It is quite curious to remark the prevalence of the Cavalier slang style in
the divines of Charles the Second's time. Barrow could not of course adopt
such a mode of writing throughout, because he could not in it have
communicated his elaborate thinkings and lofty rhetoric; but even Barrow
not unfrequently lets slip a phrase here and there in the regular Roger
North way--much to the delight, no doubt, of the largest part of his
audience and contemporary readers. See particularly, for instances of this,
his work on the Pope's supremacy. South is full of it.
The style of Junius is a sort of metre, the law of which is a balance of
thesis and antithesis. When he gets out of this aphorismic metre into a
sentence of five or six lines long, nothing can exceed the slovenliness of
the English. Horne Tooke and a long sentence seem the only two antagonists
that were too much for him. Still the antithesis of Junius is a real
antithesis of images or thought; but the antithesis of Johnson is rarely
more than verbal.
The definition of good prose is--proper words in their proper places;--of
good verse--the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is
in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended
meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in
general, a fault.
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