The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-01-31
ENGLISH PROSE.

ENGLISH PROSE.
 The London ANesossr. in a review of MT. Ernest Myers "Selected Prose Writings of John Milton,n says:
 Milton's real place as an English prose writer hss never, perhaps, been clearly fixed and has never been thor. oughiy appreciated. If this is owing in some measure to the subjects upon which he wrote and in some measure also to the undeniable vices of his general style. it is owing in a larger measure still to the influence of eighteenth century fash ions upon the prose methods of our day. We have before had occasion to remark upon the impossibility of such prose as
 Hookers and Jeremy Taylor's being ac- cepted in time so elegant and SO self contained as ours aspires to be, and we have attributed the fact to the culture of modern journalism, which tends to foster refined and lofty cynicism rather than that enthusiasm which inspired the old writers. What we then said applies still more forcibly to the prose of Milton, who is not oaly more enthusiastic and ad- dicted to vulgar emphasis than we'll bred writer should be, but is given to actual scolding at times. Consequently not all their splendid energy and nc. si! Macaulay's energetic praise of that energy have made Milton's glowing periods tolerable to an age educated by leading articles. MT. Myers seems to think that the short life of prose such as this is inevitable, and in the nature of things. Prose methods, he thinks, do not and cannot partake of the perma- nency of poetic methods they are neces- sarily ephemeral. "Small, indeed, ," says he, is the residue of prose from any pen that can be fully enjoyed two cen. turies, or even one, after it is written" But what about the prose of Plato? And what about the prose of the English bible With regard to English prose, the truth seems to be that since the birth of elegance in the eighteenth century the very qualities which were sought by such writers as Raleigh, Hooker, Hall, Fay Tor, Milton-enthusiasm, greatness of heart, poetic giow-have come to be considered the virtues of prose no longer, but its vices. And it is remarkable that although the elegance that stified Eng fish enthusiasm in the eighteenth century came from France, enthusiasm after the revolution revived in France, but has never revived here. Timidity nov, as in the time of the Spectator, is the charac- teristic quality of the better sort of Eng fish prose, while the dull, dead hatness of the ordinary prose of our day (save that of one or two famous writers) is the standing wonder of the countrymen of Victor Hugo. It all comes from being too genteel. Perhaps this decay of en- thusiasm among us affects other matters than our prose style-perhaps it is a more serious portent than at first ap- pears. Much has been said, and we'll said, about the coarseness of contem- porary French literature; but if we con- sider that what gives vitality to any so- ciety is enthusiasm, and what gives rot tenness to it is not coarseness of man. ners, but cynicism, the literature of France, coarse as it often is, may be fruitful ot instruction to the elegant Eng ish critic. Yet enthusiasm may un- doubtedly wax too high for prose, as Milton's work abundantly shows. Light and shade are almost more important in prose than even in poetry; for while poetry, owing to its higher pitch, may lack light and shade, and yet retain it's sincerity, or at least its apparent sincerity, prose seems to require light and shade in order that it should be accepted as a sincere expression of the writer's soul. It is not the first-rate prosewriter who, to be tall, must be continually em- phatic. Milton in the periodic style and Hugo in the style coupe are much too for a world which, though it may be taken seriously, was found by the eighteenth century to be, primarily. an elegant joke. Lack of variety, indeed, is the great defect of Miton's prose. In it there is always that stress of emphasis which writer like Plato, for instance, can achieve when he likes and dispense with when he likes. Far above emphatic writing, even of the highest order, are the description of the chariot of the soul, the description of the island of Atlantis, or of Frs visit to the place of departed souls, and this is because throughout the pas sages in question there is that light and shade which one longs for in reading Milton.
 It is in rhythm, however, that Milton's prose is so fine. Here he ranks with the greatest masters, and in the best pas sages of the " Areopagitica and the ' Reason of Church Government" the rhythm, bold as it is, is the true prose rhythm, not the rhythm of bastard met neal movement. !c this connection. is- deed, Milton's prose may be very pro6ta- ply studied. For it must always be re- nembered that the rhythm of prose is as hne at its best as the rhythm of verse, 'hough they are unlike each other, though hey are actually the opposites of each other.
 Do You Know q Man
 Whose wife is troubled with debility. liver complaint or rheuma- ism2 Just tell him il is pity to let the ady suffer that way, when Brown's Iroa 8itters will relieve her. MrS [. B. sdgeriy, Dexter. Me, says, Browns ron Bitters cured me of debility and nal