The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-02 00:00:00

Blackwood.

The opening article in this number, on " The New
Exhibition," admits the ugliness of the building,
but at the same time gives Captain Fowke credit
for baying constructed it " solidly convenient and
serviceable, not to be surpassed for light, space,
and means of internal access." This, considering
the short time allowed for its erection, is as much
as could be expected. It is something at least for
a building to fulfil the purpose intended, and we
wish we could say as much for a few others in the
metropolis. The journal of Mrs. Petherick, who
is "accompanying her husband in his arduous
attempt to penetrate to the sources of the Nile," is
pleasantly written and interesting. " Caxtoniana"
also is good. The writer thus speaks of
RHYTHM IN PROSE,
In metaphysical works, the writers most conspicuous for
harmony of style are those in whom the meaning is most
clear from misconception. Thus Hume, the subtlest of ail
our metaphy-icians, is the one whose theories have been the
least obscure to his commentators or disciples; for his
theories themselves led him to consult, in " every combi-
nation of syllables or letters," that euphony which, by
pleasing the ear (or, through sympathy, the eye that "runs
over the book"), allures the attention of the mind, and,
while it increases the lucidity of the author by the delibera-
tion with which he selects his expressions, quickens the in-
telligence of the reader by the charm that lightens the
fatigue of its tension; whereas the meaning of Locke is
often made needlessly difficult by the ruggedness of his
style, and many of the erroneous deductions which his fol-
lowers have drawn from his system may be traced to the
want of that verbal precision which a due culture of euphony
seldom fails to bestow.
Much has been said, with justice, against the peculiar
modes of euphony elaborated by Johnson and Gibbon ; too
pompous and grandiose; too rempte for our homely verna-
cular : granted. But that does not prove the care for
euphony to be a fault; it only proves that the modes of
euphony favoured by those illustrious writers were too per-
ceptibly artificial to be purely artistic. Yet no critic can
say that Johnson and Gibbon are obscure ; their meaning
is -much plainer than that of many a writer who pre-
fers a colloquial diction. Not only in spite of the fault, but
because of the fault, we impute to their styles, Johnson and
Gibbon are—Johnson and Gibbon. And if you re-formed
their rhythm to simpler moeulations, accordant to your
own critical canons, they would no more be Johnson and
Gibbon, than Pope and Gray would be Pope and Gray if
you recoil, trusted the " Essay on Man,' on the theories of
Wordsworth ; or, by the ruthless excision of redundant
epithets, sought, with Goldsmith, to improve the dirge of
the " Elegy" into the jig of a ballad.
It is not, then, that rhythm should be cultivated only for
the sake of embellishment, but also for the sake of perspi-
cuity ; the culture of rhythm In prose defeats its own oh
ject, and results in obscurity, if it seek to conceal poverty of
thought by verbal decorations. Its uses, on the contrary,
are designed for severe thinkers, though its charm may be
insensibly felt the most ordinary reader,—its uses are based
on the common-sense principle, that the more the mind is
compelled to linger on the thought, the more the thought
itself is likely to emerge, clear and distinct, in the words
which it ultimately selects ; so metals, opaque in the mass,
are made translucent by the process of solution.
Although " Six Weeks in a Tower" is suggestive
of durance vile, it means in this case not so much
imprisonment as that and transportation combined.
China is the scene of the writer's suffering. The
following describes his place of abode :