Virtually all the current discussions of William Godwin devote the bulk of their attention to the elucidation of the anarchic social philosophy of his Political Justice (1793), and, as a rule, they give serious consideration to his first subsequent novel, Caleb Williams (1794). They deal perfunctorily and apologetically with St. Leon (1799), and generally refuse to extend their discussion beyond it so as to include Fleetwood (1805), Mandeville (1815), Cloudesley (1830), and Deloraine (1833). There is, indeed, much to be said for this lapsing of the spirit of inquiry, as any reader of the uninspired minor fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century knows. But the neglect of Godwin's novels and, more particularly, the failure to examine their relationship to Political Justice result, I think, in a misconception of their tendencies and the diverse nature of their appeal to his generation. Preoccupation with Political Justice, and, in a less degree, with Caleb Williams, has thrown into bold relief the frigid rationalistic elements in Godwin's thought. This is, of course, the place where the emphasis belongs in a discussion of Godwinism, but at the same time this point of view overlooks some important qualities of his later work. The fact is that a reader coming to Godwin's novels would, unless he were very observant and analytic, have difficulty in distinguishing between Godwin's fiction and the sentimental literature with which he was already familiar. He would find that whatever might be his theory, in practice, at any rate, Godwin reveals a constant inclination for the rhapsodic and lachrymose situations of contemporary literature. Certainly the reader would discover little emotional restraint in Deloraine's description of Emilia as “a being just descended from celestial spheres, new lighted on the earth” or in the account of Julian, who, haunting Cloudesley's grave, “threw himself on his knees on the earth, kissed the turf that covered the dead body of his protector.” These are the usual excesses of Rousseauistic children, a Saint Preux, a Werther, or a René, but they create an unexpected impression in the work of a recognized rationalist. In this paper the object is to take full account of Godwin's sentimental tendencies and to attempt to show their relationship to his rationalism. If we can explain this paradoxical union of reason and feeling, we shall, perhaps, understand even better than before why he had such a profound influence upon his contemporaries.

Description as commonly understood is portrayal in language; specifically, poetical description is the esthetic representation of objects through the medium of speech. I shall assume for the purposes of the following discussion that such representation is possible, that poetry is, though not exclusively, a “representative” art. Such an assumption does not equate poetry and painting, since the media of an art determine the substance and form of that art. Now the media of poetic representation, mental images, have indeed many points of likeness to the actual sense perceptions through which the painter affects us, since mental images have their origin in percepts; otherwise they would be poor means of representing objects. But there exist also many obvious differences between images and percepts, such as different degrees of intensity, permanence, specificness. These differences condition differences between poetry and painting. There are other differences. The formative artist, for example, is confined to an appeal to the sense of sight, while the poet knows no such limitation. I shall take occasion in the course of the following discussion to call attention to such matters, when the examples are before us.

The purpose of this brief paper is to study the characteristic and prevailing accentual rhythms of English prose in as far as these occur in phrases that can be detached from the context. Two types of such phrases have been examined. They may be distinguished as (1) phrasal idioms, and (2) titles. The first class embraces such examples as “in fact,” “of course,” “to be sure,” “ebb and flow,” “fits and starts”—the permanent “bromides” of the language, representing the most ordinary contacts of mind with mind, the most necessary aspects and currents of thought, and the homeliest logic. Stripped of every superfluity by incessant use, they exhibit with peculiar aptness the form and pressure of the language in its minuter elements.

For those who enjoy tracing literary relationships there is a very attractive problem in regard to the possible indebtedness of Swinburne's The Garden of Proserpine to Delavigne's Les Limbes. Swinburne's poem has long been a favorite, for its subtle cadences have elusive, indefinable melody, and the picture of the dim beauty of Proserpine's realm is a masterpiece of descriptive art. However one may regard the philosophy of languid surrender to extinction, one cannot fail to recognize Swinburne's power in depicting a pallid world where all things are wan, bloomless, and indeterminate.

The naturalistic reaction against Romanticism was a more or less conscious return to classical models. Romantic diffuseness was banished. The limpid prose of the classical conteurs came back to its own. The ideal of the naturalistic novelist was to maintain a classical, impersonal point of view, which rendered impossible the gushing of Romantic lyricism. Nineteenth-century science, heir to the raison of Rousseau's enemies, the philosophes, replaced Romantic emotion. Disdaining the fantastic plots of the Romanticists, the naturalists tended to make of their novels merely a series of scenes, like Le Sage, and like Marivaux.