with pleasure; which they could not be, if their diction were hard to be understood. It is more reasonable to suppose, that the language of Homer is according to some ancient dialect, which, though not perhaps in familiar use among the Greeks at the time he wrote, was however intelligible. From the Homerick to the Socratick age, a period had elapsed of no less than four hundred years; during which the style both of discourse and of writing must have undergone great alterations. Yet the Iliad continued the standard of heroick poetry, and was considered as the very perfection of poetical language; notwithstanding that some words in it were become so antiquated, or so ambiguous, that Aristotle himself seems to have been somewhat doubtful in regard to their meaning.* And if Chaucer's merit as a poet had been as great as Homer's, and the English tongue under Edward the third, as perfect as the Greek was in the second century after the Trojan war, the style of Chaucer would probably have been our model for poetical diction at this day; even as Petrarcha, his contemporary, is still imitated by the best poets of Italy.

I have somewhere read, that the rudeness of

* Aristot. Poet. cap. 25.

the style of Ennius was imputed by the old criticks to his having copied too closely the dialect of common life. But this, I presume, must be a mistake. For, if we compare the fragments of that author with the comedies of Plautus, who flourished in the same age, and whose language was certainly copied from that of common life, we shall be struck with an air of antiquity in the former, that is not in the latter. Ennius, no doubt, like most other sublime poets, affected something of the antique in his expression: and many of his words and phrases, not adopted by any prose writer now extant, are to be found in Lucretius and Virgil, and were by them transmitted to succeeding poets. These form part of the Roman poetical dialect; which appears from the writings of Virgil, where we have it in perfection, to have been very copious. The style of this charming poet is indeed so different from prose, and is altogether so peculiar, that it is perhaps impossible to analyse it on the common principles of Latin grammar. And yet no author can be more perspicuous or more expressive; notwithstanding the frequency of Grecism in his syntax, and his love of old words, which he, in the judgment of Quintilian, knew better than any other man how to improve into decoration.*

The poetical dialect of modern Italy is so different from the prosaick, that I have known persons who read the historians, and even spoke with tolerable fluency the language of that country, but could not easily construe a page of Petrarcha or Tasso. Yet it is not probable, that Petrarcha, whose works are a standard of the Italian poetical diction,* made any material innovations in his native tongue. I rather believe, that he wrote it nearly as it was spoken in his time, that is, in the fourteenth century; omitting only harsh combinations, and taking that liberty which Homer probably, and Virgil certainly, took before him, of reviving such old, but not obsolete expressions, as seemed peculiarly significant and melodious; and polishing his style to that degree of elegance which human speech, without becoming unnatural, may admit of, and which the genius of poetry, as an art subservient to pleasure, may be thought to require.

The French poetry in general is distinguished from prose rather by the rhyme and the measure, than by old or uncommon phraseology. Yet the French, on certain subjects, imitate the style of their old poets, of Marot in particular; and may therefore be said to have something of

* Vicende della literatura del Denim, cap. 4.

a poetical dialect, though far less extensive than the Italian, or even than the English. And it may, I think, be presumed, that in future ages they will have more of this dialect than they have at present. This I would infer from the very uncommon merit of some of their late poets, particularly Boileau and La Fontaine, who, in their respective departments, will continue to be imitated, when the present modes of French prose are greatly changed: an event that, for all the pains they take to preserve their language, must inevitably happen, and whereof there are not wanting some presages already.

The English poetical dialect is not characterized by any peculiarities of inflection, nor by any great latitude in the use of foreign idioms. More copious it is, however, than one would at first imagine. I know of no author who has considered it in the way of detail.* What follows is but a very short specimen.

* Since writing the above, I have had the pleasure to read the following judicious remarks on this subject. "The language of the age is never the language "of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, "where the sentiment or image does not support it, "differs in nothing from prose. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself; to which alevery one that has wrtiten has added something,

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most

1. A few Greek and Latin idioms are common in English poetry, which are seldom or never to be met with in prose. QUENCHED OF HOPE. Shakspeare.-SHORN OF HIS BEAMS. Milton. -Created thing NOR VALUED HE NOR SHUNN'D. Milton.-'Tis thus we riot, while wнO SOW IT STARVE. Pope.-INTO WHAT PIT THOU SEE'ST FROM WHAT HEIGHT FALLEN. Milton.-He de

'by enriching it with foreign idioms, and derivatives; nay, sometimes words of their own composition or "invention. Shakspeare and Milton have been great "creators this way; and no one more licentious than "Pope or Dryden, who perpetually borrow expressions "from the former. Let me give you some instances from Dryden, whom every body reckons a great master "of our poetical tongue. Full of museful mopings—unlike "the trim of love-a pleasant beverage-a roundelay of "love-stood silent in his mood-with knots and knares "deformed—his ireful mood-in proud array-his boon 66 was granted-and disarray and shameful rout-way"ward but wise-furbished for the field-dodder'd oaks "-disherited-smouldering flames-retchless of lawscrones old and ugly-the beldam at his side-the gran"dam hag-villanize his father's fame. But they are infi"nite: and our language not being a settled thing, (like "the French) has an undoubted right to words of an "hundred years old, provided antiquity have not ren"dered them unintelligible."

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Mr. Gray's Letters, sect. 3. letter 4.