Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/541

Rh The chief fact which apparently gives weight to the persistence of sentence proportions, regardless of the composition employed, is the instance of Macaulay's 'History of England,' for which the sentence constants are practically the same as those of his essays, notwithstanding that some parts of the 'History,' in particular the second volume, contain much dialogue. This anomaly is explained by the fact that taking the five volumes as a whole the essay style predominates to such an extent as practically to obliterate the disturbing effect of the dialogue portions. This is easily demonstrated. The average sentence length of 'Macaulay's History' is 24.43, which differs but little from 23.65 of Machiavelli. 24.00 of Pitt and 23.00 of the 'Essay on History'