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minds, and diversified by time or place. It has the contrary, brevity, speed, and eagerness, are been a term hitherto used to signify that which evidently marked out by the sound of the syllapleases us we know not why, and in our appro- bles. Thus the anguish and slow pace with bation of which we can justify ourselves only by which the blind Polypheme groped out with his the concurrence of numbers, without much power hands the entrance of his cave, are perceived in of enforcing our opinion upon others by any ar- the cadence of the verses which describe it. gument, but example and authority. It is, indeed, so little subject to the examinations of reason, that Paschal supposes it to end where demonstration begins, and maintains, that without incongruity and absurdity we cannot speak of geometrical beauty.

To trace all the sources of that various pleasure which we ascribe to the agency of beauty, or to disentangle all the perceptions involved in its idea, would, perhaps, require a very great part of the life of Aristotle or Plato. It is, however, in many cases apparent that this quality is merely relative and comparative; that we pronounce things beautiful because they have something which we agree, for whatever reason, to call beauty, in a greater degree than we have been accustomed to find it in other things of the same kind; and that we transfer the epithet as our knowledge increases, and appropriate it to higher excellence, when higher excellence comes within our view.

Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind, and therefore Boileau justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and been admired through all the changes which the mind

of man has suffered from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary customs, have a better claim to our regard than any modern can boast, because the long continuance of their reputation proves that they are adequate to our faculties, and agreeable to nature.

It is, however, the task of criticism to establish principles; to improve opinion into knowledge; and to distinguish those means of pleasing which depend upon known causes and rational deduction, from the nameless and inexplicable elegancies which appeal only to the fancy, from which we feel delight, but know not how they produce it, and which may well be termed the enchantress of the soul. Criticism reduces those regions of literature under the dominion of science, which have hitherto known only the anarchy of ignorance, the caprices of fancy, and the tyranny of prescription.

Κύκλωψ δὲ στενάχων τε καὶ ὠδίνων ὀδίνῃσι,
Χερσὶ ψηλαφόων-

Meantime the Cyclop raging with his wound,
Spreads his wide arms, and searches roun and round.

POPE.

The critic then proceeds to show, that the efforts of Achilles struggling in his armour against the current of a river, sometimes resisting, and sometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elisions of the syllables, the slow succession of the feet, and the strength of the consonants.

Δεῖνον δ' ἀμφ' Αχιλήα κυκώμενον ἵστατο κύμα.
Ὤθει δ' ἐν σάκεϊ πίπτων ρόος· οὐδὲ πόδεσσιν
Ἐσκε στηρίξασθαι.

So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head;
Yet, dauntless still, the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves,
Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash'd from beneath him, slides the slimy soil.

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Many other examples Dionysius produces; There is nothing in the art of versifying so but these will sufficiently show, that either he much exposed to the power of imagination as the was fanciful, or we have lost the genuine proaccommodation of the sound to the sense, or the nunciation; for I know not whether, in any one representation of particular images, by the flow of these instances, such similitude can be disof the verse in which they are expressed. Every covered. It seems, indeed, probable, that the student has innumerable passages, in which he, veneration with which Homer was read, proand perhaps he alone, discovers such resem-duced many supposititious beauties; for though blances; and since the attention of the present it is certain, that the sound of many of his verses race of poetical readers seems particularly turned very justly corresponds with the things expressupon this species of elegance, I shall endeavoured, yet, when the force of his imagination, which to examine how much these conformities have been observed by the poets, or directed by the critics, how far they can be established upon nature and reason, and on what occasions they have been practised by Milton.

Homer, the father of all poetical beauty, has been particularly celebrated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as he that, of all the poets, exhibited the greatest variety of sound; "for there are, (says he,) innumerable passages, in which length of time, bulk of body, extremity of passion, and stillness of repose; cr, in which, on

gave him full possession of every object, is considered, together with the flexibility of his language, of which the syllables might be often contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will seem unlikely that such conformity should happen less frequently even without design.

It is not however to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light of criticism, and who owed so much of his success to art and labour, endeavoured among other excellences, to exhibit this similitude; nor has he been less happy in this than in the other graces af versification.

This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival | When things are small, the terms should still be so ; of learning, displayed with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.

Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum.—
Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
Atque sono quæcunque canunt imitantur, et apta
Verborum facie, et quæsito carminis ore.
Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,
Hic melior motuque pedum, et pernicibus alis,
Molle viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:
Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens
Incedit tardo molimine subsidendo.

Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,

Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem..
Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit et artus,
Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,
Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso.-
Ergo ubi jam nautæ spumas salis ære ruentes
Incubuere mari, videas spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus æquor.
Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis
Incipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus
Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda

Ad scopulos, cumulo insequitur præruptus aquæ mons.-
Cum vero ex alto speculatus cærula Nereus
Leniit in morem stagni, placidæque paludis,
Labitur uncta vadis abies, natat uncta carina.-
Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
Ingentesque juvant ingentia : cuncta gigantem
Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa, lacertique.
Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,

Adde moram, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent
Segnia; seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
Eternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus anteunarum.
At mora si fuerit damno properare jubebo.
Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor;
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum perculsus graviter procumbit humi bos.
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultro
Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis

In medio interrupta: quierunt cum freta ponti,
Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
Cernere erit, mediisque incœptis sistere versum.
Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?
Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:
Sanguis hebet, frigent effoetæ in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
Ingentes, totaque, ferum dare funera campo.

"Tis not enough his verses to complete,
In measure, numbers, or determined feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the sound a picture of the sense;
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the same.
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on every limb a grace;
That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vast, curls up behind;
At once the image and the lines appear
Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
Lo! when the sailors steer the ponderous ships,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps
Incumbent on the main that roars around,
Beneath their labouring oars the waves resound;
The prows wide echoing through the dark profound
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Toss'd by the storm the towering surges rise;
While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore,
Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar.
Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rise, and overhang the deep.
But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging seas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.

For low words please us, when the theme is low But when some giant, horrible and grim, Enormous in his gait, and vast in every limb, Stalks towering on; the swelling words must rise In just proportion to the monster's size.

If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce move,
When each stiff clod beneath the ponderous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines march slow
Nor less, when pilots catch the friendly gales,

Unfurl their shrouds, and hoist the wide-stretch'd sails
But if the poem suffers from delay,

Let the lines fly precipitate away,

And when the viper issues from the brake,

Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack
His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.

When night descends, or stunn'd by numerous strokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too sinks with correspondent sound,

Flat with the steer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves subside, and tempests cease,
And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;

So oft we see the interrupted strain

Stopp'd in the midst-and with the silent main
Paused for a space-at last it glides again.
When Priam strains his aged arm, to throw
His unavailing javelin at the foe;

(His blood congeal'd, and every nerve unstrung)
Then with the theme complies the artful song;
Like him, the solitary numbers flow,
Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow
Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.
The raging youth in trembling Ilion falls,
Bursts her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courser to his speed,

In full career to charge the warlike steed:
He piles the field with mountains of the slain;
He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain.

PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope seems to have transplanted this flower, the growth of happier climates, into a soil less adapted to its nature, and less favourable to its increase.

Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows,
But when loud billows lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with great attention, and celebrated by a rival wit, may be judg ed what can be expected from the most diligent endeavours after this imagery of sound. The verse intended to represent the whisper of the vernal breeze, must be confessed not much to excel in softness or volubility; and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of jarring consonants. The noise and turbulence of the torrent is, indeed distinctly imaged, for it requires very little skill to make our language rough; but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no particular heaviness, obstruction, or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is rather contrasted than exemplified; why the verse should be lengthened to express speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls used for, that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore, naturally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and stately measure; and the word unbending one of the most sluggish and slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.

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ticism. Such performances, however, are not wholly without their use; for they are commonly just echoes to the voice of fame, and transmit the general suffrage of mankind when they have no particular motives to suppress it.

Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato was condemned to perish in a good cause.

There are prejudices which authors, not otherwise weak or corrupt, have indulged without scruple; and perhaps some of them are so complicated with our natural affections, that they cannot easily be disentangled from the heart. Scarce any can hear with impartiality a compari

THERE are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his know-son between the writers of his own and another ledge oblige him to resign.

Baillet has introduced his collection of the decisions of the learned, by an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critic, and raise the passions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large, is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing have been observed to be often such as cannot in the present state of human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonstrations; they are therefore wholly subject to the imagination, and do not force their effects upon a mind pre-occupied by unfavourable sentiments, nor overcome the counter-action of a false principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities. Interest and passion will hold out long against the closest siege of diagrams and syllogisms, but they are absolutely impregnable to imagery and sentiment; and will for ever bid defiance to the most powerful strains of Virgil or Homer, though they may give way in time to the batteries of Euclid or Archimedes.

In trusting therefore to the sentence of a critic, we are in danger not only from that vanity which exalts writers too often to the dignity of teaching what they are yet to learn, from that negligence which sometimes steals upon the most vigilant caution, and that fallibility to which the condition of nature has subjected every human understanding; but from a thousand extrinsic and accidental causes, from every thing which can excite kindness or malevolence, veneration or contempt.

Many of those who have determined with great boldness upon the various degrees of literary merit, may be justly suspected of having passed sentence, as Seneca remarks of Claudius,

Una tantum parte audita,

Sæpe et nulla,

without much knowledge of the cause before them: for it will not easily be imagined of Langbane, Borrichitus, or Rapin, that they had very accurately perused all the books which they praise or censure; or that, even if nature and learning had qualified them for judges, they could read for ever with the attention necessary to just cri

country: and though it cannot, I think, be charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe, that there was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own. scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy worthy of so much zeal, vehemence and acrimony.

I can

There is, indeed, one prejudice, and only one, by which it may be doubted whether it is any dishonour to be sometimes misguided. Criticism has so often given occasion to the envious and ill-natured, of gratifying their malignity, that some have thought it necessary to recommend the virtue of candour without restriction, and to preclude all future liberty of censure. Writers possessed with this opinion are continually enforcing civility and decency, recommending to critics the proper diffidence of themselves, and inculcating the veneration due to celebrated names.

I am not of opinion that these professed enemies of arrogance and severity have much more benevolence or modesty than the rest of mankind; or that they feel in their own hearts, any other intention than to distinguish themselves by their softness and delicacy. Some are modest because they are timorous, and some are lavish of praise because they hope to be repaid.

There is, indeed, some tenderness due to li ing writers, when they attack none of those truths which are of importance to the happiness of mankind, and have committed no other offence than that of betraying their own ignorance or dulness. I should think it cruelty to crush an insect who had provoked me only by buzzing in my ear; and would not willingly interrupt the dream of harm less stupidity, or destroy the jest which makes

notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection on gloomy situations and disastrous events, will sadden his numbers, as it will cloud his countenance. But in such passages there is only the similitude of pleasure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without any immediate application to particular images. The same flow of joyous versification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation of triumph; and the same languor of melody will suit the complaints of an absent lover, as of a conquered king.

its author laugh. Yet I am far from thinking | his measure with his subject, even without any this tenderness universally necessary, for he that effort of the understanding, or intervention of the writes may be considered as a kind of general judgment. To revolve jollity and mirth necessa→ challenger, whom every one has a right to at-rily tunes the voice of a poet to gay and sprightly tack; since he quits the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his merit to the public judgment. To commence author is to claim praise, and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace. But, whatever be decided concerning contemporaries, whom he that knows the treachery of the human heart, and considers how often we gratify our own pride or envy, under the appearance of contending for elegance and propriety, will find himself not much inclined to disturb; there can surely be no exemptions pleaded to secure them from criticism, who can no longer suf-casions we make the music which we imagine fer by reproach, and of whom nothing now remains but their writings and their names. Upon these authors the critic is undoubtedly at full liberty to exercise the strictest severity, since he endangers only his own fame; and like Æneas, when he drew his sword in the infernal regions, encounters phantoms which cannot be wounded. He may, indeed, pay some regard to established reputation; but he can by that show of reverence consult only his own security, for all other motives are now at an end.

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatised, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.

It has, indeed, been advanced by Addison, as one of the characteristics of a true critic, that he points out beauties rather than faults. But it is rather natural to a man of learning and genius to apply himself chiefly to the study of writers who have more beauties than faults to be displayed: for the duty of criticism is neither to depreciate, nor dignify by partial representations, but, to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth, whatever she shall dictate.

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THE resemblance of poetic numbers to the subject which they mention or describe, may be considered as general or particular; as consisting in the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised in the sound of some emphatical and descriptive words, or in the cadence and harmony of single verses.

The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice and variety of language readily supplies him with just representations. To such a writer it is natural to change |

It is scarcely to be doubted, that on many oc

ourselves to hear, that we modulate the poem by
our own disposition, and ascribe to the numbers
the effects of the sense. We may observe in life,
that it is not easy to deliver a pleasant message
in an unpleasing manner, and that we readily as-
sociate beauty and deformity with those whom
for any reason we love or hate. Yet it would be
too daring to declare that all the celebrated
adaptations of harmony are chimerical, that Ho-
mer had no extraordinary attention to the me
lody of his verse when he described a nuptial
festivity;

Νύμφας δ' ἐκ θαλαμων, δαίδων, ὑπολαμπομενάων,
Ηγινεον ανά αστυ, πολυς δ' έμεναιος όρωρει

Here sacred pomp, and genial feast delight
And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the soft flute, and cittern's silver sound.

POPE.

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or that Milton did not intend to exemplify the
harmony which he mentions:

Fountains! and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs' warbling tune his praise.

That Milton understood the force of sounds well adjusted, and knew the compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; since he was both a musician and a critic; but he seems to have considered these conformities of cadence as either not often attainable in our language, or as petty excellences unworthy of his ambition: for it will not be found that he has always assigned the same cast of numbers to the same objects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelic beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be found upon comparison very different:

And now a strippling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face

Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb Suitable grace diffused, so well he feign'd; Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume, sprinkled with gold.

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony, and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance and easy grace which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however, is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally delights the ear and imagination:

A seraph wing'd; six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments Divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in heaven: the third his feet
Shidow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
Sky-tinctur'd grain! like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide..

The adumbration of particular and distinct mages by an exact and perceptible resemblance of sound, is sometimes studied, and sometimes casual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises which they signify. Such are Strider, Balo, and Beatus, in Latin; and in English to growl, to buzz, to hiss, and to jar. Words of this kind give to a verse the proper similitude of sound, without much labour of the writer, and such happiness is therefore rather to be attributed to fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great propriety, and undeniably contribute to enforce the impression of the idea. We hear the passing arrow in this line of Virgil;

Et fugit horrendum stridens elapsa sagitta,

Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing--POPE.

and the creaking of hell-gates,' in the description by Milton;

-Open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have observed, seem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionysius himself tells us that the sound of Homer's verses sometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk: is not this a discovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who after long inquiry into the nature of the scarlet colour, found that it represented nothing so much as the clangour of a trumpet? The representative power of poetic harmony consists of sound and measure; of the force of the syllables singly considered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound can resemble nothing but sound, and time can measure nothing but motion and duration.

The critics, however, have struck out other similitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of these lines has been celebrated by writers whose opinion the world has reason to regard;

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If all these observations are just, there must be some remarkable conformity between the sud den succession of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; since we are told of all these images, that they are very strongly impressed by the same form and termination of the verse.

We may, however, without giving way to enthusiasm, admit that some beauties of this kind may be produced. A sudden stop at an unusual syllable may image the cessation of action, or the pause of discourse; and Milton has very hap pily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

-I fled, and cried out death:

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded death.

The measure of time in pronouncing may be varied so as very strongly to represent, not only modes of external motion, but the quick or slow succession of ideas, and consequently the passions of the mind. This at least was the power of the spondaic and dactylic harmony, but our language can reach no eminent diversities of sound. We can indeed sometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or mark a slow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan struggling through chaos;

So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on: with difficulty and labour he--

thus he has described the leviathans or whales!

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait

But he has at other times neglected such representations, as may be observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which express an action tardy and reluctant.

-Descent and fall

To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the dep.
With what confusion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then.

In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line remarkably rough and halting.

Tripping ebb; that stole With soft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd His sluices.

It is not, indeed, to be expected, that the sound should always assist the meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has here certainly committed a fault like that of the player, who looked on the earth when he im

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