СНАР. Of improved they hear, see, smell, touch, taste; tasting concoct, digest assimilate, and corporeal to incorporeal turn." Here are ten lines taken from one of the most admired books of the poem: but it appears to me (perhaps for want of taste and discernment) that any ten lines transcribed from his history of the Heptarchy, might with equal propriety be ranked with poetry *. That they may be excused, however, in a long work, on account of the beauties, by which they are counterbalanced, I readily admit; "sed emendata videri, Pulchráque, et exactis minimùm distantia, miror." 30. The blank verse of Thomson and Cowper is much more strictly verse than that of Milton : but the complete failure of the latter in his translation of the Iliad is at least a presumptive proof that this species of verse is not suited to such compositions; for when Cowper has failed, *The ancients seem to have had much more nice and accurate powers of discrimination in verse than we have. "In versu quidem theatra tota exclamant, si fit una syllaba aut brevior aut longior. Nec vero multitudo pedes novit, nec ullos numeros tenet; nec illud, quod offendit, aut cur, aut in quo offendat, intelligit: et tamen omnium longitudinum, et brevitatum in sonis, sicut acutarum graviumque vocum judicium ipsa natura in auribus nostris collocavit."-Cic. de Orator. The most learned and refined of a modern audience show no such quickness of perception or nicety of judgment. CHAP. Of improved who shall hope to succeed? The case is, that where it is not stiffened and elevated by some peculiar dignity and elevation of subject, as in Perception. the more splendid parts of the Paradise Lost, it requires so many inversions and transpositions to keep it out of prose, as render it quite unsuitable to the enthusiastic spirit, and glowing simplicity of heroic narrative, which is perfect only "cum ita structa verba sunt, ut numerus non quæsitus sed secutus esse videatur -quod indicat non ingratam negligentiam, de re hominis magis quam de verbis laborantis." CIC. Orator. 31. Not, however, that I would wholly exclude from poetry, or even from animated prose, what are, according to our idiom, inversions and transpositions: for, in many instances, such a collocation of the words is the natural and original order of speech; and when we address the imagination or the passions, the natural and original order will be found the most impressive, though it may differ from that established by ordinary use. To explain this, I shall take the liberty of quoting the words of one of the latest and ablest writers upon philosophical criticism; whose words, in this instance, cannot be altered without being injured. 32. "Let us figure to ourselves," says Dr. Blair * a savage, who beholds some object, "" * Lect. vii. CHAP. "such as fruit, which raises his desire, and "who requests another to give it to him. SupOf improved << posing our savage to be unacquainted with "words, he would, in that case, labour to make "himself be understood, by pointing earnestly Perception. at the object, which he desired, and uttering, at the same time, a passionate cry. Supposing him to have acquired words, the first "word, which he uttered, would, of course, "be the name of that object. He would not express himself according to our English "order of construction, Give me fruit,' but "according to the Latin order, Fruit give me,' Pomum da mihi: for this plain reason, "that his attention was wholly directed towards "fruit, the desired object. This was the ex"citing idea; the object which moved him to "speak; and, of course, would be the first "named. Such an arrangement is precisely putting into words the gesture, which nature taught the savage to make, before he was acquainted with words; and, therefore, it may be depended upon as certain, that he "would fall most readily into this arrange66 ment. 66 "Accustomed now to a different method of ordering our words, we call this inversion, "and consider it as a forced and unnatural "order of speech. But, though not the most Ilogical, it is however, in one view, the most 66 "natural order; because it is the order suggested by imagination and desire, which always impel us to mention their object in the "first place. We might, therefore, conclude, à priori, that this would be the order, in "which words were most commonly arranged at the beginnings of language; and accordingly we find, in fact, that, in this order, "words are arranged in most of the ancient tongues; as in the Greek, and the Latin; "and, it is said, also in the Russian, the Sclavonic, the Gaelic, and several of the Ame"rican tongues 66 СИАР. I. Of improved "All the other modern languages of Europe "have adopted a different arrangement from "the ancient. In their prose compositions, very little variety is admitted in the colloca"tion of words: they are mostly fixed to one “order; and that order is what may be called "the order of the understanding. They place, "first, in the sentence, the person or thing, "which speaks or acts; next its action; and lastly, the object of its action. So that the "ideas are made to succeed to one another, not according to the degree of importance, * P. 135, 8vo. ed. CHAP. Of improved "which the several objects carry in the ima gination, but according to the order of nature, and of time*" "It appears that, in all the successive changes, which language has undergone, as "the world advanced, the understanding has gained ground on the fancy and imagination. "The progress of language, in this respect, re"sembles the progress of age in man. The imagination is most vigorous and predo"mirant in youth; with advancing years the imagination cools, and the understanding ripens. Thus language, proceeding from sterility to copiousness, hath, at the same time, proceeded from vivacity to accuracy; "from fire and enthusiasm to coolness and precision † !" 33. The collocation of words, according to the order of desire or imagination, it is easy to perceive, must have been much better adapted to the purposes of poetry, than the collocation of them according to the order of the understanding; but a variety of flexible terminations is absolutely necessary to make words, so ar |