RECTOR OF SWANSWICK

Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College

RAWLINSONIAN PROFESSOR OF ANGLO-SAXON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE

1890

[All rights reserved]

PREFACE

ENGLISH PROSE is the greatest instrument of communication that is now in use among men upon the earth. On this ground alone if on no other it would seem to be worthy of that enquiry which is suggested by the natural curiosity for knowledge. Yet it is a thing to be noted, that whereas our Poetry has called forth a succession of critical literature from the times of Elizabeth until now, no like attention has been paid to English Prose.

The present work is quite new, not merely in details and in treatment, but in its very conception. All previous works upon English Prose, so far as I am acquainted with them, have busied themselves solely with the rhetorical graces of composition. I have therefore thought it the less necessary to expatiate much upon these, and I have tried rather to lay down the foundation and to exhibit the substantial fabric upon which the ornamental part may be displayed. For it is precisely in the figurative and ornamental part that method and doctrine can do least; what they can do best, is to provide the elementary framework for the reception and the setting of such ornaments of diction as flow from the wealth of the writer's own mind.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has observed that the maxims contained in works on composition and rhetoric, are presented in an unorganized form.' He has certainly made himself quite secure from any retort of this animadversion. The

most consecutive, organized, systematic writing that it has ever been my good fortune to read in connexion with the subjects handled in this treatise, is Mr. Herbert Spencer's essay entitled, 'The Philosophy of Style.' In that remarkable argument he has aimed at evolving the whole structure of literary Diction out of the germ of a single maxim. He has certainly succeeded in gathering up a large number of scattered phenomena under one leading idea. It is an admirable and a masterly production, but it is not and cannot be exempt from that à priori taint, which conveys into the reader's mind a doubt whether it is possible that all the multitudinous varieties of diction can be regimented into an array of such imposing simplicity.

I have had both pleasure and profit from the perusal of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essay, but I have not adopted his method. The kind of system which I have aimed at is rather the system of exposition than that of philosophy. I have sought to collect and group the most elementary and fundamental data. This is a humbler task, but one that demands more space and perhaps requires more patience. It is not attended with many recurrent satisfactions of triumphant congruities. It does not promise a simple and perfect solution of all antinomies and contradictions. But it will be found to meet and welcome in a remarkable way some of the inferences which the philosopher arrived at by quite a different approach. And I hope it may work in the same direction by tending to convince educators that the culture of English diction is wanted as a means of attaining improved habits of thought, and that for this culture something deeper is required than the effort of superficial imitation.

I can imagine that, at the sight of my title, many, and those not inexperienced in literature, might be prompted to ask What there can be to say about English prose? The only practical answer to such a query would be, Try! Any one

who did try by putting down what he thought to the point, would soon find that he had something to add, and, like John Bunyan, would feel drawn on by his subject to add more and more. This has been my experience, and something like this is the history of the present book. No one can know its incompleteness as I do. But a book may be useful without being complete.

Imperfection might however be charged upon grounds which I should not admit. It might seem that a Treatise upon English Prose ought to marshal the chief writers with purpose to illustrate the degrees of their merit ;-whereas in the present work if this has been done in a measure with the leading names of the past, little or no attempt has been made to determine the relative excellences of contemporary writers. My answer would be that waiting upon the natural unfolding of my subject and led on by it, I have caught examples from books I happened to be reading, which same had often ministered the thought or observation I wanted to illustrate. Aiming at a systematic treatment of my theme, I have not assumed that the ranking of modern authors was in my province. I leave that for those who feel themselves equal to it. At the same time I am almost bound to add that I do marvel at myself when I see by the Index how little I have drawn from masters of high discourse for whom my admiration is most complete-such as that sacred orator, whose recent departure, so unexpected, solemnizes the time in which I write.

In a book of this nature the contents are of less moment than their arrangement. If the arrangement be good, the additional observations of every intelligent reader and writer will have a whereabouts to register and bestow them. At any rate, this has been the prevalent feeling with me in the making of this book as it was in my Land Charters.' The years that I had groped and groped in our early documents