with their own lips. In the Romance, the author now and then comes forward to make a critical or other observation on a character or an event of the story, or even (by way of change) to take the narrative out of his characters' mouths and carry it on; but he soon slips out again, and the dramatic form is resumed. The Poem (except the Drama) has not this character. The author is himself present: he may, indeed, harangue his readers like an orator; though he may also be only an essayist or a narrator. In this, perhaps, is the essential difference between Romance and Poetry. The former is dramatic; the latter is not. The essential difference between the Romance and the Poem, on the one hand, and Prose (as last defined'), on the other, has been thus expressed by Minto:-"Romance has a closer affinity with Poetry than with Prose: it is cousin to Prose, but sister to Poetry; it has the Prose features, but the Poetical spirit."

3. COMPOSITIONS WITH RESPECT TO PURPOSE, OR END IN VIEW.

75. The four classes into which compositions are divided with respect to Purpose, or End in View, are, in fact, four modes of discussion applicable to any composition, no matter what its form or intrinsic character. Hence, the detailed consideration of this branch of the subject belongs under the head of Invention."

1873, above.

2 Part Second, ?? 341 ff.

4

PART FIRST.

STYLE.

DEFINITIONS.

1

76. STYLE IS THE FORM Of Discourse;—the Form of Thought Expressed in Language. Thus, the following versions of a familiar passage of Scripture all express the same or nearly the same thought; yet each has a form in some respects its own ;—

(1) “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." 2

(2) “Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law."3

(3) "Then will be brought to pass that which is written : 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'Where, O death is thy sting? Where, O death, is thy victory?' The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law."4

The special form of each version constitutes its Style; and the differences of form between the versions are differences of Style. The province of this department of Rhetoric is to set forth and illustrate the several particulars by which the form of discourse is characterized. 12 17, above.

2 Version of 1611.

3 Revision of 1881.

4 George R. Noyes, The New Testament Translated from the Greek Text of Tischendorf.

5 Another reading, "suggested by Dr. Robinson," and cited for this work by Roswell Smith, Esq., of New York, is, "O grave, where is thy victory? Where, O death, thy sting?"-The differences are in some particulars due to variations in the Greek text.

50

76 a. Hence, the study of Style is the study either of the Qualities of Thought as expressed in Speech or of the Properties of Language as expressing Thought. The two phrases are, in fact, identical in meaning. Thought and Speech, no matter how they may be conceived, are inseparable. Each implies the other: neither is possible without the other. Thought, of course, is of primary importance; but the task were idle to quibble upon the words in defining Style. The composition necessarily takes a body; and this body is Language. As necessarily, the language used expresses the matter or substance of the composition; and this matter or substance is Thought. The properties of language, therefore, are the correlatives of the qualities of thought; and, the student once understanding that what he deals with is Thought Expressed in Language, and not mere Words, time is simply wasted by overmuch discussion of the relations of thought and speech, or of the question whether this or that is more particularly referred to in the word Style. 77. Style may be distinguished as

(A) DICTION, or mere Expression,-the form of discourse with respect to the grammatical properties of language;

(B) PHRASEOLOGY, or Mechanical Structure, the form of discourse with respect to the mechanical properties of language; for example, the order of words in a sentence, emphasis, modes of connecting words and sentences, etc.

(C) STYLE PROPER, "the niceties, the elegancies, the peculiarities, and the beauties of composition,”—the form of discourse with respect to the subtler properties of language.1

These distinctions are not sub-divisions of Style, but rather particulars in which, or points of view from which, the form of a composition may be examined and criticized. Thus, in the passage,

"Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it,"

12 306, below.

2 Revised Version of Matt. vii. 13, 14.

exceptions might be taken to ye, leadeth and be as out of present use, to by as over-precise for at, to straitened as having a sense not common in connection with roads or ways, to thereby as old-fashioned and formal, to be they as an unnecessary inversion,' and to the whole passage as artificial in structure and lacking in clearness and force. The first four exceptions are points of Diction, the fifth a point of Phraseology, and the sixth a point of Style Proper.2

78. The mechanical properties of language have been aptly named the Elements of Style; the subtler properties are commonly spoken of as the Qualities of Style; and correctness in Diction is called Grammatical Purity. Hence, three sub-divisions of Part First,—(A) GRAMMATICAL PURITY, (B) The Elements of Style, (C) The QUALITIES OF STYLE.

1 Cf. the version of 1611, which uses the expletive there.

2 The older version naturally has the archaisms mentioned, but it has none of the other faults specified. The Revisers of 1881 may have Englished the Greek Testament, but have they not un-Englished the Testament of 1611?

3 Minto, Manual, p. 1.

(A) GRAMMATICAL PURITY.

I.

ITS IMPORTANCE.

79. GRAMMATICAL PURITY has been aptly compared to correctness of drawing in Painting. Not only is it a pre-requisite to success; it often of itself constitutes success. The chief end of all rational discourse is to be understood; and nothing contributes more largely to this end than correct diction. Even the man whose own practice is in this respect faulty, both understands correct language and appreciates its use by others. The vulgar or provincial speaker who not only can not understand but condemns as "bad English" the vulgar or provincial speech of his neighbor, both understands and applauds the "good English" of the cultivated orator. "The common people like to be addressed in sound old English which has the centuries behind it. . . . Marines do not like to be preached to in the dialect of the forecastle. When one preacher of distinction . . . endeavored to preach thus on a man-of-war in Boston harbor, his hearers said, when his back was turned, that 'there were two things which he did not understand, religion and navigation.'' A rabble in the street will often hoot if they are addressed in bad grammar. Patrick Henry thought to win the favor of the backwoodsmen of Virginia by imitating their colloquial

1" The beginning of Style," says Aristotle, "is correctness in diction" [ἑλληνίζειν].

2 But compare: "Did you ever hear of Boatswain Smith? He is a preacher to sailors in London; himself a sailor, and a man of great eloquence and strange, quaint power. While he does not stud his discourses with sea-phrases, neither does he avoid them, and when he introduces them he does so with great effect. Sailors have contempt for a landlubber's preaching. But Boatswain Smith takes them on a true tack."-W. B. Hodgson, in a letter, an. 1843.