The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1913. EVOLUTION IN LITERATURE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1645, 11 January 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1913. EVOLUTION IN LITERATURE.

-Evolution, the theory that alHiving things gradually advance from the simple and rudimentary to more complex and. highor' character, seems, .to be quite .as applicable to language and the form, or style; of its expression, as it is to all varieties of vegetable .and animal life.: Language is ; 'clearly subjSct to a slow, yet sure and steady, process of change, ,to continuous development and ; improvement. The printed book,), the educated class, prevents deoajjf: and the slipping • back to, the crudities of early times. , ,To 'tho Bible iB frequently attributed the conferring of permanence on the English language. .This is probably true, >but as the process of development_ gocß silently and imperceptibly J'orward, it. is probably 'nearer the truth to say that tho hteraturo of the sacred, volumo has but' : provided an 'epochal basis for our language upon which new and superior structures may bo raised. . Words chang;e''theii\meaning: many become obsolete. A scientific treatise, for example, could not well be written, ■or a'.'political speech delivered; in strict Biblical terms. Still, the Wide diffusion of the Bible, and its earnest st'iidy_ have elevated the thoughts' and purified the lives of successive generations, and raised the tone of their speech in accord with l -the loftyV. themes : upon which their minds have been engaged. Milton and. Shakespeare helped, to mould the language anew, as did Deydbn and,Addison, and, yet later, Johnson, Gibbon, and Maoaulay, ; The perusal of oven Johnson will show the changes effected in tho English language since his latest w.orkwai written, the Lives- of the Poets, which was completed in 1781. Few, to-day, however, would essay'■' the task of following tho style,of Johnson, though, while he was still alivo, and long after his death, his Iresounding Ciceronian periods had numerous imitators. _No writer is capable of literally imitating ' any author.' Tastes differ as do the points of view. Therofore, while the a master 1 mind may powerfully affect later writers,' said writers, if seldom fail to ldlivo their own individual imprcss'upon the language and literature of their time.

Boswell directs attention to 'a curious circumstance connected with Jounison and his style of coniposir tion. Johnson informed- Boswell that his model was, Sir William Temple, and Boswell commented that, if so, he had beon very unsuccessful. The stylo of the two men, he writes, Vdiffor as plain cloth and brocade." Others, however, observed what_ Johnson himself, seemed to be oblivious of: namely, that his stylo closely resembled that of Sir Thomas Brown, whoso Life Johnson wrote. Brown, according to both Boswell and Malone, was remarkably fond of Anglo-Latin diction, and "to his example," says Boswell in tho Life- of Johnson, "we nro to ascribo Johnbon'b sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology." From this it would appear that tho style which Johnson deliberately set before him as a model had little pormanont influence, while tho writings of the author, which he had closely studied, unconscious to himself, becamo the model. This seems to suggest that tho steady application ot a mind .upon anv. work may, unknown to

its owner, deeply, and more or less permanently, impress that mind. Sin Conan Doyle has claimed somewhere that his stylo i 8 hased upon , that of Macaulay. Probably fow of his readers have observed tho resemblance. Robert Louis Stevenson, before the advent of Treasure Island, had been a studious searcher after literary excellence. In those early days ho oarried about with <him various note-books into which every phrase that caught his fancy found a place. Ho "communed with words," he relates—just as Burns crooned over, his old Scottish ballads, marking_ the apt rhymo and happy expression. _ In spito of models, no strong, original mind will adhere closely to,any example. Such a mind as that will discover new modes, and lcavo behind it ; a distinct, more or less vivid, impress. Thus, the process of variation and development goes on, each writer worthy of the name leaving his language and litcraturo a little better than he found them.

Hazlitt, in those pleasant, limpid sentences of his—"We are all mighty fine fellows, but we cannot write like William Hazlitt," spoke Stevenson—condemns authors who hoard up and make a display of rich and rare phraseology. While a sprinkling.of archaisms may bo Hot amiss, a tissue of obsolete expressions, as he Bomewhat quaintly remarks, "is more nt for keep than wear," "Words,", he adds, "like, clothes,'get old-fashioned, or mean and ridiculous, when thoy have been for some timo laid aside." A perusal of works written, for instance, in the eighteenth century reveals the great changes which havo taken place: words: have disappeared, phrases are different,' the written word is more lucid and appropriate. The tendency of the present time is assuredly in the direction of employing definite terms,, and evolving a' clear yet compact phraseology. .Stevenson thus expresses tho fact in his' Art of Writiilgi "In the ohange from the successive shallow state-: ments of the old chronicler to tho dense and luminous flow of highly synthetic narrative, there is implied a vast amount of both philosophy and wit," The extraordinary craze for the parading of Greek and Latin quotations has* in recent years, happily abated.. Writers, during the period mentioned, could scarcely advance an argument, however simple, without recourse to tho classics—and. frequently, without rendering the slightest assistance to themselves or their readers. The English language is capable'of meetirig > all our needs. No other author is.likely to havo the experience of Alexander Adam, rector; of' the Edinburgh High School, who had among; his pupils Jeffrey, Brougham, and' Scott. In 1772 ho prepared a Latin . and English Grammar, '.'but," states the record,[.'being written in English instead of in 'Latin-it was pronibited#by ; the Town Council."/ i