Style. We might have made our readers merry with the picture of German prose; but we must not linger. is enough to say, that it offers the It counterpole to the French style. Our own popular style, and (what is worse) the tendency of our own, is to the German extreme. For those who read German there is this advantage that German prose, as written by the mob of authors, presents, as in a Brobdignagian mirror, the most offensive faults of 15 our own. But these faults are they in practice so wearisome and exhausting as we have described them? Possibly not; and, where that happens to be the case, let the reader ask himself if it is not by means of an evasion worse in its effects than any fault of style could ever prove in its most exaggerated form. Shrinking, through long experience, from the plethoric form of cumulation and periodic' writing in which the journalist supports or explains his views, every man who puts a business value upon his time, slips naturally into a trick of short-hand reading. It is more even by the effort and tension of mind required, than by the mere loss of time, that most readers are repelled from the habit of careful reading. An evil of modern growth is met by a modern remedy. Every man gradually learns an art of catch ing at the leading words, and the car. dinal or hinge-joints of transition, which proclaim the general course of a writer's speculation. Now it is very true, and is sure to be objected-that, where so much is certain to prove mere iteration and teasing tautology, little can be lost by this or any other process of abridgement. Certainly, as regards the particular subject concerned, there may be no room to apprehend a serious injury. Not there, not in any direct interest, but in a far larger interest-indirect for the moment, but the most direct and absolute of all interests for an intellectual being, the reader suffers a permanent debilitation. He acquires a factitious propensity, he forms an incorrigible habit of desultory reading. Now, to say of a man's knowledge, that it will be shallow, or (which is worse than shallow) will be erroneous and insecure in its foundations, is to say little of such a habit: it is by reaction upon a man's faculties, it is by the effects reflected upon his judging and reasoning powers, that loose habits of reading tell eventually. And these are durable effects. Even as respects the it is, by a thousand-fold, to have read minor purpose of information, better three score of books (chosen judiciously) with severe attention, than to have raced through the library of the Vatirespects the final habits acquired, can at a newspaper pace. But, as judging soundly-better that a man habits of thinking coherently, and of should have not read one line throughthe journals of Europe by this random out his life, than have travelled through process of "reading short." ing at full gallop-of taking flying Yet, by this Parthian habit of aim. shots at conspicuous marks, and, like Parthians also, directing their chance with horror from a direct approach to arrows whilst retreating, and revolting and the flexible are trained amongst the object, thus it is, that the young journalism. A large part of the evil, us under the increasing tyranny of therefore, belongs to style: for it is this which repels readers, and enforces the short-hand process of desultory reading. A large part of the evil, therefore, is of a nature to receive a remedy. part of the extensive evil, that we have It is with a view to that practical shaped our present notice of popular style, as made operative amongst oursyntax, a vice unknown to the literselves. One single vice of periodic ature of Greece, and, until Paterculus, of Rome was so naturally adapted even of Rome, (although the language balanced all possible vices of to that vice), has with us counterorder. Simply by the vast sphere of any other its agency for evil, in the habits of mind which it produces and supports, such a vice merits a consideration which would else be disproportionate. forgotten, that if the most operative Yet, at the same time, it must not be of all vices, after all it is but one. What are the others? of such works as we have on this subIt is a fault, amongst many faults, ject of style-that they collect the list composition is liable, not under any of qualities, good or bad, to which principle from which they might be deduced à priori, so as to be assured that all had been enumerated, but by ral estimate. a tentative groping, a mere conjectuThe word style has with narrow one, expressing the mere synus a twofold meaning; one sense, the thesis onomatōn, the syntaxis or combination of words into sentences; the other of far wider extent, and expressing all possible relations that can arise between thoughts and words—the total effect of a writer, as derived from manner. Style may be viewed as an organe thing and as a mechame thing. By organic, we mean that which, being acted upon, reacts-and which propagates the communicated power without loss. By mechanic, that which, being impressed with motion, cannot throw it back without loss, and therefore soon comes to an end. The human body is an elaborate system of errans : it is sustained by organs. But the auman body is exercised as 4 chine, and, as such, may be viewed in the arts of riding, dancing, 'eapins &e.. subject to the laws of motion and @quilibrium.- Now the use of whois is an organic thing, in so far as lantgare is connected witä courts, and modtied by thong s Le is a me chanic thing, in so far as words un comoration determine se medyada alter. The science of stre, as a ergan of theulent, då style i razen to the heas and fears, mig be called the uncwiven of serie The science of style, considered as a maCâite, in vind words act upon waris, and through a particular grammar, mgha de called the machzunom de It is of WM ULONILINE Ör what name these two faneras & composaon are expressed. But a is ef great importance not te condiani the functions; the function by which style TATLIS a QUILINGO with thought, and that by which a chiefy CONTENTS & TUNERtes wit. COLINIBAT ADL WILE words. A pedirt ong will insist apon the mines-but the distinction in the rocks, under some name, coL de neglected ong by the mat WI is careless of logie. We know not how far we mis be EVET CATCH TIDOR. zo proceed with this discussion: it it should banner that we were, an interesting field of questions would he before us for the first part (the organology. It would lead us over the groura troddet, by the Greek and Roman rhetoricians; and that those particular questions which hise, arisen by the contrast between the eizenmstances of the ancients and our own since the origin oʻprinting. Pune tuation, trivial as such, an innovation, may seem, was the product of typo. graphy; and it is interesting to trace the effects upon style even of that one slight addition to the resources of logic. Previously, a man was driven to depend for his security against misunderstanding upon the pure virtue of his syntax. Miscollocation or dislocation of related words disturbed the whole sense: its least effect was, to give no sense; often it gavea dangerous sense. Now, punctuation was an artificial machinery for maintaining the inte grity of the sense against all mistakes of the writer; and, as one consequence, it withdrew the energy of men's anxieties from the natural machinery, which lay on just and careful arrangemeat. Atoder and still greater maeninery of art år the purpose of main. tuning the sense, and with the effect of relaxing the care of the writer, lay de evriisitely artificial structure of the Ladu angage, waich, by means et is zerna turns, indicated the arma ngement, and referred the proper predicao su the "caper subject, spite QF L 246 Lfvented or negariace ædd an astri the series of the luge ze the succession of the syntax. Grees, d ́evurse, Jad the same Livizture I jusque in degree; and thence use some £ferences wäică JANE SLO L 1000E JE PREDUricians. Fure asi vidli porgery arise the qrestan sanat by Chinas Fix. bat pezzaNG DI SCCILT to Dhe noversation de Some far sider fried, such as Temund Bote bw fat the practice of face-nNGES — JONGNe pariX MODEL AL Is firm-i reccsculise ▼ith the days of just our posttion: and whether in votua thingh mea in farm, suck, face-Diges du det exist fie the ancients, if an erasion WE CHUJE TUILLA DU The question is CIELT 5 one which grows out of style it is relations u thongin-bow far, viz., surt at crorescence as a note *gues that the senicher to which it is attached has not received the bene fit of a ful, developement for the concentor irvo:vel; whether, if thrown into the furnace again and re-melted, it might not be so re-cast as to absorb the redundancy which had previously Under this Bowel over into a note. head wonić fall not only all the differential onestions of style and composi tion, between us and the ancients, but also the onestions of merit as fairly distributed amongst the moderns compared with each other. The French, as we recently insisted, undoubtedly possess one vast advantage over all creative faculty of the imagination. There are many other researches belonging to this subtlest of subjects, affecting both the logic and the ornaments of style, which would fall under the head of organology. But for instant practical use, though far less difficult for investi gation, yet, for that reason, far more tangible and appreciable, would be all the suggestions proper to the other head of mechanology. Half-a-dozen rules for evading the most frequently recurring forms of awkwardness, of obscurity, of misproportion, and of double meaning, would do more to assist a writer in practice, laid under some necessity of hurry, than volumes of general disquisition. It makes us blush to add, that even grammar is so little of a perfect attainment amongst us, that with two or three exceptions, (one being Shakspeare, whom some affect to consider as belonging to a semibarbarous age,) we have never seen the writer, through a circuit of prodigious reading, who has not sometimes violated the accidence or the syntax of English grammar. Whatever becomes of our own possible speculations, we shall conclude with insisting on the growing necessity of style as a practical interest of daily life. Upon subjects of public concern, and in proportion to that concern, there will always be a suitable (and as letters extend, a growing) competition. Other things being equal, or appearing to be equal, the determining principle for the public choice will lie in the style. Of a German book, otherwise entitled to respect, it was said-er lässt sich nicht lesen, it does not permit itself to be read: such and so repulsive was the style. Among ourselves, this has long been true of newspapers: they do not suffer themselves to be read in extenso, and they are read short-with what injury to the mind may be guessed. The same style of reading, once largely practised, is applied universally. To this special evil an improvement of style would apply a special redress. The same improvement is otherwise clamorously called for by each man's interest of competition. Public luxury, which is gradually consulted by every thing else, must at length be consulted in style. other nations in the good taste which governs the arrangement of their sentences; in the simplicity (a strange pretension to make for any thing French) of the modulation under which their thoughts flow; in the absence of all cumbrous involution, and in the quick succession of their periods. În reality this invaluable merit tends to an excess; and the style coupé as opposed to the style soutenu, flip. pancy opposed to gravity, the subsultory to the continuous, these are the too frequent extremities to which the French manner betrays men. Better, however, to be flippant, than, by a revolting form of tumour and perplexity, to lead men into habits of intellect such as result from the modern vice of English style. Still, with all its practical value, it is evident that the intellectual merits of the French style are but small. They are chiefly negative, in the first place; and, secondly, founded in the accident of their colloquial necessities. The law of conversation has prescribed the model of their sentences: and in that law there is quite as much of self-interest at work as of respect for equity. Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. Give and take is the rule, and he who expects to be heard must condescend to listen; which necessity, for both parties, binds over both to be brief. Brevity so won could at any rate have little merit; and it is certain that, for profound thinking, it must sometimes be a hinderance. In order to be brief, a man must take a short sweep of view: his range of thought cannot be extensive; and such a rule, applied to a general method of thinking, is fitted rather to aphorisms and maxims as upon a known subject, than to any process of investigation as upon a subject yet to be fathomed. Advancing still further into the examination of style as the organ of thinking, we should find occasion to see the prodigious defects of the French in all the higher qualities of prose composition. One advantage, for a practical purpose of life, is sadly counterbalanced by numerous faults, many of which are faults of stamina, lying not in any corrigible defects, but in such as imply penury of thinking, from radical inaptitude in the thinking faculty to connect itself with the feeling, and with the NO, CCXCVII. VOL. XLVIII. B vast domimons won by the sabres of his ancestors, were consolidated by Soliman, whose legislative enactments and municipal institutions continued, till the late innovations, to be recog nised and acted upon as the standard of the political and social relations of the Turks, who commemorate their author known only as a conqueror to the nations of the West) by the venerabie title of Soliman the Lawgirer. But with the succession of the ener vated Selim II., the vigour and energy of the imperial line expired; and, though the impulse previously communicated preserved the empire for some years from manifesting any external tokens of disorganization, the forty years which followed the death of Soliman, are evidently a period of suspense between the progressive advance in territory and strength which had been previously maintained, and the gradually accelerated descent which marks the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But, independent of the personal superintendence and activity of the first ten sultans, the continual success, which had raised the monarchy to such a point of prosperity, was but in small proportion due to the heads or hands of native Turks. The janizaries, whose scimitars were directed to the subversion of the faith in which themselves had been born, were, till long after the institution of the corps, wernized exclaively from youthful Christian eaves trained up in the Modem fath; while those in whom inciortions of smerter talent were appung, we alatond in the palace of the S Can an aerob a staining mashed to 1. de ligt abes of the STU S my was CIGALA-PASHA CHAPTER OF TURKISH HISTORY.. Ar the death of Soliman the Magnificent in 1588, the Ottoman empire, then at its zenith of triumph and grandeur, presented a system of milifary and political organization supe ior to any which the world had witnessed since the decay of Roman power. A regularly paid and highly disciplined standing army, with a Anmerous and effective artillery, and aided at the same time by an inex hanstible supply of timariots, or local troops holding land by the tenure of military service, combined, in a great measure, the advantageous points of the feudal and modern systems, between which the rest of Europe was then in a state of transition; and enabled the Sultan to advance with confident superiority to the encounter of the raw levies, or tumultuous bands of mercenaries, which then constituted the bulk of the German armies; while an assured and ample revenue, such as no other European prince of that age enjoyed, gave him the power of exhausting his opponent by the indefinite prolongation of the war, if im mediate success proved unattainable. The personal qualifications of the princes of the dynasty of Othman, had been, moreover, remarkably adapted for attaining and securing this emis nence of power: from the foundation of the monarchy in 1299 to the ac cession of Selim II., the sceptre of the Osmanlis had been swayed, in an unbroken series from father to son, by ten sultans, all (with the single excep tion of Bayezid II.) distinguished by military capacity and personal energy in a degree of which the annals of to other sovereign house furu'sh so many successive examples; while the extras ordinary average duration * of their reigns prevented the frequent changes of policy incident to a rapid successivt, data 2 elus de Oro Pasha, the first Zich & Quta. Voi je listriIS IS 2X- The spionivar uni mullihaaner i que és The first tan reigns of the Ottoman Be You Thanat @ Colima, p rage length of 22 years: r. is war sie was the prange duration of the twenty succeeding, from Seimo diode †The very existence of numcipantes in De Aniston Forosean statesmen 1 few years smeh, and That th for from being adequately interstovi. deshed and abiy sommentet apưn by r ) a "Diplomatic History of the foresty a " : manli emperors became more widely extended, renegades of a more mature age were not wanting, who were attracted from all parts of Europe, to range themselves under the banner which flew victorious from the Danube to the Tigris and the Nile, and to barter their religion and their country for the dazzling rewards which were at the disposal of the Commander of the Faithful. Of the ten grandvizirs who supported by their prowess and wisdom the throne of Soliman, no less than eight were of this class: and of the naval commanders of the same epoch, the famous Piali was a Hungarian, Kilidj-Ali (Occhiali), a Calabrian, and Salih an Ionian Greek; and the comparatively mature age at which he became a Moslem, (though he afterwards underwent a regular course of discipline and instruction,) justifies our ranking with these valiant renegades the famous Sinan-Pasha Jaghalah-Zadah, who, under the successors of Soliman, supported the banner of the Crescent in almost every quarter of their realms; and who, meriting by his ferocity, as well as his courage, the epithet often conferred on him of Arslan or Lion, was beyond dispute one of the most energetic and undaunted, though not the most fortunate, of the generals who upheld for a time the renown of the empire, when the glories of Soliman and his lieutenants had passed away. The father of this famous renegade was the Viscount de Cicala or Cigala, a Genoese of noble family settled in Sicily, who followed the profession of a privateer or maritime partisan against the Mohammedans ; cruising with three or four galleys, sometimes on his own account, but more frequently associating himself with the Venetians or the Knights of St John, in the marauding expeditions with which they continually devastated the hostile coasts, and which, it should always be borne in mind, first gave rise, on the principle of retaliation, to the system of Barbary piracy, on the horrors of which so much has been said and written. The naval skill and daring of Cicala made his co-ope ration valuable in the sudden descents and hazardous enterprises which characterize the Mediterranean warfare of that period; and his assistance was accordingly secured by the Hospitallers, (then, 1531, just landed on their desert island-home of Malta,) in thẹ armament by which they hoped to possess themselves of the important port of Modon in the Morea. Two Greek renegades betrayed the mole and the fortifications of the harbour to the party detached to the attack; but the enterprise, after the assailants had gained possession of the streets, was defeated by the insubordination of the Italian soldiers, who dispersed themselves in search of plunder instead of assaulting the citadel which command> ed the lower town, till the advance of the Pasha of the Morea rendered a speedy retreat inevitable; when the knights and gentlemen who had joined the squadron, perceiving all hope of permanent occupation at an end, stained their chivalry by sharing in the pursuit of spoil: every house was ransacked of its most valuable effects; and eight hundred Turkish ladies, torn from their homes for slavery or ransom, formed a somewhat incongruous addition to the booty carried off by an order in whose statutes celibacy was most rigidly enjoined! One of these fair prizes, a Turkish girl of surpassing beauty, who fell to the lot of Cicala, so won upon the fierce heart of the rover, that, on his arrival at Messina, he offered to enfranchise and marry her, on condition of her abjuring her faith. She was accordingly baptized by the. name of Lucrezia, and became the wife of Cicala; and from this strangely assorted union sprung Scipio de Cicala, who was destined, in the changes of his subsequent career, to exact heavy retribution from the Christians for the desolation inflicted by them on the homes of his maternal an cestors. Such is the story of his birth related by Vertot. Scipio was the youngest of several brothers, and was eighteen years of age when he fell, with his father, into the power of the Turks, at the disastrous defeat of the Christian armament by the Capitan * The Prince de Castel Cicala, Neapolitan ambassador extraordinary to England, descends, we believe, from the same house. † Von Hammer.-Picart says he was only twelve years old at this time; "el famosissimo Capitan Visconde Cigala, con su hijo menor Don Scipion de edad de doce anos," |