Under this head may be reckoned 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 found, and throw it out of profe.

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 alfo by the extending or contracting of particular words, by the infertion or omiffion of certain fyllables. Milton has put in practice this method of raising his language, as far as the nature of our tongue will permit, as in the paffage above mentioned, eremite, for what is hermit, in common discourse. If you observe the meafure of his verfe, he has with great judgment fuppreffed a fyllable in feveral words, and shortened those of two fyllables into one, by which method, besides the abovementioned advantage, 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, Hessebon, 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. E ij

The fame reafon recommended to him feveral old words, which alfo makes his Poem appear the more venerable, and gives it a greater air of antiquity.

I must likewise take notice that there are in Milton feveral words of his own coining, as Cerberean, mifcreated, 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 shows us how frequently Homer has made ufe of the fame liberty.

Milton, by the above-mentioned helps, and by the choice of the noblest words and phrases which our tongue would afford him, has carried our Language to a greater heighth 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 the more particular in these observations on Milton's Style, because it is that part of him in which he appears the most singular. The remarks I have here made upon the practice of other poets, with my obfervations out of Aristotle, will perhaps alleviate the prejudice which fome have taken to his Poem upon this account; though, after all, I must confefs that I think his Style, though admirable in general, is in fome places too much stiffened and obfcured by the frequent use of those methods which Ariftotle has prescribed for the railing of it.

This redundancy of those several ways of speech, which Aristotle callsForeign Language,and with which

Milton has so very much enriched, and in some places darkened, 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 verfe is not built upon rhymes, there pomp of found, and energy of expreffion, are indispensably neceffary to support the style, and keep it from falling into the flatness of profe.

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 expreffion, would do well to fee how Aristotle has treated an ancient author, called Euclid, for his infipid mirth upon this occafion. Mr. Dryden used to call this fort of men his profe critics.

I should, under this head of the Language, confider Milton's Numbers, in which he has made use of several elifions that are not cuftomary among other English poets, as may be particularly observed in his cutting off the letter Y, when it precedes a vowel. This, and fome other innovations in the measure of his verse, has varied his Numbers in fuch a manner as makes them incapable of fatiating the car and cloying the reader, which the fame uniform measure would certainly have done, and which the perpetual returns of rhyme never fail to do in long narrative poems. I fhall close these reflections upon the Language of Pa

radise Loft, 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 verfes into one another.

I have now confidered Milton's Paradise Loft under these four great heads of the Fable, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Language, and have shown that he excels, in general, under each of these heads. I hope that I have made several discoveries which may appear new, even to those who are verfed in critical learning. Were I, indeed, to chuse my readers, by whofe judgment I would stand or fall, they should not be fuch 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 verfed in the Greek and Latin poets; without which a man very often fancies that he understands a critic, when in reality he does not comprehend his meaning.

It is in criticism as in all other fciences and speculations; one who brings with him any implicit notions and obfervations which he has made in his reading of the poets, will find his own reflections methodized and explained, and, perhaps, feveral little hints that had paffed in his mind perfected and improved in the works of a good critic; whereas one who has not these previous lights is very often an utter ftranger to what he reads, and apt to put a wrong interpretation upon it. Nor is it fufficient that a man who fets up for a

=judge in criticism should have perused the authors above mentioned, unless he has also a clear and logical head. Without this talent he is perpetually puzzled and perplexed amidst his own blunders, mistakes the fenfe of those he would confute, or, if he chances to think right, does not know how to convey his thoughts to another with clearness and perfpicuity. Aristotle, who was the best critic, was also one of the best logicians that ever appeared in the world.

Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding would be thought a very odd book for a man to make himself master of who would get a reputation by critical writings; though, at the fame time, it is very certain that an author who has not learned the art of diftinguishing between words and things, and of ranging his thoughts, and fetting them in proper lights, whatever notions he may have, will lofe himself in confufion and obfcurity. I might further observe, that there is not a Greek or Latin critic who has not shown, even in the style of his criticisms, that he was a master of the elegance and delicacy of his native tongue.

The truth of it is, there is nothing more abfurd than for a man to set up for a critic without a good infight into all the parts of learning; whereas many of those who have endeavoured to signalize themselves by works of this nature among our English writers, are not only defective in the above-mentioned particulars, but plainly discover, by the phrases which they make ufe of, and by their confused way of thinking,