attaches, if anywhere, to the framework; to
the body, if not to the soul. And we are thus left to consider the
style, or mode of expression.

Style is not stationary, or, _in the concrete_, matter of principle:
style is, firstly, national; next, chronological; and lastly,
individual. To try the oriental system by the European, and pronounce
either wrong by so much as it exceeds or falls short, would imply so
entire a want of comprehensive appreciation as can scarcely fail to
induce the conviction, that the two are distinct and independent,
each to be tested on its own merits. Again, were the Elizabethan
dramatists right, or are those of our own day? Neither absolutely, as
by comparison alone; his period speaks in each; and each must be
judged by this: not whether he is true to any given type, but whether
his own type be a true one for himself. And this, which holds good
between nations and ages, holds good also between individuals. Very
different from Shelley's are Wordsworth's nature in description, his
sentiment, his love; Burn's and Keats's different from these and from
each other: yet are all these, nature, and sentiment, and love.

But here it will be urged: by this process any and every style is
pronounced good, so that it but find a measure of recognition in its
own age and country; nay, even the author's self-approval will be
sufficient. And, as a corollary, each age must and ought to reject
its predecessor; and Voltaire was no less than right in dubbing
Shakspere barbarian. That it is not so, however, will appear when the
last element of truth in style, that with which all others combine,
which includes and implies consistency with the author's self, with
his age and his country, is taken into account. Appropriateness of
treatment to subject it is which lies at the root of all controversy
on style: this is the last and the whole test. And the fact that none
other is requisite, or, more strictly, that all others are but
aspects of this one, will very easily be allowed when it is reflected
that the subject, to be of an earnest and sincere ideal, must be an
emanation of the poet's most secret soul; and that the soul receives
teaching from circumstance, which is the time when and place where.

This premised, it must next be borne in mind that the poet's
conception of his subject is not identical with, and, in the majority
of cases, will be unlike, his reader's. And, the question of style
(manner) being necessari