have never left hold since, being much stimulated by the regular and professional study of the remarks of Aristotle,1 Quintilian, and others on prose rhythm in their respective languages. A further stimulus was also administered, perhaps a decade later, by that remark of Dr. Lawrence's to which I draw fuller attention elsewhere. But the causes which prevented me from undertaking other things—see Prefaces to the Histories of Criticism and of English Prosody -and then these things themselves, kept it back, not to mention that, for some time, there was a chance of the subject being taken up by a friend of excellent competence. He, however, dropped it,3 not, I believe, being able to arrive at conclusions sufficiently definite to satisfy him; and on finding that he had finally given up the notion, I threw out the hint above referred to. It now remains to be seen whether I shall be able to make something of the matter. The attempt, if made, may not be quite useless, and in making it I shall certainly be able also to administer divers delectable draughts of example. The expense of my own time and trouble at least has not been grudged; though the amount of both demanded by the task cannot easily be overrated.

There is hardly more than one point of fact on which I may say a further prefatory word. Although I have no fault to find with the reception accorded to the Histories above mentioned-though I have rather to acknowledge a most generous welcome-it appeared to me, in both cases, that a somewhat extravagant, not to say erroneous, meaning was attached, by some readers, to the word "History." They appeared to demand, not only a complete account of the Tɩ, but an exhaustive examination of the Siori.

1 I had not "taken up" the Rhetoric or the Poetics at Oxford, because there was in my time an idea, encouraged by some tutors, that neither was, as a book, bien vu in certain high quarters. 2 V. inf. p. 10.

3 Not wholly (v. inf. p. 464 note), but as the subject of a complete history or treatise.

Now, on the possibility, and still more on the use, of this latter, in regard to the majority of subjects, I am something of a sceptic; and even when I acknowledge the felicity of knowing the causes of things, I think it well to know the things themselves first. I do not, however, intend to neglect theory altogether, and some generalising suggestions will be found in the Interchapters which summarise the successive Periods, as well as in the Conclusion, and especially in Appendix III. But I wish chiefly to bring out the facts of this interesting and much neglected matter; and to indicate the additional delectation which attends the study of them. To sport with Amaryllis (if Amaryllis be poetry) may be best; but there remains a Neæra in prose, and the tangles of her hair are not to be despised by the sportsman-lover.

1

As I approach, contemplating it still from whatever distance, the end of these studies of metre and rhythm which I may never reach, that sense of the "unending endless quest," which I suppose all but very self-satisfied and self-sufficient persons feel, impresses itself more and more upon me. An, I suppose, youthful reviewer of some different but kindred work of mine not very long ago, reproached me with ignorance or neglect of the fact that he and his generation had quite given up positive deliverances in criticism. They regarded it (I think he said) as hopeless and wrong to "pin" something or other "to the rainbow beauty of what was really a miracle of incrustation." The proceeding appeared to me to be difficult, if not impossible, and the phrase to be really a miracle of galimatias. But, as a fact, I hope that almost all who have read me will acquit me of the impudence or the folly of thinking that I could say even an interim last word on the secrets of rhythmical charm, whether in the

1 The last words of Longfellow's proem to Ultima Thule, his last published work.

slightly more tangible form of verse, or the far more intangible one of prose. Here, as everywhere, and almost more than anywhere, beauty incipit in mysterio as well as exit in mysterium. Here, and almost more also, it is as when you see a face and say to it with Browning—

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?

and decide that, if improvement is impossible, the interpretation of the actual charm is equally so. You can get some way towards the secret. The spring of the wing of the nostril; the plunge into the clear pool of the eyes, with its impenetrable background of agate or lapis lazuli, of chrysoprase or avanturine; the sweep of the cheekedge from ear to chin; the straight descent, or curved and recurved wave, of the profile; the azure net-work of the closed eyelids; "the fringed curtains" at their juncture; the infinite intricacies of the mouth and hair,—ask yourself about any one of these, and you cannot tell why it is beautiful, why the combination of the whole makes a beautiful face. But you can, to some extent, fix for yourself the character of those parts and the composition of that whole, and, so far at least, you are ahead of the mere gaper who stares and "likes grossly."

So it is with literature. You can never get at the final entelechy which differentiates Shelley and Shakespeare from the average versifier, Cluvienus and myself from Pater or from Browne. But you can attend to the feature-composition of the beautiful face, to the quality of the beautiful features, in each of these masters, and so you can dignify and intensify your appreciation of them. That this is best to be done in prose, as in verse, by the application of the foot-system-that is to say, by studying the combinations of the two great sound-qualities which, for my part, I call, as my fathers called them from the beginning, "long" and " short," but which you may call

anything you like, so long as you observe the difference and respect the grouping-I may almost say I know; having observed the utter practical failure of all other systems in verse, and the absence even of any attempt to apply any other to prose.

With this I may leave the present essay to its chances; only repeating my acquaintance with two quotations which I made thirty-six years ago when touching, for the first time, the subject of Prose Style generally. One was Nicholas Breton's warning to somebody "not to talk too much of it, having so little of it," and the other, Diderot's epigram on Beccaria's ouvrage sur le style où il n'y a point de style. These are, of course, “palpable hits enough. But you may criticise without being able to create, and you may love beauty, and to the possible extent understand it, without being beautiful.1

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

THE ATHENÆUM, June 15, 1912.

1 It ought not to be necessary, but perhaps is desirable, to emphasise the fact that this attempts only to be a History of English Prose Rhythm, illustrated by examples from writers greater and lesser-not a History of English Prose Style generally. And of these examples I have (with the kind permission of the publishers and the editor) chosen as many as I could from Sir Henry Craik's English Prose Selections (5 vols., London, 1890-96), where the reader will often find useful contexts, many other illustrations, and, as it were, a Chrestomathy to this History. But I have, of course, not confined myself to this even in the later part; while I have constantly re-read books, and some whole authors, to "freshen the atmosphere," and make sure that my examples were exemplary. The passages chosen from Old and Middle English owe nothing to any previous collection, though some of them may necessarily have appeared in one or another. I must apologise for any errors left in footdivision and quantification-things extremely difficult to get right, especially with eyes as weak as mine. In this, and in matters generally ranked as more important, I owe, yet once more, infinite thanks to my old helpers, Professors Ker, Elton, and Gregory Smith.