xxiv INTRODUCTION 



deformed by Gallicisms and Hispanicisms, but at 

 bottom pure English. 



Lamb in his Essay on " The Genteel Style of 

 Writing," couples Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William 

 Temple, as representing respectively the lordly and 

 gentlemanly styles in writing, and contrasts the 

 "inflated finical rhapsodies" of Shaftesbury, (who 

 seems to have somewhat resembled Matthew Arnold 

 in the superior irony of his " Characteristicks " and 

 criticism, but could not attain his supreme height in 

 poetry,) with "the plain natural chit-chat" of Temple. 

 When we recall Coleridge's use of the same phrase in 

 regard to " the divine chit-chat " of Cowper's letters, 

 we see how relative to its age and the individual who 

 utters it, and how little final and absolute, all criticism 

 and verbal eulogy inevitably become. But all critics 

 unite in finding Temple entertaining, and at his best, 

 as in some of the passages quoted by Lamb, he rises 

 to a considerable height of philosophic and emotional 

 reflection. To-day it hardly seems as if " chit- 

 chat" best expresses the somewhat high-backed 

 and dignified conversation and well-bred familiarity 

 of Temple's dressing-gown discourses. But I be- 

 lieve that when the History of Conversation is at 

 last written, Temple's apophthegms and reflections 



