Wesley Corpus

To Samuel Furly YARMOUTH, October II, 1764. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1764) Author: John Wesley --- DEAR SAMMY,--I have delayed writing thus long, [See letter of July 15. ] because I was not inclined to draw the saw of controversy, particularly on a subject not very important and with a person not very easy to be convinced. I simply told you my thoughts concerning style and concerning yourself. If you can profit by them, well; if not, there is no harm done. I wanted to have you write in the most excellent way; if you prefer any other, you may. I have no prejudice for or against any writer: but I may say, without much vanity, I know a good style from a bad one; and it would be a shame if I did not, after having spent five-and-forty years (with some natural understanding, much attention, and a free acquaintance with many eminent men) in reading the most celebrated writers in the English tongue. Observing you to want one of the things essential to a good style, namely, easiness, I warned you of it, and (to make the reason of my caution more clear) enlarged a little upon the head. You reply, 'Harmony is essential to a good style.' It may be so; I have nothing to say to the contrary. In the very lines I quoted there is admirable harmony; nihil supra; the soul of music breathes in them: but there is no stiffness. The lines are as easy as harmonious. This is the perfection of writing. Whether long periods or short are to be chosen is quite another question. Some of those you transcribe from Swift are long; but they are easy too, entirely easy, void of all stiffness, and therefore just such as I advise you to copy after. The paragraphs cited from Hawksworth are far inferior to them, not more harmonious, but more stiff and artificial. That from Wharton is worst of all, stiff as a stake, all art and no nature. I know not what taste they can have who admire his style; certainly they must prefer Statius to Virgil.