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Untitled Article
We will cease , for a timS , out comments on the p ractice of this professor of style and diction , and leave him to his own inevitable nonsense . tf Bv style we understand the hahitunl manner of clothing our thoughts in images ; and the peculiar selection of traits and lineaments whi ^ h an author makes from the objects , whether material ^ sentirqeutal , or conceptional , which he proposes to tonvey to other
minds . There is a perplexing inaccuracy in confounding style with diction . The appropriateness of the words is , of course , of great importance : the avoidance of superfluities in the expression , the luminous arrangement of the sentences , the right distribution of their different parts—all this constitutes an art of very great importance in every department of eloquence . Hut style , though it may be improved , cannot be taught . It is a part of character ; the express
image of the mind ' s own mode of conceiving thitig 6 : and the very existence of style presupposes a natural power of the mind , which makes it a living mirror—a mirror that must not only reflect various parts of visible and invisible nature , of the material and intellectual creation , but must also give to the reflection a new , a peculiar life ;
a life derived from human nature , and closely related to humanity . Diction , on the contrary , is an affair of accident and habit . Style and diction , iu fact , are so totally distinct , that a true philologist will not unfrequently have to admire the former , in spite of the latter . We remember a remarkable instance in Tertullian . His diction
is barbarous , blundering , confused ; yet few writers will be found to come up to him in the vigour and life of bis style . •« But though good style must have its foundation in n natural power , bad style may ., and frequently is , the result of bad taste become fashion . The mind ' s eye is liable to be impared by imitation : the intellectual squinting is indeed more easily caught than the external . "
Probably so ; but we shall do our best to prevent your influence . The attempt to show that Shakspeare s habitual method of clothing his thoughts in images was an essentially wrong plan , does not manifest the best possible taste , knowledge , or modesty . We first find the sins of the old dramatists consisting entirely in " unnatural and absurd style ; " then it is declared that " style , though it may be improved , cannot be taught ; " that < c it is a part of character ; the express image of the mind ' s own " mode of conceiving things , ' * and that its very existence
" presupposes a natural power , &c . ' In the next paragraph all this is to be set aside , in the present case , by the equivocation ( the imperfect and rather ugly grarhmar , is probabiv owing to a mere oversight of the printer , &c . ) that " though
good style must have its foundation in a natural power , bad style may , and frequently is , the result of bad taste become fashion * " Or is the reviewer quibbling between a style taught , and a style caught , as though the terms were not equally applicable both to good and bad style ? Either of them may \> e taught or caugnt to a certain imitative degree ;
Untitled Article
934 The London Review w Tfo Briiith Draiha *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 234, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/42/
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