III. JOHNSON'S STYLE.

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It is usually said that Johnson's style is highly latinized, and that it delights in polysyllables. This is certainly not true of the Lives of the Poets; though it has some slight foundation as applied to the "Rambler."

The following results were obtained from examining four passages (each of 200 lines) in each of the works mentioned:

In the "Rambler:"

30.5 per cent. of words of classical origin.

In the "Lives of the Poets:

28.7 per cent. of words of classical origin.

of more than two syllables.

of more than two syllables.

of more than two syllables.

28.6 per cent. of words of classical origin.

In two critical articles in the "Athenæum" (1893): 28.5 per cent. of words of classical origin.

17.5 of more than two syllables. It will be noticed that the proportion of words of classical and Romance origin in the "Lives" is almost exactly the same as the proportion of these words in Macaulay, and in the reviewers of to-day. In the use of long words Johnson is actually more sparing than Macaulay and the writer in the "Athenæum." He has, I fancy, got his reputation for excessive Latinism from his habit of employing these long words just where most writers would use short ones; his familiar passages are much fuller of four-syllable words than those of the other writers

mentioned, but he reduces his average by indulging in fewer polysyllables than the more modern writers, when he comes to a more formal and technical passage. It is probably this employment of long and sonorous classical words when we expect short and unobtrusive English ones, which helps to give the impression of stiffness and ponderosity.

Thus for "greediness" he says "avidity," and for "freeing" he says "manumission;" "cool courage" he renders by "deliberate intrepidity," and instead of calling a translation "too free," he terms it "licentiously paraphrastical."

Allied with this is his tendency to use the abstract for the concrete, e.g., "Whiggism" for "Whigs." He tells us that Milton's" natural port is gigantic loftiness," or that Warburton "excelled in critical perspicacity," where adverbs and adjectives would do at least as well. And, he is fond of writing a couple of abstract nouns where most writers would employ only one linked with an adjective: e.g., he speaks of "imprudence of generosity or vanity of profusion" instead of "imprudent generosity or vain profusion." Similar to these are such sentences as follow:-"No writer had yet undertaken to reform either the savageness of neglect or the impertinence of civility; "He never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality of insolence." And he speaks of an attempt "to represent the whole course of things as a necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality."

There are none

Johnson's sentences are seldom long. of the cumbrous and involved clauses, in which our writers from Hooker to Locke, so frequently delighted. If a sentence exceed three lines, it is usually broken up by semicolons into co-ordinate and virtually unconnected parts.

But these uninvolved sentences are not always natural in

structure. Johnson is fond of inversion; and a favourite device of his is that of beginning a sentence with a prepositional phrase: "To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient." "Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated." Or he begins with a dependent clause: "When the Hanoverian succession was disputed, Tickell gave what assistance his pen would supply." "That in the reigns of Charles and James the 'Paradise Lost' received no public acclamations is readily confessed." He gives an appearance of inversion to some sentences by omitting the impersonal “it” we usually employ when the real subject is a noun clause. Instead of saying "It is to be lamented that he writes, "That this poem was never written is reasonably to be lamented."

The late Professor Minto1 points out that Johnson is fond of "abruptly introducing a general principle before the particular circumstance that it applies to." This peculiarity, he adds, was adopted by Macaulay, whose style owes more to that of Johnson than is usually acknowledged. In fact, we may say that Macaulay's style is Johnson's, broken into short spasmodic sentences, freed from inversion, and rendered concrete.

Antithesis and balance are constantly employed. Opposed terms are set over against each other; and a strict parallelism is observed in order to emphasize the opposition. No English writer since the time of Lyly had employed this rhetorical artifice to the same extent. No writer until Macaulay employed it again to the same extent. After the lumbering and trailing clauses of the seventeenth century, it is delightful to get these clear-cut epigrams: "He thought woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion." "He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for he hated all whom he was

required to obey." "He was never reduced to the necessity of soliciting the sun to shine upon a birthday, of calling the graces to a wedding, or of saying what multitudes had said before him. When he could produce nothing new, he was at liberty to be silent." "Pope was not content to satisfy; he dared to excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his best; he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader; and expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself." It is easy to multiply such passages; and, indeed, it must be owned that much of their effect is lost by the frequency with which they are repeated.1

Among the occasional faults of Johnson's style we may note his careless employment of the pronouns of the third person, a laxity common enough with the writers of the eighteenth century. One instance will suffice. Speaking of Pope and Warburton, Dr. Johnson tells us that :-" He [Pope] introduced him [Warburton] to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and to Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishopric. When he died he left him the property of his works." The confusion and ambiguity could scarcely be worse. Another fault which sometimes occurs, is one of sentence structure. Although Johnson's sentences are usually short, they sometimes take the form of a long and loosely connected string of statements, grammatically connected, but having no logical coherence. It is possible that he now and then introduced these more colloquial paragraphs as a set off to the somewhat exaggerated abruptness and emphasis of his ordinary style.

His more elaborate sentences are carefully constructed with what musicians would call suspended resolutions; and differ in this way from what some one terms the flippant

1 The antithesis, too, is often, as with Lyly, apparent rather than real.

snip-snap of Macaulay. His style is often harmonious, though it is not worthy to be compared in this respect with the style of Sir Thomas Browne, or with the best prose of Milton. It is often wanting in flexibility, and sometimes in vivacity. But it is always clear, weighty, and vigorous.

IV. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF MILTON'S

LIFE.

1608. Born in Bread Street, London (Dec. 9th).

1625. Admitted as pensioner at Christ's College, Cam

bridge.

1628. Takes his B.A. degree.

1632. Takes his M.A. degree. 1632-8. Life at Horton.

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1633 (or 1634). Arcades" written and acted.

1634.

"Comus" performed (Sept. 29th).

1637. His mother dies (April 3rd).

"Comus" published by Henry Lawes.

1638. "Lycidas" published in the "Justa Edovardo King."

Milton travels on the Continent.

1639. He returns to England (July or August). Lives in St. Bride's Churchyard.

1641. "Of Reformation in England" published. "Of Prelatical Episcopacy" published.

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Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus" published.

"The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty" published.

1642. "Apology against a Pamphlet called A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence,'" etc.