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THE JOHNSONIAN STYLE.

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for words are but the images of matter; and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture."

Writings in which long and sonorous terms abound. are sometimes said to be in the "Johnsonian style," from the character of the productions of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., the author of a "Dictionary of the English Language," whose vocabulary was extensive, and effectively employed. The following sentence illustrates his style:

"That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventitious, and, therefore, easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they can not give, raises no astonishment; but it seems rational to hope that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds qualified for great attainments should first endeavor to secure their own benefit; and that they who are most able to teach others the way to happiness should, with most certainty, follow it themselves."

Lord Macaulay, criticising Johnson's style, says: "When he talked, he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious. All his books are written in a learned language-in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse-in a language in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love-in a language in which nobody ever thinks. It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. ***

"His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite; his antithetical forms of expression

constantly employed even where there is no apposi tion in the things expressed; his big words wasted on little things; his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers—all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants till the public has become sick of the subject."*

His definition of "net-work" in his dictionary illustrates this style as follows: "Any thing reticulated or decussated with interstices at equal distances between the intersections."

18. When the Johnsonian Style is allowable.—When the thought is valuable and impressive, the use of ponderous and majestic words is eminently appropriate. The advantages of learning are now so widely disseminated that a much larger proportion of the public appreciate such language. Certain minute

shades of thought may be expressed by it alone, and there are occasions when good taste pronounces it appropriate and indispensable. Therefore all scholars should obtain a mastery over it.

19. A Variety in this Matter to be cultivated.-The best writers employ a great variety of words, not confining themselves to the Anglo-Saxon or to the Latinized style. Much depends upon the nature of the subject, the character of the audience addressed, and the purpose of the author, whether to instruct, convince, or amuse. The most forcible expressions in

* Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings: article, "Boswell's Life of Johnson."

RACY AND IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS.

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the language are short and direct; longer words are often more harmonious and elegant.

Upon the propriety of using words derived from the Latin and Greek, a great difference of opinion is entertained. A modern writer of some notoriety has said:

"Our great scholars have corrupted the English language by a jargon so uncouth that a plain man can hardly discern the real lack of ideas which their barbarous and mottled dialect strives to hide. *** There can be but little doubt that the principal reason why well-educated women write and converse in a purer style than well-educated men is because they have not formed their taste according to those ancient classical standards, which, admirable as they are in themselves, should never be introduced into a state of society unfitted for them. To this may be added that Cobbett, the most racy and idiomatic of all our writers, Erskine, by far the greatest of our forensic orators, knew little or nothing of any ancient language, and the same observation applies to Shakspeare."*

The style of Erskine was also complimented by the famous orator, Rufus Choate, who in conversation said: "Erskine got along not by wide scope and reach of rich allusion and thought, but by a beautiful voice, emotional temperament, and the richest English, taken from Shakspeare and Milton."+

The following extract from a speech of Lord Ers*History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas Buckle (London, 1857, vol. i. p. 744).

+ Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, the great American Advocate, By Edward G. Parker (Boston, 1860, p. 263).

kine is a good specimen of his style, and shows that he was not by any means limited to common and colloquial terms:

"Gentlemen, I can not conclude without expressing the deepest regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion by authors who profess to promote the civil liberties of the world. For under what other auspices than Christianity have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been reasserted? Under what other

sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happiness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? What work of civilization, what commonwealth of greatness has this bald religion of nature ever established ?"

Careful study will show that the compliments upon the style of Erskine are extravagant. His words were few, and not the best chosen, and wider range of study, though he was evidently familiar with Latin, would have much improved both his thoughts and style.

y. Dr. Johnson himself gave perhaps the best defense of his own style that can be given, though in his earnestness he seems to have deviated from it, when he said, "Big thinkers require big words."*

Those who recommend the exclusive employment of either the simpler or the more complex words of our rich English language, both err. The short simple words undoubtedly make the deepest impression, while the longer words contribute to copiousness, elegance, and accuracy. The student should obtain a mastery over both.

Of the Johnsonian style, Dr. Whately says: "It

* See Lord Brougham's Rhetorical Dissertations (London Edi tion, 1856, p. 206).

WHATELY'S CRITICISM OF JOHNSON. 43

happens, unfortunately, that Johnson's style is particularly easy of imitation, even by writers utterly destitute of his vigor of thought; and such imitators are intolerable. They bear the same resemblance to their model that the armor of the Chinese, as described by travellers, consisting of thick quilted cotton covered with stiff glazed paper, does to that of the ancient knights: equally glittering and bulky, but destitute of the temper and firmness which was its sole advantage. At first sight, indeed, this kind of style appears far from easy of attainment, on account of its being remote from the colloquial, and having an elaborately artificial appearance; but in reality there is none less difficult to acquire. To string together substantives connected by conjunctions, which is the characteristic of Johnson's style, is, in fact, the rudest and clumsiest mode of expressing our thoughts: we have only to find names for our ideas, and then put them together by connectives, instead of interweaving, or rather felting them together, by the admixture of verbs, participles, prepositions, etc. So that this way of writing, as contrasted with the other, may be likened to the primitive rude carpentry, in which the materials were united by coarse external implements, pins, nails, and cramps, when compared with that art in its most improved state, after the invention of dove-tail joints, grooves, and mortises, when the junctions are effected by forming properly the extremities of the pieces to be joined, so as at once to consolidate and conceal the juncture."*

Whately's Rhetoric, part iii. chap. ii. § 8.

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