to the possibilities of that nature, no one
has gone further than Earle in his "contemplative man."

Something may be said of Earle's style before this introduction is brought
to an end.

I do not think it is uniformly conspicuous[Y] for quaintness, or that
there is much that can be called affectation; though occasionally an
excess of brevity has proved too tempting, or the desire to individualize
runs away with him.

The following passages, taken at random from the Characters, seem to
contain phrases that we should be well content to use to-day if we had
thought of them.

_He sighs to see what innocence he hath outlived._

_We look on old age for his sake as a more reverent
thing._

_He has still something to distinguish him from a
gentleman, though his doublet cost more._

_It is discourtesy in you to believe him._

_An extraordinary man in ordinary things._

_His businesses with his friends are to visit them._

_The main ambition of his life is not to be
discredited._

_He preaches heresy if it comes in his way, though with
a mind I must needs say very orthodox._

These quotations have no very unfamiliar sound, nor much flavour of
archaism about them. And there are many more, surprisingly free from
conceits or other oddities, if we reflect that the book was written before
Dryden was born, or modern prose with its precision and balance even
thought of.

There is one very distinguishing mark set on Earle's characters, the
profundity of the analysis that accompanies the sketch. He lets us know
not only what the grave divine or the staid man looks like, but why they
are what they are, and all this without turning his sketch into an essay.
This mistake Bishop Hall is inclined to make, and Butler actually makes.
The author of Hudibras, it seems, would have been too fortunate had he
known where his own happiness lay--to wit in that "sting" of verse, which
Cowper says prose neither has nor can have.

When one compares the essay in its beginnings with the essay as we know it
to-day, it is not difficult to understand the change of form in the
character sketch. "The Character of a Trimmer"[Z] is a very powerful piece
of writing, containing some very fine things, but Halifax could not make
of it that finished piece of brevity which it would have become in Earle's
hands. Latin criticism has the right word for his work--"densus."[AA] We
could not pack the thinkin