IV. Prose Style

N.B.—In this table the classification is often only approximate.

Date Plain Middle Ornate Poetic

Mandeville
(d. 1372)

Malory

1500

More

Fisher

Ascham

Nash

Hooker Lyly

1600 Bacon

Overbury The Bible

Burton Milton

Browne

Walton Hobbes Jeremy Taylor

Bunyan Dryden

Locke Temple

1700

Addison

Swift

Fielding Goldsmith Johnson

Burke Macpherson

Cowper Gibbon

1800

Cobbett Southey De Quincey

Lamb Wilson

Macaulay Ruskin Carlyle

Thackeray Meredith W. Morris

1900 G. B. Shaw