It is in such a letter, for instance,
that we come upon a singularly penetrative estimate of the genius and
writings of Defoe.
Tracking, with an attention always alert, the whole process of their
production to its starting-point in the deep places of the mind, he
seems to realise the but half-conscious intuitions of Hogarth or
Shakespeare, and develops the great ruling unities which have swayed
their actual work; or "puts up," and takes, the one morsel of good stuff
in an old, forgotten writer. Even in what he says casually there comes
an aroma of old English; noticeable echoes, in chance turn and phrase,
of the great masters of style, the old masters. Godwin, seeing in
quotation a passage from _John Woodvil_, takes it for a choice fragment
of an old dramatist, and goes to Lamb to assist him in finding the
author. His power of delicate imitation in prose and verse reaches the
length of a fine mimicry even, as in those last essays of Elia on
Popular Fallacies, with their gentle reproduction or caricature of Sir
Thomas Browne, showing, the more completely, his mastery, by
disinterested study, of those elements of the man which were the real
source of style in that great, solemn master of old English, who, ready
to say what he has to say with fearless homeliness, yet continually
overawes one with touches of a strange utterance from worlds afar.
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