Excerpt: ...for it: rich in themselves, but ill-shaped; cut out to an air of Magnificence, but disproportion'd and cumbersome. To the Costliness of Ornament, he added all the Graces and Decorum of it. It may be said, this did not require, or discover a Knowledge of the Latin. To the first, I think, it did not; to the second, it is so far from discovering it, that, I think, it discovers the contrary. To make This more obvious by a modern Instance: The great Milton likewise labour'd under the like Inconvenience; when he first ...
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Excerpt: ...for it: rich in themselves, but ill-shaped; cut out to an air of Magnificence, but disproportion'd and cumbersome. To the Costliness of Ornament, he added all the Graces and Decorum of it. It may be said, this did not require, or discover a Knowledge of the Latin. To the first, I think, it did not; to the second, it is so far from discovering it, that, I think, it discovers the contrary. To make This more obvious by a modern Instance: The great Milton likewise labour'd under the like Inconvenience; when he first set upon adorning his own Tongue, he likewise animated and enrich'd it with the Latin, but from his own Stock: and so, rather by bringing in the Phrases, than the Words: And This was natural; and will, I believe, always be the Case in the same Circumstances. His Language, especially his Prose, is full of Latin Words indeed, but much fuller of Latin Phrases: and his Mastery in the Tongue made this unavoidable. On the contrary, Shakespeare, who, perhaps, was not so intimately vers'd in the Language, abounds in the Words of it, but has few or none of its Phrases: Nor, indeed, if what I affirm be true, could He. This I take to be the truest Criterion to determine this long agitated Question. It may be mention'd, tho' no certain Conclusion can be drawn from it, as a probable xxxiii Argument of his having read the Antients; that He perpetually expresses the Genius of Homer, and other great Poets of the Old World, in animating all the Parts of his Descriptions; and, by bold and breathing Metaphors and Images, giving the Properties of Life and Action to inanimate Things. He is a Copy too of those Greek Masters in the infinite use of compound and de-compound Epithets. I will not, indeed, aver, but that One with Shakespeare's exquisite Genius and Observation might have traced these glaring Characteristics of Antiquity by reading Homer in Chapman's Version. B. Jonson and Shakespeare compar'd. An additional Word or two naturally falls...
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