502 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n'» S. VII. June 18. '59. 



name and arms of Dryden, by sign manual, on the 

 16th of December, 1791, and was created a baronet 

 on the 22nd of May, 1795. He was succeeded in 

 1797 by his son John Edward, who was succeeded 

 in 1818 by his brother, the Rev. Sir Henry Dry- 

 den, who, dying in 1837, was succeeded by his 

 son. Sir Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, the present 

 representative of the family. The name of Eras- 

 mus, which appears to have been handed down in 

 the Dryden family, passed into the Picton Castle 

 nomenclature on the marriage of Elizabeth Dry- 

 den with Sir Richard Phillipps, and is still in use 

 as a family name. John Pavin Phillips. 



Haverfordwest. 



"the style is the man himself." 

 (2°« S. vi. 308.) 



One of your correspondents, in excepting to the 

 use of this phrase, by a writer in The London 

 Times, says, " perhaps it is worth while to correct 

 this common misquotation, or rather absurd French 

 perversion of a just perception, originally ex- 

 pressed by Buffon. The true phrase occurs in 

 Buffon's admirable Dissertation sur le Style. His 

 words are, ' le style est de I'homme,' and not ' le 

 style c'est I'homme ; ' which has, of course, a very 

 different meaning, and is, besides, absurdly false. 

 How can a writer's style be himself?" &c. 



Now, in all editions of the works of Buffon 

 which are accessible to me, I find the very phrase 

 which is here treated as spurious and absurd ; it 

 is in the discourse pronounced by him on taking 

 his seat in the French Academy in 1753. The 

 5th voliime of the Histoire Naturelle, 12mo. edi- 

 tion, from the Imprlmerie Royale, Paris, 1769 ; 

 and the 10th volume of the CEuvres Completes, 

 12mo., from the same press in 1778, contain the 

 discourse ; in both the phrase is worded " le style 

 est I'homme meme," as It is also In the edition of 

 Rapet et Com'«, Paris, 1818. Thus there Is full 

 warrant for ascribing it to Buffon, even if, in a 

 later Dissertation sur le Style, It Is varied to the 

 form to which your correspondent gives the pre- 

 ference. 



In favour of " le style est I'homme meme " — 

 "the style is the man himself" — it may be urged 

 that it is a figurative expression, not too bold, yet 

 forcible enough to have made its way as an apho- 

 rism in France, and to have obtained some cur- 

 rency In England and America. It sums up 

 tersely what Buffon says before In the discourse : 

 " Bien ecrire, c'est tout-a-la-fois bien penser, bien 

 sentir, et bien rendre, c'est avoir en meme temps 

 de I'esprit, de I'ame, et du gout ; le style suppose 

 la re-union et I'exerclce de toutes les facultes In- 

 tellectuelles." It Is asked, " How can a writer's 

 style be himself?" — but Is not this a little too 

 like what Sheridan called " special pleading to a 

 trope?" Mr. De Quincy, in his Essay on Style, 



commends " as the weightiest thing he ever heard 

 upon the subject," the remark of Wordsworth, 

 " that It Is In the highest degree unphilosophlcal 

 to call language or diction ' the dress of thought' 

 .... he would call It the incarnation of thought," 

 " Never," says De Quincy, " In one word was so 

 profound a truth conveyed." 



I should be glad to learn where the Disserta- 

 tion sur le Style Is to be found among the pub- 

 lished works of Buffon. It is mentioned in the 

 Nouvelle Biographic, article BurroN, as unfinished 

 at the time of his decease. The extracts In the 

 note to that article seem to be from the discourse 

 before the Academy ; they agree with it verbatim, 

 except the variance In the phrase In question 

 from the text of the editions to which I have re- 

 ferred above. 



What edition of the works of Buffon authorises 

 the substitution of "le style est de I'homme"? 

 which to some may seem an obvious truism, un- 

 livened by any vivacity or sententiousness In the 

 expression of It. C. J. B. 



Philadelphia, Pa. 



SWARMING, A WORD FOR CLIMBING. 



(2"* S.vli. 455.) 

 Dryden writes : — 



" The tree was high, 

 Yet nimbly up from bough to bough he swerved;" 



andjn the old nautical ballad alluded to by A. A. 

 it Is said : — 



" He sxoarfed then the main-mast tree." 



To swerve, then, and to swarf are evidently 

 identical terms, and are probably the older forms 

 of to swarm. In the sense of to climb. If, Indeed, 

 to swarm may ever correctly be applied to the 

 act of a single individual. I think it cannot, 

 although Todd (in vac.) seems to intimate the 

 contrary, when he tells us that " It Is used In con- 

 versation for climbing a tree by embracing It 

 with the arms and legs." The same authority 

 defines swerve " to climb on a narrow body," 

 and he adds, " I know not whence derived." 

 There can, however, be no doubt that swerve or 

 swarf, and swarm (?), with the meaning here as- 

 signed to them, are words which come from the 

 same root, and I would refer them, prefixing s, 

 to the Old Norse, or Islandic, at Veria (eh Ver, 

 Varda, Va7'inn), ambire, circumdare, Involvere, 

 circumire, amplectl. This, to my mind. Is cer- 

 tainly the true source of the expressions in ques- 

 tion ; and to Veria or Sveria, I would also assign 

 our north country cognate word swey, to swing, in 

 the Craven dialect to weigh or lean upon, (Dan. 

 svaie, to swing, and sveie, to bend ; A.-S. svegian, 

 to overcome; Su-Goth. swiga; Lapp, svijam, 

 fleeter ; Lat. vieo ;) and the Icel. term itself, svig 

 or svigr, curvatura ; and sveigr (Germ, zweig), 



