Note 542 — Chapter IV

Salfi, Continuation de Ginguéné, x. 92. Corniani, iv. 12. Roscoe speaks of the Arcadia with less admiration, but perhaps more according to the feelings of the general reader. But I cannot altogether concur in his sweeping denunciation of poetical prose, that hermaphrodite of literature. In many styles of composition, and none more than such as the Arcadia, it may be read with delight, and without wounding a rational taste. The French language, which is not well adapted to poetry, would have lost some of its most imaginative passages, with which Buffon, St. Pierre, and others now living have enriched it, if a highly ornamented prose had been wholly proscribed; and we may say the same with equal truth of our own. It is another thing to condemn the peculiar style of poetry in writings that from their subject demand a very different tone.