the change of thought and outlook, on
which latter enough perhaps has been said elsewhere; the whole of our
two long chapters on poetry being indeed, with great part of this
conclusion, a continuous exposition of it. But the change in prose was
neither confined to, nor specially connected with, any single department
of literature. Indirectly indeed, and distantly, it may be said to have
been connected with the growth of the essay and the popularity of
periodicals; and yet it is not quite certain that this was anything more
than a coincidence due to the actual fact that the first extensive
practitioners of ornate prose, Wilson and De Quincey, were in a way
journalists.

That the sudden ornateness, in part a mere ordinary reaction, was also
in part due to a reflection of the greater gorgeousness of poetry,
though it was in itself less a matter of thought than of style, is true.
But literary reactions are always in part at least literary
developments; and after the prose of Burke and Gibbon, even after that
of Johnson, it was certain that the excessive plainness reached in the
mid-eighteenth century would be exchanged for something else. But it
could not possibly have been anticipated that the change would exhibit
the extent or the variety that it has actually shown.

That it has enriched English literature with a great deal of admirable
matter is certain; that it has not merely produced a great deal of sad
stuff, but has perhaps inflicted some permanent or at least lasting
damage on the purity, the simplicity, and in the best sense the strength
of style, is at least equally certain. It is less easy to say whether it
is, as a movement, near its close, or with what sort of reaction it is
likely to be followed. On the one hand the indication of particular
follies and excesses may not seem decisive; for there is little doubt
that in all the stages of this _flamboyant_ movement--from De Quincey to
Carlyle, from Carlyle to Mr. Ruskin, from Mr. Ruskin to persons whom it
is unnecessary to mention--the advocates of the sober styles thought and
said that the force of extravagance could no further go, and that the
last outrages had been committed on the dignity and simplicity of
English. On the other hand there are signs, which are very unlikely to
deceive the practised critic, tending to show that the mode is likely to
change. When actual frippery is seen hanging up in Monmouth Street or
Monmouth Street's successors, when cheap i