Now,  how  are
we  to  interpret  this  transformation  of  prose  style
in  the  period  of  its  great  metamorphosis?  how
explain  the  substitution  of  the  new  prose  which
was  rapidly  taking  shape  in  the  closing  decades  of  the
seventeenth  century  for  the  old  prose  which  had
hitherto  remained  in  almost  undisputed  possession  of
the  field  ?  It  seems  a  much  easier  and  more  natural
thing  to  write  in  the  style  of  Addison  than  in  the
style  of  Milton,  because  Addison's  prose  is  the
artistic  development  of  real  speech,  while  Milton's  is
scarcely  nearer  to  real  speech  than  is  his  blank  verse,
and  is  in  fact  at  its  best  when  in  his  own  phrase  it
"  soars  a  little  "  into  the  higher  regions  of  eloquence
and  imagination. 