in the "English in Ireland." There ful pursuit of this latter possession should are also many shorter passages which exhave led Mr. Arnold to adopt a style hibit almost every excellence that the most which has more than any other the fault exacting critic could demand. But it is he justly censured twenty years ago as the not to be denied that Mr. Froude has very special vice of modern art- the fault of frequently bowed the knee before the altar the fantastic. No doubt the great mas- of Baal. It is unlawful to occupy twelve ters of style have each a cachet which is mighty volumes with the history of one easily decipherable by a competent stu- nation during little more than half a cendent; no doubt, in spite of Lord Macau- tury: it is unlawful for the sound critical lay, Arbuthnot is to be distinguished from reason of St. John, that if such a practice Swift, and the cunningest imitators of obtained universally, the world could not Voltaire from Voltaire himself. But to contain the books that should be written; simulate this distinction by the deliberate and also for the reason that in such writing adoption of mere tricks and manners is it is almost impossible to observe the retiwhat no true master of style ever yet at- cence and compression which are among tempted, because for no true master of the lamps of style. It is unlawful to imstyle was it ever yet necessary. Mr. Rus- agine and set down, except very sparingly, kin, to use the old Platonic simile, has not the colour of which the trees probably his horses sufficiently well in hand; at were at the time when kings and queens times the heavenly steed, with a strong made their entrance into such and such a and sudden flight, will lift the car amid the city, the buildings which they may or may empyrean, at times the earth-born yoke- not have looked upon, the thoughts which fellow will drag it down, with scarcely the may or may not have occurred to them. assistance and scarcely the impediment of Such sacrificings at the shrine of effect, the charioteer. But even this is better such trespassings on the domains and than the driving of one who has broken conveying of the methods of other arts his horses, indeed, but has broken them and alien muses, are not to be commended to little but the mincing graces of the or condoned. But one must, at the same Lady's Mile. time, allow with the utmost thankfulness that there are whole paragraphs, if not whole pages, of Mr. Froude's, which, for practised skill of composition and for legitimate beauty of effect, may take their place among the proudest efforts of English art.

It is not possible to speak with equal definiteness of the style of a third master of English prose, who ranks in point of age and of reputation with Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Arnold. It would certainly be an over-hasty or an ill-qualified critic who should assert that Mr. Froude's style is always faultless; but, on the other hand, it may be asserted, without any fear whatever of contradiction carrying weight, that at its best it is surpassed by no style of the present day, and by few of any other, and that at its worst its faults are, not of a venial character, for no fault in art is venial, but at any rate of a kind which may meet with more ready excuse than those of the writers previously noticed. These faults are perhaps two only-undue diffuseness and undue aiming at the picturesque. We have seen that these are the two most glaring faults of the age, and by his indulgence in them, and the splendid effects which he has produced by that indulgence, Mr. Froude has undoubtedly earned his place, if not as a säcularischer Mensch, at any rate as a representative man. No one, perhaps, who has read can fail to count among the triumphs

It will probably be agreed that the three writers whom I have noticed stand at the head of contemporary English prose authors in point of age and authority; but there are other and younger authors who must necessarily be noticed in any account of the subject which aims at completeness. Mr. Swinburne's progress as a prose-writer can hardly have failed to be a subject of interest, almost equally with his career as a poet, to every lover of our tongue. His earliest appearance, the essay on Byron, is even now in many respects characteristic of his work; but it does not contain — and it is a matter of sincere congratu'ation for all lovers of English prose that it does not contain-any passage at all equal to the magnificent descant on Marlowe, which closes its ten years younger brother, the essay on Chapman. In the work which has occupied this interval, the merits and defects of Mr. Swinburne as a