It is requisite that the language of an heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime. In proportion as either of these two qualities are wanting, the language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary qualification; insomuch that a candid reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the grammer or syntax, where it is impossible for him to mistake the poet's sense. Of this kind is that passage in Milton wherein he speaks of Satan

God and his son except,

Created thing nought valu'd he nor shunn'd.

And that in which he describes Adam and Eve:

Adam the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

It is plain that, in the former of these passages, according to the natural syntax, the divine persons mentioned in the first line are represented as created beings; and that in the other, Adam and Eve are confounded with their sons and daughters. Such little blemishes as these, when the thought is great and natural, we should, with Horace, impute to a pardonable inadvertency, or to the weakness of human nature, which cannot attend to each minute particular, and give the finishing touch to every circumstance in so long a work. The ancient critics, therefore, who were actuated by a spirit of candour rather than of cavilling, invented certain figures of speech on purpose to palliate little errors of this nature in the writings of those authors who had so many greater beauties to atone for them.

If clearness and perspicuity were only to be consulted, the poet would have only to clothe his thoughts in the most plain and natural expressions. But since it often happens that the most obvious phrases, and those which are used in ordinary conversation, become too familiar to the ear, and contract a kind of meanness by being used by the vulgar, a poet should take particular care to guard himself against idiomatic ways of speaking. Ovid and Lucan abound with vulgarisms arising from the immediate adoption of low

phrases, without scrupulous attention to words best adapted to convey sentiments exalted and sublime, which are so essential to the excellence of an epic poem.

a few failings of this kind.

Milton has but

There are, however, some in

stances, as in the following passages:

Embrios and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and grey; with all their trumpery,
Here pilgrims roam.

Awhile discourse they hold,

No fear lest dinner cool, when thus began

Our Author. . . .

Who of all ages to succeed, but feeling
The evil on him brought by me will curse
My head.... ill fare our ancestor impure:
For this we may thank Adam.

It is not sufficient that the language of an epic poem be perspicuous, unless it be also sublime. To this end it ought to deviate from the common forms and ordinary phrases of speech. The judgment of a poet very much discovers itself in avoiding the common modes of expression, without falling into such phrases as may seem stiff and unnatural; he must not swell into a false sublime, by endeavouring to avoid the other extreme. Among the Greeks, Eschylus, and sometimes Sophocles, were guilty of this fault; among the Latins Claudian and Statius; and among our own countrymen, Shakespeare and Lee. In these authors the affectation of greatness often hurts the perspicuity of the style, as in many others the endeavour after perspicuity prejudices its greatness.

Aristotle has observed, that the idiomatic style may be avoided, and the sublime formed, by the following methods: First, by the ute of metaphors: fuch are those in Milton,,

In these, and innumerable other instances, the metaphors are very bold, but just. I must, however, observe, that the metaphors do not abound in Milton, which always savours too much of wit; that they never clash with one another, which, as Aristotle observes, turns a sentence into a kind of enigma or riddle; and that he seldom has recourse to them where the proper and natural words will do as well.

Another method of raising the language, and giving it a poetical turn, is to make use of the idioms of other languages. Virgil is full of the Greek forms of speech, which the critics call Hellenisms, as Horace, in his odes, abounds with them much more than Virgil. I need not mention the several dialects which Homer has made use of for this end. Milton, in conformity with the practice of the ancient poets, and with Aristotle's rule, has infused a great many Latinisms as well as Græcisms, and sometimes Hebralsms, in the language of his poem.

Under this head may be ranked the placing the adjective after the substantive, the transposition of words, the turning the adjective into a substantive, with several other foreign modes of speech, which this poet has naturalized, to give his verse the greater sound, and throw it out of prose.

The third method mentioned by Aristotle, is what agrees with the genius of the Greek language more than with that of any other tongue, and is therefore more used by Homer than by any other poet; I mean the lengthening of a phrase by the addition of words which may either be inserted or omitted, as also by the extending or contracting of particular words, by the insertion or omission of certain syllables. Milton has put in practice this method of raising his language, as far as the nature of our tongue will permit, as in the passage before-mentioned, eremite, for what is hermit in common discourse, by which method he has given a greater variety to his numbers: but this practice is more particularly remarkable in the names of persons and of countries, as Beelzebub, Hesebon, and in many other particulars, wherein he has either changed the name, or made use of that which is not the most commonly known, that he might the better depart from the language of the vulgar. For the sake

of the metre, this practice is admissible, but to deviate from what is right, merely from a principle of departing from the vulgar, is ridiculous and absurd. The same reason recommended to him several old words, which also make his poem appear the more venerable, and give it a greater air of antiquity.

I must likewise take notice that there are in Milton several words of his own coining, as Cerbercan, mis-created, hell-doom'd, embryon atoms, and many others. If the reader is offended at this liberty in our English poet, I would recommend him to a discourse in Plutarch, which shews us how frequently Homer has made use of the same liberty.

Milton, by the above-mentioned aids, and by the choice of the most expressive words and phrases which our tongue would afford him, has carried our language to greater height than any of the English poets have ever done before or after him, and made the sublimity of his style equal to that of his sentiments.

I have been more particular in these observations on Milton's style, because it is that part of his work in which he appears the most singular. The remarks I have made upon the practice of other poets, with my observations from Aristotle, will perhaps obviate the prejudice which some have taken to his poem upon this account, yet, I must confess that I think his style, though admirable in general, is in some places too much stiffened and obscured by the frequent use of those methods which Aristotle has prescribed for the raising of it.

This redundancy of those several modes of speech, which Aristotle calls foreign language, and with which Milton has so very much enriched and in some places obscured the language of his poem, was the more proper for his use, because his poem is written in blank verse. Rhyme, without any other assistance, throws the language off from prose, and very often makes an indifferent phrase pass unregarded; but where the verse is not formed upon rhymes, there pomp of sound, and energy of expression, are indispensibly necessary to support the style, and keep it from falling into the flatness of prose.

Those who have not a taste for this elevation of style, and are apt to ridicule a poet when he goes out of the common forms of expression, would do well to see how Aristotle has treated an ancient author, called Euclid, for his insipid mirth upon this occasion. Mr. Dryden used to call

this sort of men his prose critics.

I should, under this head of the language, consider Milton's numbers, in which he has made use of several elisions that are not customary among other English poets, as may be particularly observed in his cutting off the letter Y, when it precedes a vowel. This, and some other innovations, in the measure of his verse, has varied his numbers in such a manner as renders them incapable of satiating the ear and cloying the reader, which the same uniform measure would certainly have done, and which the perpetual returns of rhyme never fail to do in long narrative poems. I shall close these reflections upon the language of Paradise Lost, with observing, that Milton has copied after Homer rather than Virgil, in the length of his periods, the copiousness of his phrases and the running of his verses into one another.

I have now considered Milton's Paradise Lost under these four great heads of the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and have shewn that he excels, in general, under each of these heads. I hope that I have made several remarks which may appear new, even to those who are versed in critical learning. Were I to choose my readers, by whose judgment I would stand or fall, they should not be such as are acquainted only with the French and Italian critics, but also with the ancient and modern, who have written in either of the learned languages. Above all, I would have them well versed in the Greek and Latin poets, without which a man very often fancies he understands a critic, when in reality he does not comprehend his meaning. Besides, he should have a clear and logical head. Without this talent he is perpetually puzzled and perplexed amidst his own blunders, mistakes the sense of those he would confute, or, if he thinks right, does not know how to convey his thoughts with clearness and