the highest kind of graceful poetry. By such a want the general result is injured; but no particular word or line can be made responsible for the fault. Perhaps the following passage, without being extremely faulty, is not free from this fault : But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube COWPER. 54. The Forcible Style is well exemplified by the Elizabethan dramatists. No words are rejected by them that express the meaning with clearness and force :— (a) Covering discretion with a coat of folly, Henry V. (b) Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow Ib. (c) Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host, Ib. In this last passage, ungraceful and offensive words are studiously selected as appropriate for the boaster who exults in the prospect of a victory over a dejected enemy. Many passages of Pope furnish examples of this style : Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt that stinks and sings: In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 55. Dangers of the Forcible Style: Coarseness. - This passage from Pope points out the danger of coarseness to which the forcible style is peculiarly liable. The first two lines are so unpleasant that they can scarcely be tolerated even in satire. Many passages in which force has degenerated into coarseness might also be quoted from Shakspeare's plays: And then the hearts Of all his people shall revolt from him, King John. But it is very difficult to say how far the coarseness is intentional, meant to express the natural disposition, or the intense passion of the speaker, and not at all characteristic of the dramatist. Thus it would be wrong to criticise the language when the ecstasy of a mother's grief makes Constance cry, Death! death! O amiable lovely death, And I will kiss thy detestable bones, And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows, Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest, And buss thee as thy wife. King John, iii. 4. 25–35. And perhaps a similar explanation may justify the following address of the Queen to Richard II.:— Thou mass of honor, thou King Richard's tomb, Yet the following passage, justifiable itself, shows the possibility of erring in the direction of coarseness: Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food, With worms that are thy chambermaids. And again in the following: Romeo and Juliet. First the fair reverence of your highness curbs me Richard II. With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat. Ere my tongue Shall wound my honor with such feeble using, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbor, even in Mowbray's face, Richard II. the expressions are most appropriate for two furious combatants, one or both conscious of guilt; but in themselves they are exaggerated as well as unpleasing, and exceed the usual limit of the forcible style. The forcible and graceful style are combined in the songs of the Elizabethan dramatists, and the Elizabethan poetry generally. Shakspeare's sonnets, although always forcible, and often using the most familiar words and images, are for the most part graceful also: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. Sonnet 70. The occasional violence and coarseness of the forcible style led to a reaction in favor of urbanity. This finally degenerated into the conventional style common in the eighteenth century, and described above. But the gulf between the forcible and conventional is bridged by Dryden, who in a most happy manner combines grace and force : ་་ When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat: Yet fool'd with hope men favor the deceit, Lies worse; and when it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed. That fools us young, and beggars us when old. 56. The Want of Force, like the want of grace, is not a fault that can often be localized in any particular words or expressions. Tameness or weakness arises from a general inability to use language rightly, and often from the ignorance of the exact meanings and distinctions of words, and hence a preference for the vaguest words, as most likely to cover ignorance. Sententious tameness is exemplified by the following parody of Crabbe: John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Rejected Addresses. In the poetry of Crabbe himself the following lines are Something had happen'd wrong about a bill Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill; So, to amend it, I was told to go And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co. 57. The Simple Style is common in ballads. It is used in narrative, where the story is the principal consideration, and the words require to be especially clear and simple. Most |