IV. PROSE STYLE
N.B.—In this table the classification is often only approximate.
| Date | Plain | Middle | Ornate | Poetic |
| Mandeville (d. 1372) | ||||
| Malory | ||||
| 1500 | ||||
| More | ||||
| Fisher | ||||
| Ascham | ||||
| Nash | ||||
| Hooker | Lyly | |||
| 1600 | Bacon | |||
| Overbury | The Bible | |||
| Burton | Milton | |||
| Browne | ||||
| Walton | Hobbes | Jeremy Taylor | ||
| Bunyan | Dryden | |||
| Locke | Temple | |||
| 1700 | ||||
| Addison | ||||
| Swift | ||||
| Fielding | Goldsmith | Johnson | ||
| Burke | Macpherson | |||
| Cowper | Gibbon | |||
| 1800 | ||||
| Cobbett | Southey | De Quincey | ||
| Lamb | Wilson | |||
| Macaulay | Ruskin | Carlyle | ||
| Thackeray | Meredith | W. Morris | ||
| 1900 | G. B. Shaw |