Whether De Quincey’s reading of Greek may have dwelt too long on Isocrates is less important than that his devices of style spring from similar preoccupations. The balances of Sir Thomas Browne, whose style he tells us that he studied, have none of this sophistic chiming and oral dilation. De Quincey reminds us of the sophists because he is a sophist. Sophistic was not extinguished with the Roman Empire; and De Quincey’s style has marked family traits. Thus it is easy to detach many suggestive examples of the Gorgian figures, balances used not for clearness, but generally for emotional emphasis and sometimes for emotional expansiveness. No! for her voice was then silent; no! for her feet were dust. _Joan of Arc_, 1. The moments were numbered; the strife was finished; the vision was closed. _The English Mail-Coach_, last paragraph. These are simple balances. “Which was heaven’s vicegerent, and which the creature of hell” marks the antithesis by reverse balance (_chiasmus_). The following are enhanced by alliteration: Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her. _Joan of Arc_, 2. It was not wonderful that in such a haunted solitude, with such a haunted heart, Joanna should see angelic visions, and hear angelic voices. _Ibid._, 10. Nor does De Quincey’s refinement stop there. The following balances have antithesis, alliteration, chiasmus, hyperbaton. The first varies its contrasting rhythms; the second leads up to the climax quoted above (“For all, except this comfort”). Bishop of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold—thou upon a down bed. But, for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; together both sometimes kindle into dreams. _Joan of Arc_, 30. The storm was weathered; the skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing off. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted; the tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had been suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings of death. _Ibid._, 31.