LITERARY STYLE 'Fraser's Magazine,' March, 1857. ALTHOUGH we have placed Archbishop Whately's work on Rhetoric at the head of this article, and we propose to say something on the subject of literary style, which occupies a considerable portion of his book, it is not our intention to analyse or discuss the rules of composition, so much as to exhibit some peculiarities of it amongst the writers of the present day, and call attention to some faults which, if allowed to pass unnoticed, are likely to produce mischievous effects on the future literature of England. And as the best kind of instruction is that which teaches by examples, we think we shall be doing good service to the republic of letters if we devote a few pages to the task of pointing out specimens of good, and exposing what we believe to be false and vicious, modes of style. It cannot be said that this is either inopportune or unnecessary. We live in an age of book-making, and authors multiply so fast that it is almost a distinction not to have published. Men and women rush now-a-days into print with an alacrity which has become alarming. Nobody of the slightest note dies without entailing upon the public a biography of half-a-dozen volumes; and every tourist to Switzerland or the Rhine considers himself entitled laisser trotter sa plume, and send an account of his travels to the publishers. Few, however, ask themselves whether they have anything to communicate which, as regards either matter or manner, is worth imparting to the world; and our shelves groan under the weight of books which will soon be as utterly forgotten as if they had never existed. But in the meantime, 11. Elements of Rhetoric. By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. London 1851. 2. English, Past and Present. By Richard Chevenix Trench, B. D. London: 1855. some wretched varieties of style are springing up which threaten to infect our whole literature, and unless the growth is vigorously checked, posterity may suffer from the prevalence of a corrupt taste in composition, and permanent injury may be done to the noble inheritance of language we have received from our ancestors. We propose therefore to deal with the question as its importance deserves, and we shall endeavour to write with perfect fairness, although it may be in some cases with severity. It has been well said that style is the incarnation of thought, and that le style est l'homme; but we will use a more homely illustration. Style is to the subject matter very much what cookery is to food; and the parallel might be carried into considerable detail without ceasing to be appropriate. Thus, raw meat will support life, and the culinary art is not for that purpose absolutely necessary. So mental nutriment may be extracted from heaps of undigested facts, however repulsive the manner in which they are flung together. Again, good cookery will render palatable the most uninviting food. Excellent soup is made from bones; and we believe that M. Soyer can, at the cost of a farthing, produce a capital dish out of almost nothing. And an attractive style will throw a charm over the most unpromising subject, and rivet the attention of the reader when, without that attraction, he would turn away in weariness or disgust. But there are bad as well as good cooks; not only cooks that give a piquant relish to ordinary food, but, as we all know to our cost, cooks who can and do spoil the choicest viands. Need we say that the best story may be spoiled in the telling, and that there are writers who possess a fatal facility for rendering whatever subject they discuss both tiresome and repulsive? Or, to vary the metaphor, we may compare literary to architectural style, and as the same stones in the hands of the builder will form the most beautiful or the most unsightly edifice the Parthenon of the Acropolis or the National Gallery of Trafalgar Square-so from the same subject-matter the pen may produce the dullest or the most interesting book. So great is the success and so brilliant the reward of an attractive style, that it is to us a matter of astonishment that more carnest endeavours to acquire it are not made by those who aspire to the dignity of authorship. A good style will secure to a work a favourable reception with the public, much more than in proportion to what its merits in other respects deserve. There are some books-few indeed in number, we admit-which have been kept afloat on the stream of time, almost solely by the buoyancy of their style. And by this we do not mean merely the grammatical and proper arrangement of words in each sentence, but the due relation of sentences to each other. A rhythmical structure ought to exist, not only in the separate but in the collective periods; and the warp and woof of the entire texture should be so woven as to preserve continuity of pattern, and produce the effect of an harmonious whole. It is the charm of his easy, natural, unaffected manner, which still maintains Hume at the head of English historians, nor do we think he is likely to be displaced. We may accuse him of unfairness and partiality, and convict him of inaccuracy, but the verdict will be, as the French say, guilty under extenuating circumstances, and the extenuating circumstance in the case of Hume is his style. The shallow morality of Paley may be, and we hope is, exploded as the philosophy which is to train up the youth of England in the ways of virtue and truth; but his works are models of composition, and will be read with delight by those who disapprove his doctrines but are fascinated by the clear transparency of his style. In his 'Aids to Reflection,' Coleridge expresses in enthusiastic terms his admiration of the manner, while dissenting from the matter, of Paley. How gladly,' he says, 'would I surrender all hope of contemporary praise, could I even approach to the incomparable grace, propriety, and persuasive facility of his writings.' Cobbett, again, is an author whose style will always secure for him a distinguished place amongst English writers. Those who dissent most from his political views, and care nothing for the opinions of the archradical, may read with delight, and derive instruction from, the works of one who was perhaps the most vigorous writer of Saxon English that can be found in the whole range of our literature. He knew how to put forth the utmost strength of his native tongue, and whatever he wrote is distinguished by a racy, sinewy, and idiomatic style. But it has one conspicuous blemish. It is defaced by an immoderate use of italics. This is a great and frequent fault. They are intended to supply the place of emphasis in speaking, but the whole force is lost when they are employed too constantly and without necessity. Men doubt because they stand so thick i' the sky, If they be stars that paint the galaxy. In Cobbett's pages they are as thickly strewn as leaves in Vallombrosa, and appear like ugly finger-posts telling the reader what path he must pursue and to what objects he must pay attention. A writer ought to trust to the collocation of his words to mark the emphatic parts of his statement, and not perpetually put up notices to point out his meaning: and it is curious that Archbishop Whately should so often fall into the same mistake; for no author with whom we are acquainted less requires such factitious aid. His style is pellucid to a remarkable degree, and none but those who are wilfully blind or hopelessly stupid can misunderstand what he says. He has a wonderful power of apt and happy illustration, drawn chiefly from images of external nature. And this gives a liveliness and force to his style which make every subject which he discusses not only interesting but clear to the dullest comprehension. We may instance also the Letters of Cowper, and the works of Southey and Washington Irving, as examples of what may be effected by charm of manner. And as we have mentioned the best of American writers, we are tempted to quote a single passage as a specimen of his style. It is, we think, exquisitely beautiful, and we know not where we can find a more affecting image of that most sorrowful of all sorrowful things, a Broken Heart : She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove, graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf until, wasted and perished away, it falls, even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or the thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay. Style, in fact, is an alchemy which can transmute the basest metal into gold. It is to the writer what manner is to the individual--that by which we are at once either attracted equity many of the harsh and crabbed principles of the common law, and of whom Lord Thurlow used to say that 'ninetynine times out of a hundred he was right in his opinions and decisions, and when once in a hundred times he was wrong, ninety-nine men out of a hundred would not discover it. He was a wonderful man.'-Thurlow, with his Jupiter Tonans look, and an intellect that put Johnson on his mettle. 'I honour Thurlow, Sir,' said he; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly puts his mind to yours.'-Wedderburn-the ingenious reasoner and brilliant speaker,' who attained the highest prizes of the legal and political career, yet died a mere despised and disappointed courtier, because he had no real dignity of character.—Erskine, the great orator of the English Bar, but a very poor judge and politician.—Eldon, the most profound in his knowledge of Equity, and the most involved and obscure in his utterance of it, of all the Chancellors who have occupied the Woolsack.—And last of all, Ellenborough, with his rough manners, his masculine intellect, and his bigoted opposition to law reforms, who, when a Bill was brought in for abolishing the punishment of death in cases of stealing above the value of five shillings, said, 'My Lords, if we suffer this Bill to pass we shall not know where to stand; we shall not know whether we are upon our heads or our feet.' Space fails us, or we should like to speak of Grant and of Stowell (whom, however, as a civilian, Mr. Foss does not include in his list), and of Lyndhurst, and of others who have more recently passed away from amongst us, or have left the Bench. We doubt whether Mr. Foss has done wisely in introducing the present occupants of the Bench. He says that he resolved to limit his account of them to little more than the formal mention of the facts already publicly given in the peerages and other periodical lists, and to avoid offering any opinion on their respective judicial merits, which it would be presumptuous in him to criticise. But such skeletons of lives are really value 1 His fierce attack upon Benjamin iminense effect in exasperating the Franklin before the Privy Council had Americans against Eagland. Sarcastic Sawney, full of spite and hate, On modest Franklin poured his venal prate; |