competent panegyrist, to discussing more particulars concerning the Christian hero himself, "The summer's day too short for such a subject." LETTER XLV. GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ. Lichfield, Oct. 27, 1786. I AM surprised at your idea, that Milton's sonnets have a singular flow of numbers, and that their author thought smoothness an essential perfection in that order of verse. The best of Milton's have certain hardnesses, though there is a majesty, perhaps, in that very hardness, which, besides producing an enchanting effect for the intermixture of the musical lines, seems to mark the peculiarity of the composition, and makes the sonnet, and its privileges, stand apart from all other writing in measure. To the pointed and craggy rock, the grace of which is its roughness, I should as soon think of applying the epithet polished, as smoothness of numbers to the sonnets of Milton. Now, seeming to allow the privilege of mutilating the vowel e in blank verse, you assert that it ought never to be done in rhyme. We perpetually see it mutilated, however, in our noblest rhyming compositions, without the least injury to the grandeur and beauty of the verse. Certainly the longer the line, the less is the possibility of injuring its melody by cutting off the pronunciation of that vowel. The musical Pope, in the most exquisitely polished of all his ever-highly-polished verse, the Eloisa to Abelard, curtails it twice in one line, "How love th' offender, yet detest th' offence." The e twice taken away does, perhaps, injure the melody of that line; but there is another of Pope's, from the Temple of Fame, whose sweetness has no superior, though it contains an abridged e. "And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play." The accurate, the finished Gray, continually takes this liberty, because he felt that it may be taken with poetic impunity; instance, "Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse." And, again, "One morn I miss'd him on th' accustom'd hill." And also, "Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame." Even in his short lyric measure; "Isles that crown th' Egean deep." Also, "The secrets of th' abyss to spy." And, "Who th' avenger of his guilt." Milton, in every species of measure, whether long or short, scruples not this abridgement, nor the frequency of its use, and this in his rhyme as well as in his blank verse. Examination will shew this. So dissolves your fastidious maxim in the warm rays of high poetic authorities. verse. you Dr Johnson was a very indifferent reader of One eternal monotone frustrated the intent of the poet, respecting the echo of sound to sense. Thus has he taught modern critics to think, that the line Pope gave as an example of quick motion, yet of perfect smoothness, is, in reality, an harsh and dragging verse. "Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main." But if the voice dwells, as it ought, in recitation, upon the words flies and skims, the exact effect is produced that Pope intended; it becomes the smoothest possible line, and presents an admirable picture to the ear, not only of a light swift nymph, but of a bird on quick though unwinnowing pinion, "Fli-es o'er th' unbending corn, and ski-ms along the main." By mutilating the e in this line, see how Pope dissented from your maxim combated above. Nor must I suffer you to take from me my favourite word inspirit; because not your brilliant worship's vocabulary, which you will call the whole English language, can supply its placeanimate will not, since, besides that it is equally of foreign extraction, to animate is to give life, to inspirit is to give soul. You have a verbal queasiness about you, which amounts to disease. I hope you like that elegant word. Upon incontrovertible authority have I set a little dozen words upon their joint stools in the poetic fane, which you have attempted to kick down stairs; but I trust they will maintain their station. From the extracts I sent you, you have, by this time, received proof, that I did not call Addison's serious prose a water-gruel style, without having found it so, at least in some instances. Nothing wearies me like prosing about and about the good cardinal virtues in their old robes; but I like to see them glittering in the bright armour of Johnsonian eloquence. Addison always appeared to me as tautological in his solemn prose as in his verse, when he says, "So the pure limpid stream, when foul'd by stains Works itself clear, and as it runs refines." There can be no partiality in my boundless preference of Johnson's style, as a moral essayist, to Addison's. I am ready to confess the superiority of the latter in playful composition. Addison died before I was born, and Johnson hated me; against whose writings am I most likely to be prejudiced? But, in truth, I never suffer either personal affection, or dislike, to operate upon what I read. So if, as you insinuate respecting * What an anti-climax!-S. |