ESSAYISTS AND ESSAY

THE

WRITING.1

HE essay is comparatively a modern phenomenon in literature. In the present day it is mainly represented in the periodicals, many of the best of the more recent volumes of essays being republications from reviews and magazines. These furnish in many cases the readiest access to the literary profession, and hence many of our men of letters have begun their career with essay-writing. On the immense influence of periodical literature upon the age it is unnecessary to dwell. Suffice it to observe, that, if a writer wishes to produce an impression upon that vast abstraction, the Reading Public, he can now effect it by means of an essay, or series of essays, in cases where formerly he would have been obliged to write a book. The power to

1 For one or two leading thoughts on the ideal of the Essay contained in the following pages, I have to acknowledge my obligations to a paper entitled "Essayists, Old and New," in the North British Review.-E. J. A.

B

produce good essays is, therefore, naturally coveted by most thinking men; and the practice of literary composition is looked upon as an essential element of a liberal education. .

Let us not begin by supposing that success in essay-writing is to be won without labour. Far otherwise. For, doubtless, the more numerous and earnest our efforts, the more definitely we shall come to comprehend the fact that essay-writing is an art, and that as a work of art the essay is certain to be judged, whether consciously or unconsciously, by its critics. The limits which distinguish an essay from a treatise (a distinction pointed out by Lord Bacon), render this an absolutely indispensable condition. The smaller the work, the more perfect it must be; and the flaws which are unheeded in the colossal façade of a Norman cathedral would be unpardonable blemishes in a single piece of sculpture. Diffuseness and digression, however permissible in a larger work, must be resolutely resisted in the essay. An essay which deliberately violates the rules to which it is amenable, whether by incompleteness, disproportion, or otherwise, is fated to produce a feeling of dissatisfaction.' It

1 "An essay-writer must practise in the chemical method, and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops. . . . It is often expected that every sheet should... make out in thought what it wants in bulk; that a point of humour should be worked up in all its parts; and a subject touched upon in its

may be presumed that the reader of De Quincey will not experience so high a degree of pure satisfaction as the reader of Macaulay, although De Quincey is in general much more scrupulously accurate than Macaulay; for, notwithstanding that De Quincey's details are polished and elaborated to the last touch of perfection, his essays, taken as wholes, want the organic completeness of Macaulay's. Thus, compare the essay on the Revolt of the Tartars with the essay on Clive, and the difference in this respect is at once perceptible. Both are historical; both are vivacious and eloquent; both are finished to the minutest balancing of periods. But Macaulay satisfies us by his artistic completeness, while De Quincey's reckless disregard of harmonious unity excites our expectations only to disappoint them. Beginning with a flourish of trumpets, he proclaims in loud-sounding exordium that the story he is about to unfold is equal in dramatic interest to Venice Preserved, or the Fiesco. But, instead of beholding the inner workings of the characters of real men and women laid bare with the power of a good historian (much less of a dramatist like Otway or Schiller), we contemplate something far more nearly resembling the tumultuous visions of a Shelley or a Victor Hugo. It

most essential articles, without the repetitions, tautologies, and enlargements that are indulged to longer labours.”—Spectator (No. 124).—E. J. A.

has been observed sarcastically of De Quincey that, when treating of a locality in Westmoreland, he brings in the world as a parenthesis and the other planets as foot-notes. Macaulay, on the other hand, subdues all his details to their correct proportions, in relation to the total effect proposed; and so, while perhaps less dazzling than De Quincey in his manœuvres of style, less astonishing in his mastery of words, he is unmistakably the more perfect artist. We may conclude that the essay, being in reality a work of art, is amenable to canons, and will be tried, whether wittingly or unwittingly, by its own laws. And in general it may be pronounced that no essay which is not artistic will prove entirely satisfactory; and that no essay, however trivial may be its subject, will prove wholly unsatisfactory provided that it be artistic.

But, granting that essay-writing is indeed an art, by what process are we to ascertain its principles? Much, truly, may be gained from that observation of the elements of composition which necessarily accompanies its practice. Perhaps the most palpable manifestation of a veteran writer is his skill in the selection of words. His language, according to the memorable distinction of Wordsworth, is no longer the dress, but has become the incarnation, of his thoughts. He has learned to discriminate between the ready and commonplace and the precise, between the glittering and hollow and the befitting,

in the materials of expression. Without consciously aiming at originality, he has developed for himself a marked individuality of style. Picturesque phraseology no longer captivates him by its delusive charms; the mimic thunder of the rounded period speaks to him no more as the voice of a god, infallible. Doubtless, it is not till after long practice that the writer is able to laugh good-humouredly at the besetting sins of his youth—passionate outbursts of misdirected enthusiasm, mosaics of glaring and ill-assorted colours, the blind headlong rush into paradox, the comical strut in worn-out buskins. It is a hard thing for the inexperienced writer to sacrifice these,

"in outward show

Elaborate, of inward less exact."

Let it be our comfort that it is only natural for youth to be efflorescent. The tree must needs array itself in the fair garniture of blossom before. it can load its branches with the wealth of fruitage. The spring for gaiety and show; the autumn for the sombre tints of mellowness and maturity. Yet it is probable that the more numerous a writer's intellectual progeny becomes, the more diffused will be his paternal affection; and the less painful will

1 This may be regarded as a general law. Among the most eminent exceptions were Lord Bacon and Edmund Burke.-See Macaulay's "Essays," vol. i., p. 412. (Ed. 1860.)—E. J. A.