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less full of instruction and guidance as regards its aim, than the
demonstrator's specimens, which, as illustrations, have their own
though not a vital worth.
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Sometimes a fine poetic haze gathers around a word, and as nobility of a family gains an accession of lustre when its history is lost in the obscurity of the fabulous ages," this association of remoteness, on the principle of omne ignotum pro magnifico, imparts a sense of grandeur, misty and indefinite, but effective; but sometimes it suits the poetic genius to disperse and scatter the cloudy brilliancy, and bring out, free from eclipse or enveilment, the whole primal signification of a term. In ordinary hands it is a rash experiment, and eminently unsafe; but when genius brings the light out of a word, and shows its splendour, it shines all the more brightly in consequence of its former dimness. We might illustrate this fact by a hundred instances, but the thoughtful reader must be contented to accept one as a fair specimen of many-ex uno disce omnes. In German and Dutch the word herberger signifies one who looks out for a harbour, a place of safety, or a lodging for another. In Gower and Chaucer it takes the form of herbergeour, signifying forerunner, precursor. In the royal progresses an officer of the court, called the harbinger, used to precede the sovereign's party to mark out and allocate the residences of the attendants of royalty. Hence, in the old play of " Albumazar," an old gentleman named Pandolpho is made to say,

"I have no reason, nor spare room for any.
Love's harbinger has chalked upon my heart,
And with a coal writ on my brain,' For Flavia.'
This house is wholly taken up for Flavia.
Let Reason get a lodging by her wit;
Vex me no more, I must have Flavia.”—i., 2.

Similarly, in Milton we have this word, several times, beautifully
employed:-

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But Shakspere, having occasion to take the music out of the word, and to recur to the earlier signification, destroys for his own purpose the loving associations the word had come to possess, by recalling, through a harsh synonym, the etymological meaning of it,"But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near!"

"The Phoenix and the Turtle."

This is the poet's art in one form. We shall see it engaged in heightening and brightening into poetry the most prosaic and homely words, by bringing them into connection with terms implying suggestions of beauty or nobility, in the following sonnet (65) of Shakspere's :

"Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Oh, how shall summer's honey-breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks, impregnable, are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
Oh, fearful meditation! Where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid,
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

Oh, none! unless this miracle have weight,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright."

In such a use of language as this, words which aforetime were ignoble and prosaic-like caterpillars which have undergone metamorphosis into butterflies-become ennobled and take a higher flight. Were words always employed in their primary senses poetry would be quite eradicated from among the possible delights of man. All the associations of words are originally homely; for words are the creatures of man's necessities, which are all lowly. But ever as mankind advances these words acquire fresher and brighter associations, and these add a delicate deliciousness to their original meaning, which fits them for poetic use. In prose, words are employed with their current signification; in poetry, with an under-current of emotional suggestiveness which enhances their power. I am indebted to a friendly poet, for whose critical discrimination I have the highest esteem, for pointing out the following instance of the transfiguration which poetry effects by the simple agencies of choice diction. The very words of Thomas Aird are worthy of admiring quotation :-"The twofold image of Death, full of loathsome terrors, and yet a sweet sleep to the world-wearied head, is exquisitely portrayed in the following sonnet by Wordsworth:

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'Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne,

Which mist and vapours from mine eyes did shroud,
Nor view of who might sit thereon allowed;
But all the steps and ground about were strown
With sights the ruefullest that flesh and bone
Ever put on; a miserable crowd,-

Sick, hale, old, young, who cried before that cloud,
Thou art our king, O Death! to thee we groan.
I seemed to mount those steps; the vapours gave
Smooth way, and I beheld the face of one
Sleeping alone within a mossy cave,

With her face up to heaven, that seemed to have
Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone,
A lovely Beauty in a summer grave!'

The blent unity of this crowded conception, crowning ghastliness and terror with serene repose, is beyond the power of painting except in a series. How striking the multitudinous type! Death

is not seen within his cloud: his essential form of terror is unknown. But round about the base of his throne lie scattered all the well-known dishonours of the grave; and in the midst of the dead are the living looking eagerly into that cloud, and conscious of their king, Death. High above the rottenness and fears of mortality, even there where the throne itself of Death should be, in or above the cloud, there is no Death at all! Nothing but a Beauty laid in a sweet sleep, looking up to heaven, and yet drawing pleasing remembrances from the days of earth-most lovely emblem of our immortal hopes!"

The poet's words, however, require, as may be seen from the preceding extracts, not only to express emotioned thought, but to express it under such restrictions as to form, measure, and tone, as not only increase the difficulties of adequate utterance, but justify the transitive use of words, and certain departures from the ordinary forms of collocation, syntactic arrangement, and even grammatical accuracy of expression. These licences are permissible, however, not for the sake of producing a spurious impression of novelty, but only when they more effectively than the common forms of speech increase the grace, or add to the ease and perspicuity of the expres sions in which the thoughts may be uttered. These justifiable negligences are called licences, and, in so far as the choice of diction is involved, may be regarded as occurring under conditions which admit of a threefold arrangement, viz., grammatical, etymological, and rhetorical. That we may restrain our remarks within a manageable compass, so as to present a tolerably complete view of one department of this far-stretching topic, we shall confine our present remarks to the first of these three divisions, and shall remit to a succeeding paper the treatment of the etymological and rhetorical licences permissible in poetic compositions. Of the various modes of imparting an attractive unfamiliarity to that which is already well known, and so fitting words the better for being the agents of

"The glorious faculty assigned

To elevate the more than reasoning mind,

And colour life's dark clouds with orient rays,—

Imagination,"

the following paradigm may be given, as forming an approach to a systematic view of the grammatical licences permitted in poetic diction, viz.:

I. The use of

1. verbs

2. adjectives as substantives.
3. participles

II. The use of substantives as

1. verbs.

2. adjectives. (3. participles.

III. The use of transitive verbs intransitively.
IV. The use of intransitive verbs transitively.
V. The use of adjectives as verbs.

As an induction of particulars from which proof of the above synopsis may be drawn the following examples may be given, viz. :I. 1. Verbs as substantives.

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Antony.

"Sextus Pompeius

Hath given the dare to Cæsar, and commands

The empire of the sea."-"Antony and Cleopatra," i., 2.

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"By all above

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays proved thee my best of love."

Shakspere's "Sonnets," cx.

"No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation-poor but free-
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee."-Ibid., cxxv.

They leap at barley-crust; and hold cheese-parings,
With a spoonful of pallid wine in water, for

Festival exceeding."-Massinger's "The Picture," v.,

"So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction, unreproved,
And meek surrender, half-embracing, leaned
On our first father."-"Paradise Lost."

"In that fine air I tremble; all the past
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this
I scarce believe.
And all the rich to come
Reels, as the golden autumn woodland reels
Athwart the smoke of burning leaves."

Tennyson's "The Princess."

2.

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So fair an outward and such stuff within

Endows a man but he."-"Cymbeline," i., 1.

"Which is not mixed with seconds."-Shakspere's "Sonnets," cxxv.
"Have I not brought

The braveries of France before your window,
To fight at barriers or to break a lance?"
Massinger's "Parliament of Love," ii., 3.

"This, 'tis rumoured,

Little agrees with the curiousness of honour,
Or modesty of a maid."—Ibid., i., 4.

I. 3. Participles as substantives :

"The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit;

In every street these tunes our ears do greet,

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo,

Spring! the sweet spring!"-Thomas Nash, “On Spring."

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Go, get us properties,

And tricking for our fairies."

"Merry Wives of Windsor," iv., 1.

Cæsar. 'These couchings and these lowly courtesies
Might fire the blood of ordinary men."-"Julius Cæsar,” iii., l.

Oliver. "Kindness, nobler ever than revenge,

And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling,
From miserable slumber I awaked."

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