Goethe, with his fine critical perception, saw clearly enough both the power of style in itself, and the lack of style in the literature of his own country; and perhaps if we regard him solely as a German, not as a European, his great work was that he labored all his life to impart style into German literature, and firmly to establish it there.  Hence the immense importance to him of the world of classical art, and of the productions of Greek or Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests its power.  Had he found in the German genius and literature an element of style existing by nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one may say, would have been saved him, and he might have done much more in poetry.  But as it was, he had to try and create, out of his own powers, a style for German poetry, as well as to provide contents for this style to carry; and thus his labor as a poet was doubled.

It is to be observed that power of style, in the sense in which I am here speaking of style, is something quite different from the power of idiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such as the expression of healthy, robust natures so often is, such as Luther’s was in a striking degree.  Style, in my sense of the word, 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.

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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:—­