THE MAN 29 



reviewing and popular " pot-boiling, whereby there is 

 acquired the art of condensation and simplification of 

 a subject " ; while a retentive memory utilised the 

 stores of years of miscellaneous reading in his own 

 and other languages for example and allusion. 



But all this would have availed little in the absence 

 of that mother-wit which gave him quick insight into 

 things ; and of that passion for logical symmetry 

 whereby he made clear to others what he saw clearly 

 himself. He followed methods, not models ; he 

 " doubted the wisdom of attempting to mould one's 

 style by any other process than that of striving after 

 the clear and forcible expression of definite concep- 

 tions." In commending the study of Hobbes for 

 dignity, of Swift for concision and clearness, and of 

 Defoe and Goldsmith for simplicity, 1 he commended 

 the qualities with which his own work is charged. 

 Ars est celare artem, and deftly enough has he effaced 

 the traces of the labour which the preparation of his 

 lectures and his writing cost him. In i860 he wrote 

 to Hooker, " It becomes more and more difficult to 

 me to finish things satisfactorily " ; 2 and thirty years 

 after, in a letter to M. de Varigny, he says :— 



I have a great love and respect for my native 

 tongue [that " noble instrument of thought," he else- 

 where calls it], and take great pains to use it properly. 



^I. 284; and see Coll. Essays^ vi. p. xii. 2 1. 215. 



