It was also the most striking and successful illustration of what may be called the new prose style, or that style which, initiated by Hobbes and developed by Sprat, Cowley, and Denham blended the ease and plasticity of colloquy with the solidity and dignity of rhetoric, of that style in which Dryden was soon to become a consummate master.

THE PLASTIC AGE OF CHILDHOOD Prolonged Infancy and the Long Period of Plasticity in the Infant Make Training and Education Possible The child is born the weakest and most helpless of creatures.

The first form of art is therefore rather a mere search after plasticity than a capacity of true representation.