be) lower than the object; farther, that it be not extravagantly and offensively out of level, and that it be fresh. These are the main conditions of effective comparison for purposes of exposition, and for persuasive eulogy or ridicule. In comparisons designed only for embellishment, the conditions are novelty and harmony, or, as it might also be called, propriety. As regards the number of figures employed, every writer must be guided by his own discretion. The critic of style can only remark, that if writers were always careful to make their comparisons effective for a purpose of some kind, the number would be considerably reduced.

In treating of an author's figures, as in treating of his vocabulary, we might anticipate most of the qualities of his style. Figures may be simple, or stirring, or grand, or touching, or witty, or humorous. A full account of a man's figurative language would display nearly all his characteristics.

As a sort of postscript to the Elements of Style, we may easily define the mutual relation of two terms often used in contradistinction-MANNER and MATTER. As distinguished from matter, manner includes everything that we have designated by the general title Elements of Style-not only the choice of words and the structure of the parts of a discourse, but everything superinduced upon the subject of discourse by way either of comparison or of contrast.

QUALITIES OF STYLE.

The division of qualities into purity, perspicuity, ornament, propriety, is open to the objection of being too vague. This appears in amendments of the scheme proposed by different critics. Some would strike off" propriety" as being common to all the other qualities. Others, confining propriety to the choice of individual words, would retain it and strike off "purity," as being a part of propriety thus restricted. Others still would dispense with "ornament," as a separate division, and discuss ornaments under perspicuity and propriety. And Blair maintains that "all the qualities of a good style may be ranged under two heads, perspicuity and ornament."

Such vague fumbling is inevitable so long as qualities of style are viewed in the abstract, and without reference to their ends. Campbell was the first to suggest a substantial principle of classification by considering style as it affects the mind of the reader. His analysis is not perfect, but he was upon the right track. "It appears," he says, "that besides purity, which is a quality entirely grammatical, the five simple and original qualities of style, considered as an object to the understanding, the imagination, the pas

sims, and the ear, are perspicuity, vivacity, elegance, animation, and music." That so many writers on composition should have fallen back from this comparatively thorough analysis to bad versions of the old analysis, is not much to their credit.

One of the causes of imperfection in Campbell's analysis was his desire to separate rigidly between the effects of style or manner, and the effects of the subject-matter. This cannot be done: the manner must always be viewed in relation to the matter. In order to get at qualities of style, we must first make an analysis of the effects of a composition as a whole-matter and manner together; not till then are we in a position to consider how far the effect is due to the manner and how far to the matter. For example, if a composition is readily intelligible, we consider how far this is due to the familiarity of the subject-matter, and how far to the author's treatment, to his choice and arrangement of words, and to his illustrations. Nothing could be more absurd than Blair's confident assertion that the difficulty of a subject can never be pleaded as an excuse for want of perspicuity; that if an author's ideas are clear, he should always be able to make them perspicuous to others. Perspicuous, as Blair understands the word, means easily seen through; and it may be doubted whether any powers of style could make the generalisations of a science easily and immediately apparent to a mind not familiar with the particulars. Style can do much, but it has a limit. It can never make a subject naturally abstruse as easily understood as a subject naturally simple, a treatise on Logic as perspicuous as a statement of familiar facts. So with compositions that address the feelings; the master of style cannot but work at a disadvantage when his subject is not naturally impressive.

The chief aim of the following brief remarks on Qualities of Style is to define prevailing critical terms as closely as may be with reference to the ultimate analysis here adopted.

INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF STYLE-
SIMPLICITY AND CLEARNESS.

Aristotle recognises but one intellectual quality, clearness. The first requisite of composition is that it be clear. So Quintilian: "The first virtue of eloquence is perspicuity." In Campbell's scheme, also, "the first and most essential of the qualities of style is perspicuity."

Blair, while he reduced all qualities to perspicuity and ornament, was led, in his consideration of perspicuity, to another intellectual quality—namely, precision. He described precision as "the highest part of the quality denoted by perspicuity," and then made the following contrast between precision and perspicuity "in a qualified sense." "It appears," he said, "that an author may, in a

ur

qualified sense, be perspicuous, while yet he is far from being precise. He uses proper words and proper arrangements; he gives you the idea as clear as he conceives it himself,-and so far he is perspicuous but the ideas are not very clear in his own mind; they are loose and general, and therefore cannot be expressed with precision. All subjects do not equally require precision. It is sufficient, on many occasions, that we have a general view of the meaning. The subject, perhaps, is of the known and familiar kind; and we are in no hazard of mistaking the sense of the author, though every word which he uses be not precise and exact. Few authors, for instance, in the English language, are more clear and perspicuous, on the whole, than Archbishop Tillotson and Sir William Temple; yet neither of them are remarkable for precision.”

The fact is, that if the words are taken in their ordinary senses, precision is not a mode of perspicuity, but a quality in some measure antagonistic to perspicuity. Blair might have drawn a line between perspicuity and precision, and made them two separate intellectual qualities. The division would not have been the best, but it would have been a real division, and better than none at all. Aristotle's single virtue of "clearness" or "perspicuity" needs to be analysed before we can characterise authors with discrimination. We need two broad divisions, simplicity and clearness, and a subdivision of clearness into general clearness and minute clearness. This more exact division I shall briefly explain it is not arbitrary dictatorial sequestration of terms to unfamiliar applications, but a breaking up of such sequestrations, and a reconciliation of the language of criticism with the language of familiar speech. "When designations of merit are loose and indeterminate, they may sometimes be cleared up by a reference to designations of demerit. It is so in this case. What are the faults of style as a means of communicating knowledge? We at once say abstruseness and confusion. Returning, then, to the positive side, we ask ourselves what are the corresponding merits-what are the opposites of abstruseness and confusion-and we have no difficulty in seeing that the main intellectual "virtues" of style are simplicity and clearness.

Simplicity and abstruseness are relative terms. Whatever is hard to understand is not simple, is abstruse, recondite; and what is hard for one man may be easy for another. The phraseology of natural science or of medicine is hard to the unlearned reader, but easy as a primer to the naturalist or the physician. Abstract terms are generally unpopular, and generally disliked as dry, bookish, scholastic; yet they are said to come to Scotchmen more naturally than the concrete language of common things. Want of simplicity is not an absolute fault; it is a fault only in relation to the persons addressed. A writer addressing himself purposely to a

7

learned audience only wastes his strength by beating about the bush for language universally familiar.

Clearness, as opposed to confusion, is not so much relative to the capacity of the persons addressed. Ambiguous language-words so arranged as to convey an impression different from what the writer intends, may mislead learned and unlearned alike. Confused expression is not justifiable under any circumstances, unless, indeed, it is the writer's deliberate purpose to mislead. The educated reader will guess the meaning sooner than the uneducated; but neither educated nor uneducated should be burdened with the effort of guessing.

Clearness, as we have said, may conveniently be subdivided into general clearness and minute clearness-minute clearness being expressed by such words as distinctness, exactness, precision. There is a marked line of separation between these subdivisions. Accuracy in the general outlines is a different thing from accuracy in the details. In truth, the two are somewhat antagonistic. To dwell with minute precision on the details tends rather to confuse our impressions as to the general outlines. After our attention has been turned to minute distinctions, we find it difficult to grasp the mutual relations of the parts so distinguished when we endeavour to conceive them as a whole. Again, minute distinctness is opposed to simplicity. The general outlines of things can be conveyed in familiar language; but when we desire to be exact, we must have recourse to terms that are technical and unfamiliar. To say that the earth is "round" is a sufficiently clear description of the form of the earth in a general way—and the word is familiar to everybody; but when we are more exact, and describe the earth as a sphere flattened at the poles," we remove ourselves from the easy comprehension of many of our countrymen.

We are now in a better position to discuss the critical and popular use of the word perspicuity. It is evident, from Campbell's account of the faults against perspicuity, that he understands by the term a certain amount of clearness combined with simplicity. He includes in his list of offences not only confusion of thought, ambiguity-using the same word in different senses and uncertain reference in pronouns and relatives, which are offences against clearness, but also technical terms and long sentences, which are offences against simplicity. This is also the popular use of the term. Such writers as Addison and Macaulay are said to be perspicuous, because they are at once simple or easily understood, and free from obvious confusion. Their ideas are expressed in popular language, and sufficiently discriminated for popular apprehension. Popularly, therefore, as well as in some rhetorical treatises, per- 1 spicuity stands for a clear, unambiguous, unconfused structure of simple language. But why should the term be confined to a clear

B

structure of simple language? We can easily see how it came to be so confined. A general reader does not receive clear impressions from a work couched in abstruse language, however perspicuous may be the arrangement. The effort of realising the words is too much, and he lets them slip through his mind vaguely. For him an abstruse style cannot be perspicuous-simplicity is indispensable to perspicuity. But while we see how the word came to be so confined, we cannot see why it should be kept so confined. Johnson's arrangement is clearer and more free from ambiguity than Addison's or Tillotson's. Why should he not be called a perspicuous writer ?

But some of our readers will say that Johnson is called a perspicuous writer. This is true, but he is not so by Campbell's definition, for he uses technical terms and long sentences; nor is he so by the verdict of those that are loosely called general readers. He is called perspicuous because his words are apt to his meaning, and because the general structure of his discourses is clear. His language is not simple; he is not perspicuous if simplicity be considered a part of perspicuity.

Here, therefore, seems to arise a clash between the general reader and the reader more familiar with abstract and learned phraseology. But the disagreement is more apparent than real. The general reader applies the term perspicuous to a clear choice and construction of simple language, of language familiar to him; the more learned reader applies the term to a clear choice and structure of language, abstruse perhaps to the generality, but still familiar to him. In point of fact, the two classes of readers use the word perspicuous with the same meaning. Both have in view, not the familiarity of the language or the structure, but the clearness of it, its freedom from ambiguity and confusion. The intellectual qualities of such writers as Tillotson, Locke, Addison, Macaulay, are not fully distinguished by the single word perspicuousthe style of such writers is perspicuous and simple. Johnson and De Quincey are also perspicuous in their choice of words, and in their general structure; but their diction, as a whole, is abstruse.

We said a little ago that clearness might be subdivided into general clearness and minute clearness. At that time we mentioned no single word for general clearness. In our consideration of the word perspicuity, we have seen that, when hunted down to its real signification, it proves to be the very word required. Perspicuity, or lucidity, will thus stand for general clearness, unambiguous, unconfused structure-what may loosely be called general accuracy of outline. For minute accuracy, careful discrimination of terms-demanding from the reader an effort to make sure that his ideas are not vague, but rigidly defined-we have the terms precision, exactness, and distinctness.

1