great men of letters?"--meaning thereby the masters of prose. "They are
men like Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire--writers with, in
the first place, a genius and instinct for style, writers whose prose is
by a kind of native necessity true and sound." The British critic added
that: "It is a curious thing, that quality of style, which marks the
great writer, the born man of letters. It resides in the whole tissue of
his work, and of his work regarded as a composition for literary
purposes." The six masters of prose whom Arnold chose have all of them
this quality of style; and their prose is true and sound. Altho this
list of six was selected by an Englishman, and altho it contains the
names of two Englishmen, it would be acceptable, one may venture to
believe, to the cosmopolitan tribunal, to the heirs of the Latin
tradition and to the peoples of the Teutonic stock. It may lack the
completeness and the finality of the limitation of the supreme poets to
four; but it must be taken as a not unsuccessful attempt to select the
supreme prose-writers.

Arnold excluded Emerson from the class of "great men of letters" because
the American philosopher had not the instinct for style, and because
his prose was not always true and sound. Lowell, in a letter to a
friend, protested against this, suggesting that the Oxford critic was
like Renan in that he was apt to think "the _super_fine as good as the
fine, or better even than that." Yet we may agree with the lecturer in
holding that Emerson was rather to be ranked with Marcus Aurelius as
"the friend of those who would live in the spirit," than to be classed
with Cicero and with Swift, obviously inferior in elevation and in aim,
but both of them born men of letters.

In like manner we must strike out the name of Burke from among the great
orators. A political philosopher he was of keenest insight and of