The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-04
DE OuiuceV.

Not writer of recent times is oftener
read by men Of letters who seek to rise above
the laxities of ephemeral workmanship; not
a writer in the language is more worthy Of
devout scrutiny by him who would master
the resources of that rhetoric which can be
acquired by study. Gifted with brilliant
powers as a thinker, and more variously
learned than any literary artist Of his
time, De Quincy was disproportionately
endowed with the faculty Of expression.
Even in the narrow world of the nursery,
with no other audience than the wayward
brother who smote him with ave. and the
young sister to whom his passionate rhetoric
has given an immortality in literature, the
dreamy boy found language an instrument of
miraculous power. Afterwards he studied
all its rhetorical resources with keener
eye for the devices by which its riches might
be unveiled, than any other student of whom
our literary annals present token. Hence,
if his frequent seasons of literary debility
permitted him to be criminally feeble and
trivial, he has left passages which, in struc-
tural perfection of sentence, in command
over all the resources of the English tongue,
in a marriage of rhythmical and impassioned
music with a logical accuracy of thought and
Greek-hke propriety of phrase, can scarcely
be exSelled in the literature of England.
At his best, De Quincy has no superior as o
stylst. His rhetoric is separated from
that of Macaulay by all the distance which
cuts off the mechanically regular patterns
of the old silk fabrics from those which now
glow with the form of flower and living thing.
And it is the comparatively defective charac-
ter of De Quincey's mind that has contributed
to make him pre-eminent as rhetorician,
and to give him first place among the
teachers of expression. Since the richness
and fertility of his thought do not equal the
richness and fertility of his language, the
style seems to stand out from the page like q
bas-relief, and to claim study for its own
sake. 1t presents the student with palpable
models. 1t challenges dissection, and seems
to submit itself to the dissecting knife 1t
reveals the artist in the act of working, osten-
tatiously proud of his Skill and inviting o
crowd of gazing eyes.
Unlike Opie, De Quincy would not say
that he mixed his colors with ''brains," but
could tell the exact components of each tint
Unlike those painters who can give no reason
why they work in a particular fashion, and
who lay tint on tint at the mandate of mys-
terious instinct, De Quincy could offer q
philosophical reason for the choice of each
word, for the architectural structure of each
clause. He was guided by the dictate of the
conscious analytical faculty. Even in his
highest flights he was ever rhetorician. Even
ments worn by the ''Three Ladies of Sorrow, "
he did not rise above the tyranny of rheto-
rical rules; be did not emancipate himself
from the rigidity of the schools; nor could he
free the readers mind from the idea that the
rhetoric was indebted for share of it's pas
sion and its beauty to the touch of some
mechanism which, although wonderful and
mysterious in its power, was mechanism still.
Hence, De Quincy forever dwells in the
second hierarchy of letters. But, we repeat,
he is for that very reason more potent
master of what is technically called Style
than writers of more ethereal genius, and @
better teacher of rhetoric even than the
masters of literature themselves. That il
the reason why his name is oftener cited il
the literary schools than the names of loftiel
intellects. ....,
On the other hand, by that great reading
public which is but imperfectly acquainted
with the technical merits of literary art, ant
has but feeble interest in artistic methods
De Quincy is read with less enthusiasm. Ii
this respect he may be classed with Landor
Landor's prose, it is true, lacked some of th'
qualities which lend to that of De Quincy it
potency of charm. 1t has neither his variet,
and richness of hue, nor his power of falling
into o conversational ease, or of rising into
Miltonic rapture. But it has terseness, point
and polish beyond any other prose in the Ian
guage. If not exempt from the artificial ali
which clings to all academic styles, it is a
least an academic style of the highest rank
Had England such an Academy as that o
France, it is the style of the Imaginary Con
versations' that would be singled out for tn,
highest eulogy. 1t is, indeed, the only Eng
| lish which we can place into competition witt
| the French of Paul Louis Courier. With al
their faults, Landor and De Quincy are tn
| most perfect prose writer's Of moderi
| England.