Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/297

 9 th S. II. OCT. 8, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

289

nunciation. In which of these two ways did the great statesman himself sound his name 1 JAMES PLATT, Jun.

SHEEPFOLD. In the church of St. Osyth, Chick, county of Essex, there are two hand- some monuments in alabaster, erected to the memory of the first two Lords D'Arcy and their wives. The chancel is narrow, and the monuments being large, the space left for the communion rails is contracted. To afford accommodation for communicants, there has been erected in the chancel what the attendant termed a "sheepfold." It is in the form of the Greek letter omega. The communicants are arranged inside the structure, and the clergy administer the elements from the outside. Does a similar arrangement exist elsewhere 1

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

WYATT FAMILY. I should be grateful to any of your readers who could give me dates or inscriptions from monuments in Allington Church, Maidstone, connected with

the Wyatt family, or anything which would help me in tracing their pedigree. I am anxious to trace their origin, whether the name is Gascon or Norman. I have a few dates, but not connected "or consecutive, and as in the fifteenth century one was executed as a rebel, and his estates confiscated, the matter is more difficult. Our crest is a boar's head couchant. BERTHA WYATT.

REV. GEORGE ELTONHEAD. He was vicar of Preston next Wingham, 1578, until his death in 1593. He married, in 1579, Joan Nevinson, widow. Further information wanted. ARTHUR HUSSEY.

Wingham, Kent.

THE DIXONS OP RAINHAM, co. DURHAM. Pray who is, and where to be found, the representative of the family who bore Gules, on a bend or between six plates three torteaux, a chief erminois, as described in Burke's ' Armory,' p. 288 1 DE ST.

AUTHORS OP QUOTATIONS WANTED. The curse of a granted prayer.

" From such a rough and waspish word as ' No' to pluck the sting." W. B.

Then old age and experience, hand in hand, Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong.

CHAS. K. BOWER.

"A preacher without orders, a parson in a tie- wig." Query, Swift or Sterne ? G. L. A.

WHAT IS STYLE?

(9 th S. ii. 208.)

ADDISON is perfect in style ; and there can be no good style without matter as well as manner. His allegories and false Orientalism may be sometimes a little tedious ; but a man who is bound to write a certain amount every day cannot be always equally good, though he may write the more easily from practice. Swift and Johnson are perhaps inferior to Addison as essayists, though not so otherwise. Of Washington Irving it may be said that in his burlesque history he seems to be under the influence of Fielding ; in his essays, principally of Goldsmith ; in his biographies and histories he is simply bookmaking ; but in his stories he is entirely himself and pecu- liarly charming, whether he write of Rip van Winkle or Wolfert Webber, or of Aben Habuz or the Adelantado of the seven cities. Lamb's humour seems to me to be slender. His knowledge is next to nothing. He affected

an archaic style, and half his success is in that affectation. Jeffrey asked Macaulay whence he got his style, which is animated and correct enough, though wanting in repose and dignity. The answer is not difficult. Macaulay got it from Cicero ; and the style is far more suited to an orator than to a writer. Macaulay speaks of saturating him- self with Cicero, and I think it clear that he founded his style upon that of the Roman orator. Men may never rise above imitation, or they may achieve a style of their own. But every man in the beginning must have a master or masters whom he follows. A man does not necessarily write well because he tries to do so. Nor is mere correctness every- thing. A grammarian may write correctly, yet may have an intolerable style. An author may have a charming style, yet may be occasionally indefensible in his grammar. One can pick solecisms and faults of grammar by the score from Shakspeare. Yet who can write like Shakspeare? Most of the great masters of style in prose have served an apprenticeship in poetry, and many of them are entitled to be called poets. Not that all poets are good in prose, nor all great prose writers good in poetry. Indeed, it sometimes happens that those who have produced great works in prose, and are poets in substance though not in form, are very feeble when they attempt to write in verse. Bunyan is very fond of interlarding his work with rhymes, which are about as weak and clumsy