The explanation of that paradox we shall see
presently; in the meantime it is worth looking at some of the
characteristics of classicism as they appear in the work of the
"Classic" authors.
In the first place the "Classic" writers aimed at simplicity of style,
at a normal standard of writing. They were intolerant of individual
eccentricities; they endeavoured, and with success, to infuse into
English letters something of the academic spirit that was already
controlling their fellow-craftsmen in France. For this end amongst
others they and the men of science founded the Royal Society, an
academic committee which has been restricted since to the physical and
natural sciences and been supplemented by similar bodies representing
literature and learning only in our own day. Clearness, plainness,
conversational ease and directness were the aims the society set before
its members where their writing was concerned. "The Royal Society,"
wrote the Bishop of Rochester, its first historian, "have exacted from
all their members a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive
expressions, clear sense, a native easiness, bringing all things as near
the mathematical plainness as they can; and preferring the language of
artisans, countrymen, and merchants before that of wits and scholars.
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