The conversational style permits abrupt turns, sudden transitions, a pleasant negligence. It also has narrow limits; it cannot rise to eloquence, and fine writing is apt to seem out of place. Holmes knew pretty accurately the limits of his instrument. Like other practised writers, he varied his style to fit his subject. And while a certain winsomeness is never wanting, it is less apparent in the novels than in the ‘Breakfast-Table’ books, and in the biographies than in the novels. Often he becomes business-like, extremely matter of fact, clearly determined to make his point or to solve his problem without waste of words or superfluous ornament. With respect to his verse we have been told that Holmes was a ‘consummate master of all that is harmonious, graceful, and pleasing in rhythm and in language.’ Had the eulogist been speaking of Tennyson, or Swinburne, or Shelley, he could have said little more. Holmes’s verse is neat, precise, felicitous, often graceful, unmistakably clever, abounding in pointed phrase and happy rhyme, but taken as a whole it must be adjudged the poetry of a cultivated gentleman and a wit rather than the poetry of a poet. Much of it has a distinctly old-fashioned air, contrasting oddly with the freshness and ‘modernity’ of the poet’s prose. In his own phrase Holmes ‘was trained after the schools of classical English verse as represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell.’ The metrical essays (_Poetry_, _Astræa_, _Urania_) show how strong was the Eighteenth-century influence. The choice of metre cannot be questioned. If audiences will have poetic dissertations, they probably suffer least under the heroic couplet. It is easy to comprehend, and not difficult to write; and the form of the verse tempts to cleverness. IV _THE AUTOCRAT_ AND ITS COMPANIONS, _OVER THE TEACUPS_, _OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE_ The motto, ‘Every man his own Boswell,’ on the title-page of _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, is a key to the book. The conceit has merits besides that of novelty. There is a world of humorous suggestion in the idea of ‘doubling’ the parts of philosophic wit and worshipping reporter. The scene is a Boston boarding-house with its more or less commonplace people, the landlady, her daughter, her son Benjamin Franklin, the young fellow called John, the old gentleman who sits opposite, the poor relation, the divinity student, the schoolmistress, and the Autocrat himself. They talk, listen, jest, laugh. Little by little the commonplace characters grow attractive. Pleasant and lovable traits come to light. There is pathos, sentiment, a deal of mirth, but little action. The Autocrat marries the schoolmistress towards the close of the book. So much likeness is there to an old-fashioned love story, and no more.