at the present time the style of the author of "Sartor Resartus.". Mr. Carlyle being thus removed, there can be little question who must take the foremost place in a discussion as to the merits and demerits of modern English prose style. And yet, audacious or paradoxical as the assertion may seem, it is at least doubtful whether in strictness we can assign to Mr. Ruskin a position in the very highest rank of writers if we are to adopt style as a criterion. The objection to his manner of writing is an obvious one, and one which he might very likely take as a compliment: it is too spontaneous in the first place, and too entirely subordinate to the subject in the second. I hope that it may be very clearly understood that I can see passages in "Modern Painters" and in the "Stones of Venice" (for I must be permitted to neglect the legions of little books with parody-provoking titles which have appeared in the last three lustres) which, for splendour of imaginative effect, for appropriateness of diction, for novelty and grandeur of conception, stand beyond all chance of successful rivalry, almost beyond all hope of decent parallel among the writings of ancient and modern masters. But in every case this marvellous effect will, when carefully examined, be found to depend on something wholly or partially extrinsic to the style. Mr. Ruskin writes beautifully because he thinks beautifully, because his thoughts spring, like Pallas, ready armed, and the fashion of the armour costs him nothing. Everybody has heard of the unlucky critic whose comment on Scott's fertility was that "the invention was not to be counted, for that came to him of its own accord." So it is with Mr. Ruskin. His beauties of style "come to him of their own accord," and then he writes as the very gods might dream of writing. But in the moments when he is off the tripod, or is upon some casual and un-Delphic tripod of his own construction or selection, how is his style altered! The strange touches of unforeseen colour became splashed and gaudy, the sonorous roll of the prophetic sentence-paragraphs drags and wriggles like a wounded snake, the cunning interweaving of scriptural or poetic phrase is patched and seamy. A Balaam on the Lord's side, he cannot curse or bless but as it is revealed to him, whereas the possessor of a great style can use it at will. He can shine on the just and on the unjust; can clothe his argument for tyranny or for liberty, for virtue or for vice, with the same splendour of diction, and the same unperturbed perfection of manner; can convince us, carry us with him, or leave us unconvinced but admiring, with the same unquestioned supremacy and the same unruffled calm. Swift can write a jeu d'esprit and a libel on the human race, a political pamphlet and a personal lampoon, with the same felicity and the same vigour. Berkeley can present tar-water and the Trinity, the theory of vision and the follies of contemporary free-thinking, with the same perfect lucidity and the same colourless fairness. But with Mr. Ruskin all depends on the subject, and the manner in which the subject is to be treated. He cannot even blame as he can praise; and there must be many who are ready to accept everything he can say of Tintoret or of Turner, and who feel no call to object to any of his strictures on Canaletto or on Claude, who yet perceive painfully the difference of style in the panegyrist and the detractor, and who would demand the stricter if less obvious justice, and the more artistic if apparently perverted sensitiveness, of the thorough master of style.
But if we have to quarrel with Mr. Ruskin because he has not sufficient command of the unquestioned beauties of his style, because he is not, in Carew's words: —
A king who rules as he thinks fit
The universal monarchy of wit,
but is rather a slave to his own thoughts and fancies, a very opposite fault must be found with the next writer who falls to be mentioned. "We do not," says an author with whom I am surprised to find myself in even partial and temporary agreement; "we do not get angry so much with what Mr. Matthew Arnold says as with his insufferable manner of saying it." In other words, there is no fear of omitting to notice a deliberate command and peculiarity of manner in Mr. Arnold, whether that manner be considered "insufferable" or no. For myself I must confess, that though I have very rarely felt the least inclination to get angry with anything which the author of "Culture and Anarchy" may have chosen to say, and though I have in common with all the youth of Zion an immense debt to acknowledge to his vindication of our faith and freedom from the chains of Philistia, yet I could very frequently find it in my heart to wish that Mr. Arnold had chosen any other style than that which appears to afford him such extreme delight. Irony is an admirable thing, but it must be grave and not grimacing. Innocence is an admirable thing,
