LETTER XVII.

Modern Style-Imperfect Expression-Verbosity-Defects in the Style of Lord Byron-Third Canto of Childe Harold— Influence of Rhyme on the turn of Thought-In Poetry nothing should appear to be the consequence of the Trammels of Versification.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The subject which I have selected for my present letter will probably appear uninteresting to one like yourself, occupied in attention to things, and having little time to bestow on mere words.

It would not be difficult to show, however, that words themselves are most important things; that on their proper and judicious employment the happiness of mankind greatly depends; and that their influence extends over the fate of those who reject them as too insignificant for their consideration.

But my design, on the present occasion, is more limited. It is merely to present you with a few desultory observations on style, and

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more particularly on the style of our modern writers. It is a characteristic, I think, of modern composition, both in prose and verse (I speak of the mass), that it is unfinished and incomplete. We seldom meet with any thing like perfect expression of the thought intended to be conveyed. Either the writer falls short of his actual meaning, or expresses himself vaguely and without precision, or, what is perhaps more common, he heaps one word upon another, either from sheer ambition to say more than he has got to say, or that the imperfect manner in which the first term conveys the intended sense may be compensated by the accumulation of other terms. He gives, perhaps, three words instead of one; not that he requires the full power of the three for his purpose: he employs so many, either because his desire of pouring forth transcends his materials, or because each of them seems partially to express the idea he wishes to communicate, yet not fully or precisely; and he hopes that, by presenting the whole together, they will mutually qualify each other, and yield conjointly the peculiar import which they could not singly furnish. This happens not only

with words, but with phrases and sentences. If the writer fails in one sentence, he tries to exhibit his meaning in a second; and if that should seem still insufficient, he introduces a third, and still another, till he feels satisfied that the whole of what he intended is fully expressed. These strenuous efforts and repeated failures are sometimes owing to an incapability of finding suitable language for the ideas in the mind of the writer; but perhaps they are oftener to be ascribed to a vagueness and vacillation in the ideas themselves. If his ideas are not distinct, his language cannot be precise, and he is obliged to accumulate one word upon another to make up a resemblance of what is passing in his own mind.

Thus, verbosity is the consequence sometimes of ambitious barrenness of thought, longing to be prolific; sometimes, of want of skill in language; but perhaps, most frequently, of vagueness of conception sedulously striving after a meaning. The following passage, from a writer by no means devoid of talent, seems to have been indited under the combined operation of all these causes. It is a rich specimen of wordiness.

"New compilations, also, are serviceable on all subjects, admitting improvements and accommodation to the passing times, because all men write most successfully and intelligibly for the age in which they live. Whatever may be our admiration of the glowing sentiments and splendid eloquence of the great writers of antiquity, every day and every hour present our own age in aspects and under circumstances, that, for all purposes of practical utility and instruction, chains down the mind to the contemplation of the present, and causes its existing interests, passions, prejudices, habits, evils, conveniences, hopes, and fears, to predominate over those of past ages, which are already mingled with the years beyond the flood."

Here the writer had to express the very simple idea, that our own times are necessarily more interesting to us than past ages; but not knowing exactly his own meaning,—wishing, too, to say a great deal, and not being fully master of the delicate instrument he was employing, he has thrown together a brilliant heap of words, from which it is not easy to extract an intelligible proposition,

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In many cases, we see clearly the writer's meaning, although he has not expressed himself with either fulness or precision: we comprehend what he wishes to convey as perfectly as if his language had united perspicuity and exactness; and we admire, perhaps, the beauty or sublimity of the thought: but, amidst the greatest admiration, we cannot help a feeling of the inadequacy of his expressions, a sense of incongruity, which impairs the effect of the intellectual power displayed. I have many times observed in myself a feeling of this sort, in reading the works of Lord Byron. poet's language is often extremely felicitous; the united beauty and condensation of thought and diction are in places most admirable; and passages might be produced from almost every one of his productions, which in point of perfectness of expression cannot be excelled. But often-I will not say generally-he has fallen far short of this excellence. His meaning is better than his language. We cannot say of him as Horne Tooke said of Junius, materiam superabat opus. He is sometimes obscure from the omission of words necessary for explicitness, or at least usually inserted, and the