IX.

ON ENGLISH COMPOSITION.

AS yet I have spoken of style only with reference

to your audience; now we will examine its

principles on other grounds. At present I have treated it, as De Quincey has well put it, "as a mechanical process; whereas style is really organic;" that is to say, instinct with a life and power of its own. Every style, if truly developed, is just what good music is really the reflection of the composer's character, of his powers and disposition, intellectual and moral. This you can see at a glance by reference to the writings and speeches of the best authors and orators; their styles are remarkably different, and yet harmonize decidedly with their characters: the fervid temperament and impetuous pride of Chatham, the philosophic and cultivated mind of Burke, the calm, thoughtful, and judicial spirit of Hallam, are as visible in their works as in their biographies, and-magnis com (109)

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ponere parva-it is so with us all. If your disposition is naturally quiet, amiable, and retiring, you may write as elegantly as Gray; but if you aim to imitate the vivacity of Fielding, it will be but an imitation, a faint specter, such a relation as the ghosts in Homer bore to men; but on the other hand, if your sense of the ridiculous and inconsistent is peculiarly keen, you may copy Swift's humor and solemn irony, and improve upon them by omitting his coarseness.

You will notice continually in the course of your reading how widely this truth is spread. In writing history, for instance, which demands a considerable variation in style, the statesman warms to the passages descriptive of great acts of policy and great state trials; the soldier's style rises as his heart kindles at the description of battles and sieges; the scientific or artistic mind dwells fondly on the progress of the victories of industry. And it is just here that the ancient writers had so great an advantage over us moderns-they lived so much more varied lives than we do, that they could throw themselves into the labors of writing with a rich experience, drawn not from a well-filled library, but from a personal knowledge of the occurrences in

which they had themselves played no insignificant part. What wonder that Eschylus should recount in imperishable language the overthrow of the dreaded Persians, when he had himself been one of that gallant band who charged down the plain of Marathon in the decisive battle of the world? We talk, by-the-way, loosely enough of the decisive "battles," in the plural; as if any battle yet fought by mortal man could compare with that which saved Athens from becoming the chef-lieu of a prefecture in some bloated Asiatic satrapy; saved it for her own great future and our own, and all times, the sacred altar from whence all coming generations should kindle their torches of science, literature, or art.

What marvel is it that Thucydides the scholar should write inspired by the fire of Thucydides the soldier, and the wisdom of Thucydides the politician? Or that Xenophon the well-educated country-gentleman should still claim our attention to the diaries of Xenophon the volunteer and general? Or that note-books of Cæsar's should still interest --Cæsar the statesman, general, and first emperor of Rome; the one man of his time who could read the future of his mighty country?

In each of these great writers, too, their style is unmistakably a reflected image of their own character; nor, if you think a moment upon it, could it well be otherwise, if a man is but "true to himself." It is impossible to conceive Hooker's style -Hooker, the father of English prose-as careless or undignified; or Dryden's, whose prose has happily outlived much of his verse, as feeble and obscure; or Gibbon's as mean and vulgar; or Burke's as incomplete and timid; or Napier's as tame. Each adopted, as all great writers have done, their own style, formed not unfrequently on the model of another, but not with any slavish imitation; they made their models' style their own, and thus their own became, as I said before, an organic, not a mere mechanical existence.

Now, as you are anxious to form a good style for yourself, I will extract some passages at once characteristic of some of our greatest writers, and expressive of a variety of feelings and passions, which each possessed more or less conspicuously, and which they have clothed in words, either with the aid of simple language, or by adopting some figure of speech or peculiarity of style.

I have already spoken of the language and style

suitable for a plain simple narrative of simple life -a style based on Cobbett and Swift, Cobbett's master which you would do well to cultivate; as Turner worked for years with brown and gray tints alone, before he ventured to enter the realms of gorgeous color, in which he afterward reigned as king without a rival: but the moment you reach beyond this narrow limit, and have energetic action to describe, your language must rise to the occasion. See how Napier's does, his sentences fall swift and decisive as one of his own rifle shot. If you would know how varied and rich a language ours is on one, and that a very narrow, topic, how lively, vigorous, and animated words themselves become in the hands of a master, himself full of lofty sentiment and generous sympathy with the scenes, deeds, and men he has immortalized,-read the battles and sieges in Napier's Peninsular War, and read this now as a sample; it is the closing scene at Albuera.

"Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies; and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans.