cused of painting with a
drunken broom." One is reminded by Mr. Saintsbury's summary of many
features which we have observed in the English academicism of the
eighteenth century; the impoverished vocabulary, _e.g._, which makes
itself evident in the annotations on the text of Spenser and other old
authors; the horror of common terms, and the constant abuse of the
periphrasis--the "gelid cistern," the "stercoraceous heap," the
"spiculated palings," and the "shining leather that encased the limb."
And the heroic couplet in English usage corresponds very closely to the
French alexandrine. In their dissatisfaction with the paleness and
vagueness of the old poetic diction, and the monotony of the classical
verse, the new school innovated boldly, introducing archaisms,
neologisms, and all kinds of exotic words and popular locutions, even
_argot_ or Parisian slang; and trying metrical experiments of many sorts.
Gautier mentions in particular one Theophile Dondey (who, after the
fashion of the school, anagrammatised his name into Philothee O'Neddy) as
presenting this _caractere d'outrance et de tension_. "The word
_paroxyste_, employed for the first time by Nestor Roqueplan, seems to
have been invented with an application to Philothee. Everything is
_pousse_ in tone, high-coloured, violent, carried to the utmost limits of
expression, of an aggressive originality, almost dripping with the
unheard-of (_ruissilant d'inouisme_); but back of the double-horned
paradoxes, sophistical maxims, incoherent metaphors, swoln hyperboles,
and words six feet long, are the poetic feeling of the time and the
harmony of rhythm." One hears much in the critical writings of that
period, of the _mot propre_, the _vers libre_, and the _rime brise_. It
was in tragedy especially that the periphrasis reigned most tyrannically,
and that the introduction of the _mot propre_, _i.e._, of terms that were
precise, concrete, familiar, technical even, if needful, horrified the
classicists. It was beneath the dignity of the muse--the elegant muse of
the Abbe Delille--Hugo tells us, to speak naturally. "She underlines,"
in sign of disapprobation, "the old Corneille for his way of saying
crudely

"'Ah, ne me brouillez pas avec la republique.'

"She still has heavy on her heart his _Tout beau, monsieur_. And many a
_seigneur_ and many a _madame_ was needed to make her forgive our
admirable Racine his _chiens_ so monosyllabic. . . . History in her eyes