Leave we them to their reward, which is as certain as that men shall be judged according to their deeds. Our business is with the follies of the unruly member, not with its sins: with loquacious speakers and verbose writers, those whose “tongues are gentlemen-ushers to their wit, and still go before it,”1 who never having studied the exponibilia, practice the art of battology by intuition; and in a discourse which might make the woeful hearer begin to fear that he had entered unawares upon eternity, bring forth, “as a man would say in a word of two syllables, nothing.”1 The West Britons had in their own Cornish language this good proverbial rhyme, (the—graphy whereof, be it ortho or not is Mr. Polwhele's),
An lavor goth ewe lavar gwir,
Ne vedn nevera doaz vas a tavaz re hir.
The old saying is a true saying,
Never will come good from a tongue too long.
Oh it is a grievous thing to listen, or seem to listen, as one is constrained to do, sometimes by the courtesy of society, and sometimes by “the law of sermon,” to an unmerciful manufacturer of speech, who before he ever arrives at the empty matter of his discourse,
no puede—dexar—de decir
—antes,—siguiera
quatro, o cinco mil palabras!2
1 BEN JONSON.
2 CALDERON.
Vossius mentions three authors, who, to use Bayle's language,—for in Bayle the extract is found, enfermaient de grands riens dans une grande multitude de paroles. Anaximenes the orator was one; when he was about to speak, Theocritus of Chios said, “here begins a river of words and a drop of sense,”—Ἄρχεται λέξεων μὲν ποταμὸς, νοῦ δὲ σταλαγμός. Longolius, an orator of the lower Empire was the second. The third was Faustus Andrelinus, Professor of Poetry at Paris, and Poeta Laureatus: of him Erasmus dicitur dixisse,—is said to have said, that there was but one thing wanting in all his poems and that thing was comprised in one word of one syllable, Νοῦς.
It were better to be remembered as Bayle has remembered Petrus Carmilianus, because of the profound obscurity in which this pitiful poet was buried, than thus to be thought worthy of remembrance only for having produced a great deal that deserved to be forgotten. There is, or was, an officer of the Exchequer called Clericus Nihilorum, or Clerk of the Nihils. If there were a High Court of Literature with such an officer on its establishment, it would be no sinecure office for him in these, or in any days, to register the names of those authors who have written to no purpose, and the titles of those books from which nothing is to be learnt.
On ne vid jamais, says the Sieur de Brocourt, homme qui ne die plustost trop, que moins qu'il ne doit; et jamais parole proferée ne servit tant, comme plusieurs teuës ont profite; car tousjours pouvons-nous bien dire ce qu'avons teu, et non pas taire ce qu'avons publié. The latter part of this remark is true; the former is far too general. For more harm is done in public life by the reticence of well informed men, than by the loquacity of sciolists; more by the timidity and caution of those who desire at heart the good of their country, than by the audacity of those who labour to overthrow its constitutions. It was said in the days of old, that “a man full of words shall not prosper upon the earth.” Mais nous avons changé tout cela.
Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the foliage, is preferable to a knotty one, however fine the grain. Whipt cream is a good thing; and better still when it covers and adorns that amiable combination of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked in wine, to which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus described the “Task.” “It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise procures me, to drop a word in favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and there a bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly to the name of a certain dish the ladies call a Trifle.” But in Task or Trifle unless the ingredients were good, the whole were nought. They who should present to their deceived guests whipt white of egg, would deserve to be whipt themselves.