Style in writing has been well defined by Swift as “proper words in
proper places.” However, this is rarely seen.
To the unsettled state of our language, and owing to the want of proper
training in composition, may be attributed the general corruption of
English Style, which has scarcely ceased since Southey, in his
_Colloquies_, wrote the following vigorous condemnation of it:
More lasting effect was produced by translators, who, in later
times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early ones, they
enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly
contributed; for, composing in a language which is not their mother
tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and formal style,
which, not so much through the merit of a few, as owing to the
perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on
the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English
of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great
corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this
reason only. Men who write in newspapers, and magazines, and
reviews, write for present effect; in most cases, this is as much
their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but
when it is so, they consider, like public speakers, not so much what
is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be
acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the
excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices
and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they
are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common
minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as
larks are with looking-glasses.
In this school it is that most writers are now trained; and after
such training, any thing like an easy and natural movement is as
little to be looked for in their compositions as in the step of a
dancing-master. To the views of style, which are thus generated,
there must be added the inaccuracies inevitably arising from haste,
when a certain quantity of matter is to be supplied for a daily or
weekly publication, which allows of no delay,—the slovenliness that
confidence as well as fatigue and inattention will produce,—and the
barbarisms which are the effect of ignorance, or that smattering of
knowledge which serves only to render ignorance presumptuous. These
are the causes of corruption in our current style; and when these
are considered, there would be ground for apprehending that the best
writings of the last century might become as obsolete as ours in the
like process of time, if we had not in our Liturgy and our Bible a
standard from which it will not be possible wholly to depart.
The days of sentences of one word, and of others without a verb, had not
then arrived; nor had the spasmodic and sensation style been introduced.
Southey’s own style, whether for narrative, for exposition, or for
animated argumentation, was perhaps the most effective English style of
the time. It combines in a remarkable degree a somewhat lofty dignity
with ease and idiomatic vigour. He was the most hard-working writer of
his time, and left about 12,000_l._ in money, besides a valuable
library.
Sir Thomas Browne satirises the strenuous advocacy of the classical
style by saying: “We are now forced to study Latin, in order to
understand English.” And Pope ridicules that
Easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while.
It is no paradox to say that the perfection of style is to have none,
but to let the words be suggested by the sentiments, unchecked by the
monotony of a manner, and untainted by affectation.
How striking is this short passage in a speech of Edward IV. to his
Parliament! “The injuries that I have received are known every where,
and the eyes of the world are fixed upon me to see with what countenance
I suffer.” If actual events could often be related in this way, there
would be more books in circulating libraries than romances and novels.
This lively and graphic style is plainly the best, though now and then
the historian’s criticism is wanted to support a startling fact, or to
explain a confused transaction. Thus, the learned Rudbeck, in his
_Atlantica_, four volumes folio, ascribing an ancient temple in Sweden
to one of Noah’s sons, warily adds, “’Twas probably the youngest.”
A more practical definition of style may be gathered from what Fox said
of his great antagonist, Pitt,—and therefore the more to be
trusted,—that he always used _the_ word; and each word had its own
place, not regulated by chance, but by law.
To write a good Letter is a rare accomplishment. It is owing to the want
of proper training in the laws of composition that so few persons in
England can write even a common letter correctly. We will give a
familiar instance of a very frequent solecism which occurs in one of the
most common acts of every-day life—the answer to a dinner invitation;
and it is one in which, we are sorry to say, well-educated ladies are
too often caught tripping. When “Mr. A. and Mrs. A. request the pleasure
of Mr. and Mrs. B.’s company at dinner,” the reply usually is, “Mr. and
Mrs. B. _will_ have the pleasure of accepting” the invitation. But the
acceptance is already _un fait accompli_ by the very act of writing
it,—it is a present, not a future event; and the answer of course ought
to be either “Mr. and Mrs. B. _have_ the pleasure of accepting,” or “Mr.
and Mrs. B. _will have_ the pleasure of _dining_.”[85]
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Footnote 85:
_Fraser’s Magazine._
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