are any two works in the whole range of the English. language more worthy of perusal and re-perusal than those from which the above illustrations have been culled.

§ 165. A metaphor should not be far-fetched, Hence, a scientific fact or law, which only a "specialist" could fully understand, is unsuited for metaphorical use. The phenomena of gravitation, attraction and repulsion, magnetism, chemical and mechanical combination, crystallization, "natural selection," "survival," have all been again and again pressed into service with perfect propriety.

On the other hand, such terms as parallax, asymptote, personal equation, systolé and diastolé, etiolation, &c., though sometimes aptly and ingeniously introduced, are too recondite for writing which the unscientific, no less than the scientific, are intended to read.

One pic

§ 166. Metaphors must also be consistent. ture must not be confused with another of a totally different kind. When this common-sense rule is forgotten, the effect is sometimes extremely grotesque. Pope quotes the following from Blackmore, a poet of whose works Dr. Johnson speaks approvingly :

"The gaping clouds pour lakes of sulphur down,
Whose livid flashes sickening sun-beams drown."

(Prince Arthur.)

"Thy head shall rise, though buried in the dust,
And midst the clouds his glittering turrets thrust."

And even Addison has

"I bridle in my struggling muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a bolder strain."

(Job.)

(Victories of Marlborough; Whately, Rhet. ii. 2, 3.)

§ 167. In these cases, the confusion seems due to defect of imagination; but others are to be found in which it seems to arise from the very richness and energy of that faculty. The following remarkable instance occurs in a writer who has been already quoted as perhaps our very greatest master of figurative speech :

"In this situation they have purposely covered up all they ought industriously to have cleared with a thick fog; and then blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their eyes when they push, they drive by the point of the bayonets their slaves, blindfolded no worse than their lords, to take their fictions for currencies, and to swallow down their pills by thirty-four millions at a dose." (Burke, Refl. p. 344.)

Here are at least four distinct metaphors: thick fogpeople blindfolded (scarcely necessary in a fog, surely !)— bulls shutting their eyes as they push-paper pills swallowed by millions! Though so great a master of all the appliances of rhetoric, Burke was at the same time of so fervid a temperament, as to be sometimes carried away by the rush of his own ideas.

§ 168. There is a well-known passage in Shakspeare which is to some extent liable to the charge of confused metaphor:

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to bear

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing, end them?" (Hamlet, iii. 1.)

"To take arms against a sea". . . is an apparently incongruous expression. By "a sea of troubles," however, is meant simply an overwhelming multitude of troubles. Possibly, too, there may be a reminiscence of the words of Scripture:

"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." (Is. lix. 19.)

§ 169. Metaphors may be classified according to the source from which they are derived, whether from natural objects or artificial, from the arts of war or peace, &c. But such classifications are of little value; for the effective use of metaphor comes not by rule, but by some instantaneous flash of perception. A good analogy, when once presented to the mind, may be developed and worked out by studious effort; but such as are selected with deliberate calculation are sure to be frigid things.

§ 170. The best storehouse of figurative speech is an intimate knowledge of Nature; gained not at secondhand, but by experience and observation.

To have watched the "falling verdure"* of the early summer rain; to have been awed by the impressive phenomena of storm, earthquake, and volcano; to have traced in the laboratory the marvellous operation of molecular affinities;-in such ways as these the mind becomes charged with imagery both powerful in itself, and ready to crowd into the mind on fitting occasion.

*Thomson: Spring.

§ 171. It is the same with the familiar knowledge of mechanical processes; of the action of hammer, wedge, lever, screw, and file; of spinning, weaving, fusing, casting; of ploughing, harrowing, trenching, fallowing, grafting, budding. This has been the secret of many a stroke of homely eloquence. The talk of the countryman is racy of the fields in which his life is spent; and the smith, the mason, the weaver, the mechanic, instinctively use metaphorical language derived from that daily use and habit which is "second nature."

§ 172. Hackneyed figures, like hackneyed quotations, should be avoided. Some of these are so trite as to produce a ludicrous effect on being reproduced. Of these it may suffice to mention the " phoenix" as a type.

4. PERSONIFICATION, &c.

§ 173. In personification metaphor is carried a step further yet. The use of this figure, together with that of Aposiopésis [stopping short, for dramatic effect] and Hyperbolé [intentional exaggeration] does not fall within the scope of the present work.

§ 174. FABLE, ALLEGORY, &c.-These may be said to be extended similes. Thus the adventures of the Knight of Holinesse in the Faerie Queen' and of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress' are similes of the Christian life: the "Will" and the "Coat" in Swift's Tale of a Tub,' symbolize Christian doctrine and practice.

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PART V.-EXAMPLES OF STYLE.

WITH ADVANCED EXERCISES.

§ 175. In order to attain to a good style, the student must familiarize himself with good models. The best works of the great masters of style must be read and re-read. Choice passages must be committed to memory, that their diction and rhythm may be more thoroughly appreciated, and that their spirit may pass into the very tissue of the mind.

The object is not deliberately to imitate the style of any particular author, though this may be useful as an occasional practice. There are some styles, noble in themselves, which are not suitable for general imitation. Such are those of Milton, of Johnson, of Sir Thomas Brown, and, in some measure, of De Quincey. But it by no means follows that such authors are useless to the student. Indeed, perhaps, those whom he would least think of imitating may really benefit him most. Nothing could be much worse for the student than to aim at reproducing the stately Latinism of Milton, the curious pedantry of Sir Thomas Browne, the measured antithesis of Johnson, or the excessive amplification and extraordinary pomp of language of De Quincey. But a genial appreciation of these and other great masters of English prose, is one of the first and most indispensable steps towards good writing; and its result will inevitably appear in the heightened life and warmth of the student's own productions.

§ 176. Style, it cannot be too strongly urged, is no mere mechanical thing, but is the natural, as it were living, garment of thought. Simple clearness and correctness are essential to good writing, and these may be attained by all. But a style like that of Johnson or of Carlyle is part of the expression of the writer's very nature and cast of thought, and cannot be fitly assumed by another.

Hence all imitations-be they ever so perfect-of such writers as these, produce upon us the effect of caricature: and while, on the one hand, they savour of affectation, on the other, they tend to the degradation of a noble ideal.

§ 177. He who sees things clearly and feels them duly need not be anxious about style. His only effort should be to express himself justly and adequately. It will be impossible for one who has felt the charm of noble thought nobly expressed, in the works of our best authors, to be content either to think or to write in a loose and slovenly manner: while, on the other hand, if he deliberately aims at charm of expression or rhythm such as theirs, he runs the greatest possible risk of making some sacrifice of truth -the first and most fundamental law of all expression.

§ 178. In the following sections, the aim has not been to present a complete series of specimens of English prose-for which the student is referred to other worksbut to make practical use of a few characteristic passages illustrating its general development.

I. OLDER STYLE, about A.D. 1600.

[See Shaw, Manual of English Literature, pp. 89 foll.; Rowley, Smaller History of English Literature, pp. 95 foll.]

§ 179. The great prose writers of this period are for the most part characterised by dignity. Their diction is substantially modern, and their periods are often wonderfully rich and harmonious; but, in general, their style is deficient in freedom. Often we seem to be reading a translation from Latin; so largely has that language influenced their form of expression. Take for example the commencement of Bacon's Henry VII.':

"After that Richard, the third of that name, King in fact only, but tyrant both in title and regiment, and so commonly termed and reputed in all times since, was, by the divine revenge favouring the design of an exiled man, overthrown and slain at Bosworth-field, there succeeded in the kingdom the Earl of Richmond, thenceforth styled Henry the Seventh."

Here the whole cast of the period is purely Latin. Compare, also, the exordium of the Areopagitica :—

"They who to States and Governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the publick good; I suppose them as at the beginning of no mean endea