rd, is a peculiar recasting and
heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what
a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to
it; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts or
words of Luther. Deeply touched with the _Gemeinheit_[256] which is the
bane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of the
honesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even show
himself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash of
coarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition of Luther,
as of our own Bunyan, is that he is a Philistine of genius. So Luther's
sincere idiomatic German,--such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott,
wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar
nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!"--no more proves a power of
style in German literature, than Cobbett's[257] sinewy idiomatic English
proves it in English literature. Power of style, properly so-called, as
manifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero,
Bossuet[258] or Bolingbroke[259] in prose, is something quite different,
and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to add
dignity and distinction.

* * * * *

This something is _style_, and the Celts certainly have it in a
wonderful measure. Style is the most striking quality of their poetry.
Celtic poetry seems to make up to itself for being unable to master the
world and give an adequate interpretation of it, by throwing all its
force into style, by bending language at any rate to its will, and
expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable intensity, elevation, and
effect. It has all through it a sort of intoxication of style--a
_Pindarism_, to use a word formed from the name of the poet, on whom,
above all other poets, the power of style seems to have exercised an
inspiring and intoxicating effect; and not in its great poets only, in
Taliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian,[260] does the Celtic genius show
this Pindarism, but in all its productions:--

"The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr;
Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd;
But unknown is the grave of Arthur."[261]

That comes from the _Welsh Memorials of the Graves of the Warriors_, and
if we compare it with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an English
churchyard (for we English have so much Germanism