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Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with
greater extent in Paradise Lost may be found in Comus. One
source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets;
the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian;
perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may
be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote no language," but has formed what Butler calls a "Babylonish dialect," in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive
learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure,
that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.
Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of
copiousness and variety. He was master of his language in its full
extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence,
that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.
After his diction something must be said of his versification. "The
measure," he says, "is the English heroic verse without rhyme. " Of
this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his
own country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of
Virgil's books without rhyme; and, beside our tragedies, a few short
poems had appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to
reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and
probably written by Raleigh himself. These petty performances
cannot be supposed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably
took his hint from Trissino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank
verse easier than rhyme, was desirous of persuading himself that it
is better.
"Rhyme," he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of true
poetry." But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or
music is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the music of
metre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in
languages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and
short syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot
communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and
imperfect, some help is necessary. The music of the English heroic
lines strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all
the syllables of every line co-operate together; this co-operation
can only be obtained by the preservation of every verse unmingled
with another as a distinct system of sounds; and this distinctness
is obtained and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of
pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the
measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there
are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their
audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse,"
said an ingenious critic, "seems to be verse only to the eye."
Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not often
please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is
able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that
which is called the "lapidary style;" has neither the easiness of
prose, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long
continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton
alleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in
its defence has been confuted by the ear.
But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself
to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to
be other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to be admired
rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing
may write blank verse; but those that hope only to please must
condescend to rhyme.
The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot
be said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and
therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to
which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical
narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents,
the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise
and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton
is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for
himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or
hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of
his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries
he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings
nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or
favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support.
His great works were performed under discountenance and in
blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for
whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic
poems, only because it is not the first.
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