because it is so simple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directly from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. Ib. of workman. [E]xcellent work in a lower kind counts in the long run Excellence above work which is short of excellence in a higher. M. ARNOLD, Sainte-Beuve, 1869. ship. construction details. After all that philosophical critics have talked of organic unity, . . . it must be admitted that the finest construction The finest would produce little effect in poetry without fine details; of little effect and that where the genius for producing these exists, the without fine art or instinct which combines them will seldom be wanting when the poet is mature. The real truth is, that what is often called fine detail is nothing but tawdry ornament, -the feeble or vehement effort to say fine things without having fine thoughts,-to utter raptures that are insincere and unreal, inasmuch as the imaginative power to summon up the beautiful objects supposed to justify the rapture is wanting, and the would-be poet has before him merely the general conceptions of beautiful objects, to which he applies, consequently, mere general conventional phrases. G. BRIMLEY, Cambridge Essays, 1855. modern taste beauty of The Rev. Dr. Opimian.-Therein is the essential differ- Ancient and ence of ancient and modern taste. Simple beauty—of distin idea in poetry, of sound in music, of figure in painting-guished. was their great characteristic. Ours is detail in all these Simple matters, overwhelming detail. We have not grand outlines idea. for the imagination of the spectator or hearer to fill up whelming his imagination has no play of its own: it is overloaded detail. with minutiae and kaleidoscopical colours. Over detail. Lord Curryfin.-Detail has its own beauty. I have Beauty of admired a Dutch picture of a butcher's shop, where all the charm was in detail. The Rev. Dr. Opimian.—I cannot admire anything of the kind. I must take pleasure in the thing represented before I can derive any from the representation. T. L. PEACOCK, Gryll Grange, 1860, The thing and the represented representa. tion. Classical and romantic The essential classical element is [the] . . . quality of elements in order in beauty. . . . It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art. art. It is the addition of curiosity to the desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic temper. . . . The essential elements, then, of the romantic spirit are curiosity and the love of beauty; and it is as the accidental effects of these qualities only that it seeks the middle age. W. H. PATER, Macmillan's Magazine, xxxv., 1862. Speech by metre more eloquent than prose; decked with [Speech by metre] is a manner of utterance more eloquent and rhetorical than the ordinary prose which we use in our daily talk, because it is decked and set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that colours and it sooner inveigleth the judgment of man, and carrieth his figures. opinion this way and that, whithersoever the heart by impression of the ear shall be most affectionately bent and directed. The utterance in prose is not of so great efficacy, because not only it is daily used, and by that occasion the ear is overglutted with it, but is also not so voluble and slipper upon the tongue, being wide and loose, and nothing numerous, nor contrived into measures and sounded with so gallant and harmonical accents, nor, in fine, allowed that figurative conveyance nor so great licence in choice of words and phrases as metre is. G. PUTTENHAM, Art of English Poesy, 1589. Style is a constant and continual phrase or tenour of Style speaking and writing, extending to the whole tale or process of the poem or history, and not properly to any piece or member of a tale, but is, of words, speeches, and sentences together a certain contrived form and quality, many times natural to the writer, many times his peculiar by election and art, and such as either he keepeth by skill, or holdeth on by ignorance, and will not or peradventure natural to the writer, or his peculiar and art. by election The image of man. Style con formable to matter and subject. cannot easily alter into any other. . . . And because this continual course and manner of writing or speech showeth the matter and disposition of the writer's mind more than one or few words or sentences can show, therefore there be that have called style the image of man, mentis character; for man is but his mind, and as his mind is tempered and qualified, so are his speeches and language at large, and his inward conceits be the metal of his mind, and his manner of utterance the very warp and woof of his conceits, more plain, or busy and intricate, or otherwise affected after the rate. . . . And yet peradventure not altogether so, but that every man's style is for the most part according to the matter and subject of the writer, or so ought to be and conformable thereunto. Then again may it be said as well, that men do choose their subjects according to the metal of their minds, and therefore a high-minded man chooseth him high and lofty matter to write of; the base courage, matter base and low; the mean and modest mind, mean and moderate matters after the rate. . . . But generally, to have the style decent and comely it behoveth the maker or poet to follow the nature of his subject, that is, if his matter be high and lofty, that the style be so too; if mean, the style also to be mean; if base, the style humble and base accordingly. . . . I am not ignorant that many good clerks be contrary to mine opinion, and say that the lofty style may be decently used in a mean and style may be base subject and contrariwise, which I do in part acknowledge, but with a reasonable qualification. For Homer and contrari- hath so used it in his trifling work of Batrachomyomachia, A contrary opinion that the lofty used in a mean and base subject wise. that is, in his treatise of the war betwixt the frogs and the mice: Virgil also in his Bucolics, and in his Georgics, whereof the one is counted mean, the other base, that is the husbandman's discourses and the shepherd's. But hereunto serveth a reason in my simple conceit: for first to that trifling poem of Homer, though the frog and the mouse be but little and ridiculous beasts, yet to treat of war is an high subject, and a thing in every respect terrible and dangerous to them that it alights on; and therefore of learned duty asketh martial grandiloquence, if it be set forth in his kind and nature of war, even betwixt the basest creatures that can be imagined. . . So can I not be removed from mine opinion, but still methinks that in all decency the style ought to conform with the nature of Style to the subject. Ib. conform with the nature of the subject. Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see Oratio thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts animi. imago of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it. B. JONSON, Discoveries, 1620-1635. [A]ccording to their subject. . . styles vary, and lose their names: for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. Ib. Styles vary according to the subject. will differ vulgar The true artificer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not The poet's fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer- language chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the from the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them somewhat, to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art so to yet will carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what not depart from life and the likeness of truth. |