The contrast between eloquent prose and poetic prose would be more to the point. The pleasure from each is precious and genuine, but our pleasure from the latter is no doubt more elevated and enduring. Gibbon’s prose is often eloquent, never poetical. Ruskin’s prose is at times both, though his temperament is not that of the orator. There is more caprice than reason in him. The prose of De Quincey sometimes has the “sonorous ring” of which Renan speaks. The following passage from his essay on “The Philosophy of Roman History” is a good sample:-- “The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a planet; the great Julian arch was now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last keystone. From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals, but it was on the outside of the mighty empire, it was at a dreamlike distance; and, like the storms that beat against some monumental castle, ‘and at the doors and windows seem to call,’ they rather irritated and vivified the sense of security, than at all disturbed its luxurious lull.” Contrast with this a passage from Emerson’s first prose work, “Nature,” wherein the poetic element is more conspicuous:-- “The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national councils,--in the hour of revolution,--these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his hands.” Or this passage from Carlyle’s “French Revolution,” shall we call it eloquent prose or poetic prose? “In this manner, however, has the Day bent downwards. Wearied mortals are creeping home from their field labors; the village artisan eats with relish his supper of herbs, or has strolled forth to the village street for a sweet mouthful of air and human news. Still summer eventide everywhere! The great sun hangs flaming on the uttermost northwest; for it is his longest day this year. The hilltops, rejoicing, will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush good-night. The thrush in green dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing his glad serenade, to the babble of brooks grown audible; silence is stealing over the Earth.”