The Autobiography of William Jerdan, with his Literary, Political, and Social Reminiscences and Correspondence during the last Fifty Years. Vol. II. London: Hall, Virtue, and Co. We regard this volume as unequal in interest with its predecessor. At the onset Mr. Jerdan devotes too much space to criticizing his critics. In his first volume he made, as we stated, some humbling remarks on literature as a profession, and made them in such a way as to imply regret that he had pursued it. This has drawn upon him the censure of some of his brethreu, who, standing up for the dignity of " our order," have freely suggested that the error might lie in the complainant, and not in his profession. Now, it appears to us that here, as in many other disputes, there is some truth on both sides. That literature and literati receive the support which is their due few will maintain; while that William Jerdan was not a very prudent or provident man the readers of this volume must admit. In fact, he confesses some faults, and appears conscious of others, as he exclaims "O! would some power the giftie gie us, It would frae mony a blunder free us, After Mr. Jerdan has rebuked his rebukers, he favours us with a further history of his connexion with the Sun, which terminates in a long account of anything but a creditable quarrel between himself and his partner, and which was wound up by serious litigation and loss. As we read the sickening details we could not but feel that the practice of a few elementary lessons on friendship and forgiveness would have prevented all this. In 1817 Jerdan, having left the Sun, became editor of the Literary Gazette, and connected with Messrs. Pinnock and Maunder, two of the world-wide names of literature. He presents his readers with some notices of his contributors, and many short extracts from their writings. appears that Barry Cornwall made his debut in the Literary Gazette for 1818; and we find the following beautiful lines among his earlier pieces: It "Gone from her cheek is the summer bloom, And her breath hath lost its faint perfume, And the gloss hath dropt from her golden hair, And her forehead is pale, though no longer fair. "And the spirit that sate on her soft blue eye Is struck with cold mortality; And the smile that played on her lip hath fled, And every grace hath now left the dead. "Like slaves they obeyed her in the height of "'Tis Woman alone, with a firmer heart, Under Jerdan the Literary Gazette appears to have increased in circulation; but this was probably as much owing to the efforts of the contributors as those of the editor himself. Strange as this opinion may seem, it naturally arises from noticing the names and reputation of many of the former, and the evident carelessness of the latter. If a man can allow himself to be indifferent to the literary execution of a work like the present, he would not be more attentive to one of a less permanent character. Let not this judgment be deemed harsh, for in it we give our author credit for ability where it has not been displayed, and attributed that to carelessness which might have been put down to a want of discernment. The following extracts we hesitate not to append, in order to illustrate our meaning, and afford a suggestive lesson to our "neophyte" writers. Speaking of the editor of the Standard, he says:-"His son, Dr. Giffard, is now one of the ablest political writers of the age; and, educated under such a father, it is not surprising that he should be as zealous as he is powerful; as is testified by the Standard newspaper, and everywhere else where his pen is wielded." Referring to duelling he remarks:-" Party spirit rages, as it too generally does, in Dublin at this time, and was ATTENDED by CONSTANT duels, in superseding which there is undoubtedly some improvement." Of Mr. Chalmers he bears this testimony:"He had a thorough enjoyment of the good things of social life, to which his conversation contributed the appendages of pleasurable intelligence and instruction." The exiled Princess of Condé, his "proximate neighbour" at Little Chelsea, is the inelegant subject of the following laughable description: The daughter of the murdered King of France dressed little better than a milkmaid, which rank, indeed, she much resembled in form, and walking about in thick-soled boots." Space warns, or we might have given "a perfect shower of radiant suns which have fallen from our author's "shivering quills," but we prefer bid ding him adieu for the present, and, with a goodtempered smile, leaving him-to use his own figure -"like a peacock, the hero of his own tale" (tail ?). Rhetoric. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE ART OF REASONING." No. XII.-ON STYLE. SATIRE, to be pungent, must contain a considerable amount of truth; hence the causticity of the wit of him who said, Language has three purposes to subserve-1st. To conceal thought; 2nd. To conceal the want of thought; 3rd. To reveal thought. With what a keen eye must he have looked upon and seen through the falsities, the hypocrisies, the corruptions, the shams, of our ordinary social life! How accurately has he perceived the tedious malignity of scandal-mongers-the wordy eloquence of the dull and thoughtless! How cleverly has he peeped behind the veil of politic cozenage, sentimental nothingnesses, and hollow-hearted pretence! But no satirist, however "acerbis facetiis invidere solitus”—accustomed to scoff with bitter jestings-can be true to his vocation without being at once a humourist and a moralist, so that we must look beneath the surface of the words for the moral truth contained in this jeu d'esprit. It appears to us to imply that thinking is the true function of human life-that, as Intellectuality is our highest prerogative and most God-like attribute, its proper use ought also to be our holiest care. This entirely accords with our own opinion. Language should be the exponent not only of what is true, but also of what ought to be so. He who absorbs himself wholly in worldly gratifications-in those delights which belong to him as "the quintessence of dust"-is deaf to "the voice of God," with which the universe resoundsdestitute of a due appreciation of the purest and most ecstatic joys which have been allotted to the tenants of this "nether globe," and guilty of soul-suicide. Man is essentially a being breathing thoughtful breath." Truth is the aliment which his soul desires; and “Truth is thought which has assumed its appropriate garments, whether of words or actions." Truth-search and thought-utterance, these are the great duties of man. The world has endorsed this opinion by crowning with "blessings and eternal praise" the thinking members of the human race, whether their thinkings have resulted in the immortalization of marble, by imparting to it the visible presence of beautyupbuilding the quarried rock into architectural sublimity-touching “the kindling canvas into life"-tracing the orbit-path of distance-hidden stars-performing the various chemical manipulations-the achievement of patriot deeds-adding to the comforts and conveniences of existence-making "the glittering arrows of the Almighty the medium between soul and soul hundreds of miles apart"—or revealing, in "the sweet music of words," all that transpires in the "fairy-land of thought." To think is an eternal necessity of the mind; express the conceptions which pass within us is an irrepressible desire. That which must be done we ought to endeavour to do well. Hence arises at once the need and the use of our instructions in Style. We grant you that in giving these we have been dull to * and prosaic; but not more so, we hope, than the necessities of the case warrant; for, as Father Malebranche remarks, "it is impossible in all discourses to move the senses and imaginations of others; nor ought it always to be done. Writers of comedies and romances are obliged to please, and so procure attention; but for us it is sufficient if we can instruct even those that labour to make themselves attentive."* But to our task, with cheerfulness and care. IV. STRENGTH.-Strength is the power of moving others at will. In enabling us to move, excite, and persuade men, words are peculiarly efficacious. Perspicuity, Conciseness, and Unity, are all elements in Strength, which latter supposes language to be animated with an earnest and intensified purpose, and to be so selected and disposed that the end in view may be efficiently wrought out. Strength, then, is that quality of Style which presents our ideas with the greatest possible force to the minds of those whom we wish to move. Upon the selection and arrangement of words the Strength of a sentence depends. "If words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. The first is the sound; the second is the picture or representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is the affection of soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing." When all these three effects are produced, language has done its utmost. How these may be produced is the problem before us. The senses are the primary sources from which knowledge is derived, and hence the opening mind can only be intellectualized by being led to see Truth through a sensuous medium. The real is much more easily apprehended than the ideal. In the choice of words, therefore, those which are most specific and most clearly expressive of circumstantialities ought to be preferred to those which are abstract and general. "The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, it is the brighter." It is only by a judicious selection of what may be called picturesque words-words which place ideas before the mind with a vivid embodiment, an appearance of circumstantial actuality—that a strong impression can be made. "To make words paint, as if with brush and canvas, is a very high effort of literary art." 'Picturesque language," says Emerson, "is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it is in alliance with Truth and God." Specificality of terms renders tortuous circumlocution unnecessary, vapid redundancy impossible, and ambiguity of phrase unachievable if attempted. Terseness, brevity, and clearness are needful, if we desire forcefully to impress, mightily to move, or earnestly to urge on the human mind. The flatulent, the flippant, the frothy, the bombastic, do not move-to anything but laughter and contempt. Direct, straightforward, and sustained, must be the force which is intended to persuade to thought or action. Vagueness, generality, feebleness, and obscurity, are all adverse to this. Every phrase and figure employed must be so chosen and so disposed as to impress the mind strongly, and set the ideas before it clearly and completely. Precision of terms and brevity of expression, in opposition to whatever is ambiguous or superfluous; effective disposition and impressive arrangement, in opposition to nerveless and languid carelessness, is what must form the main object of study to him who would express his ideas strongly, or impress his hearers or readers vividly. Some 46 "Recherche de la Verité," liv. iii. cap. i. + Burke, "On the Sublime and Beautiful," part v. sect. iv. observations regarding "what to aim at and what to avoid" we subjoin, in order to give form and precision to these otherwise disjointed remarks:- 1st. Be concise. Eschew verbosity: concentration of force is always advisable. Strength is employed in the empire of mind for the same purposes as force in the realms of matter1, to counteract opposing force or forces, and thereby to produce equilibrium; 2, to overcome inertion, and produce motion. The more directly, therefore, the force is brought to bear upon the right point, the better. Mere epithets, and the profuse relation of unnecessary circumstances, are condemned by this rule. 2nd. Place the more important words in such situations as shall ensure the greatest. attention. It is a principle of the human mind that the most vivid part of any thoughtthat which most strongly affects the speaker, or occupies the greatest prominence in his mind-demands utterance first; hence great attention may be secured for an important word or clause by placing it at the beginning of a sentence; e. g., "Great is the Lord, and of great power."-"They sank, as lead, in the mighty waters." But if it be desirable to detain the mind, to sustain the attention, and pique curiosity, it is advisable to place the important word or clause at the end of the sentence; e. g., "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”—“ I confess it sometimes makes me shudder to see a young rake clasp his arms round the waist of a pure and innocent girl.”* 3rd. So arrange the various clauses of sentences that they may appear in the order of their relative importance; i. e., let them rise in a climax. No weaker assertion should succeed a stronger one as corroborative of it, for the natural properties of speech in general require that the proof adduced should be stronger than the thing sought to be proven by it. It is bad policy to put out all one's strength at the onset; the force which increases in power as it is exerted is more valuable than that which becomes weaker by expenditure. 4th. Employ specific words, when suitable, in preference to general or abstract ones. If a whole class of sensible objects can be described by an individual member of it; if an intellectual subject can be illustrated by a reference to sensible objects, or an abstract idea made more readily intelligible by an analogy between it and any perceptible quality in objects; a more striking impression is made upon the mind than if we neglected these means of definitely representing our thoughts to the mind; e. g.: "O'er many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous; O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death A universe of death." 5th. When resemblance or contrast of ideas requires expression, a similar or contrary mode of construction should, in general, be employed; an equal number of correlative words, appropriately adjectivized, should be used in each of the antithetical clauses, and these ought, as nearly as possible, to be of equal length. This antithetical uniformity will be found beautifully exemplified in Johnson's comparison between Dryden and Pope, as well as in the following sentences, viz.: * Longfellow's "Hyperion." "Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue."-Bacon's Essay," Of Adversity." "The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor will they utter the other. Children sweeten labour, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death."-Bacon's "Of Parents an! Children." 6th. Never, if able to avoid it, terminate a sentence with an undignified word or phrase; e. g., "That is a matter I shall require to think of." 7th. Let your thoughts be closely knit together, and never introduce expletives or intervening clauses, unless when absolutely necessary to strengthen the desired impression. See that you be not of those to whom Swift says— "Epithets you link, In gaping lines, to fill a chink, Like stepping-stones, to save a stride, A cripple with one foot too short." V. VIVACITY.—Vivacity is the result of a combination of many excellences, such as novelty, uncommonness, contrast to common-place, geniality, heartiness, and sprightly fluency of language. These give a smack to composition which makes the reader relish and admire it. Novelty is always delightful to man's fickle and changeable humour; the strange, or that which lies beyond our own experience, excites and attracts attention; anything opposed to the routine or habitual use and wont of ordinary life awakes the thought-powers of man. The manifestation of warm, loving, sympathetic feelings, largeheartedness, genuine philanthropy, and racy good nature, as they excite similar feelings within us, please and gratify our nature. Anything that strongly affects the human susceptibilities, and stirs unitedly the affections and the intellect, adds to the vivacity of Style, because it originates an intensified power of apperception in the reader or hearer. Thoughts are thus introduced at once to different faculties of the intellect, and when their interest is simultaneously gained, the capacities of idea-reception are increased. An easy, animated, flowing, figurative, and refined colloquiality tends much to the production of a vivacious Style. Of course, we mean that the Style should be adapted to the thoughts to be expressed, and do not at all wish to be understood as advising an affecte·l familiarity and jocularity of expression on unsuitable occasions; we merely recommend the acquisition of that humanity of spirit which, expanded by love to all, and glowing with tenderness towards all, imparts a healthy heartiness and genuine cheerfulness to every effort which we make to inform or reform others. We have already more than once asserted that Thought and Style are twin-children of the Intellect; and all we can pretend to do here is to recommend a few directions for rearing them healthily, and enabling them to get over the diseases incident to the immaturity of infancy and youth. Vivacity of Style, therefore, will chiefly result from the inner nature of a man. If he feels as well as thinks-is emotive as well as intellectual-his Style must be vivacious and striking. There will be a loving sort of enthusiasm interblended with his greatest thoughts, and common-place will not befog his compositions; but a gratifying earnestness, a sympathetic kindliness, a kind of continual good-humouredness, will suffuse all that he does or says. |