6 L. A. SJierman, 



is the first English prosaist who succeeds in arranging his 

 clauses so as to leave no uncertainty where the emphasis 

 should rest. In Bacon we find of course not only pith and 

 point, but another quality hitherto unknown, — economy of 

 predication. For the most part he shows large advance from 

 Hooker in sense of the proper correlation of clauses. The 

 average of the Essays is only 28. 



In Dryden, though in him we first meet with the modern 

 quality of readableness, we go backward towards the early 

 English vice of expatiation.^ A preliminary examination of 

 his sentences discovers an average of 45.26 words. In like 

 manner Bunyan yields 37.50. Barring the expressions by 

 which he affects the style of the Bible, he easily ranks with late 

 next-century authors. Much of Bunyan is wrongly punctuated, 

 many semicolon-clauses being really independent statements. 

 It is therefore proposed to repunctuate his works throughout, 

 preparatory to a complete computation of the sentence-average. 

 This, it may confidently be predicted, will be low, probably not 

 exceeding the aggregate of Bacon. In Milton we again 

 find the sentence-instinct almost wanting, a fault which is 

 nearly equally conspicuous in his poetry. - For him no less 

 average than 60.80 was found. A partial examination of Sir 

 Thomas Browne yielded 33.40; of Thomas Fuller, 32.80. Addi- 

 son in the Spectator registers 37.90 ; Junius descends to 31.90. 



1 Cf. the following from his Essay on Dramatic Poesy .' " And that all this is 

 practicable, I can produce for examples many of our English plays : as The 

 Maid's Tragedy, The Alchemist, The Silent Woman: I was going to have 

 named The Fox, but that the unity of design seems not exactly observed in it ; 

 for there appear two actions in the play ; the first naturally ending with the 

 fourth act ; the second forced from it in the fifth : which yet is the less to be 

 condenmed in him, because the disguise of Volpone, though it suited not with 

 his character as a crafty or covetous person, agreed well enough with that of a 

 voluptuary ; and by it the poet gained the end at which he aimed, the punish- 

 ment of vice, and tlie reward of virtue, both which that disguise produced." — 

 Malone's ed. Drydeii's Prose Works, vol. I., pt. II., p. 89. 



^ Cf. the opening lines of Book II. in the P. L. Here Milton has clearly no 

 suspicion of his opportunity to make one of the finest periods in the poem by 

 placing full stop at " sat," or, if the emphasis is on the following phrase, at least 

 at " eminence." 



124 



