In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line remarkably rough and halting;
Tripping ebb: that stole |
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 implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addressed the earth.
Those who are determined to find in Milton an assemblage of all the excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be offended that I do not celebrate his versification in higher terms; for there are readers who discover that in this passage,
So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay, |
a long form is described in a long line; but the truth is, that length of body is only mentioned in a slow line, to which it has only the resemblance of time to space, of an hour to a maypole.
The same turn of ingenuity might perform wonders upon the description of the ark:
Then from the mountains hewing timber tall, |
In these lines the poet apparently designs to fix the attention upon bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for what analogy
