תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

be presumed that the angiport, or narrow passage in question, was called the Thirl, and, by an easy change in the pronunciation, the TURL.

The verb was Thirlian, perforare, terebrare, penetrare-to bore, pierce, or penetrate. And hence our verb, to thrill, of the same import. Thus, thrilling sounds, thrilling sorrows, i. e. sounds or sorrows which penetrate or pierce. In mechanical operations we find it still in use in the word drill, with the simple, and not uncommon, change of the th into d. By the way, this change of the th into d is particularly observable in the Prince of Wales's motto, Ic dien, which was originally written Ic Thien, I serve-I, though a Prince, am a Thane, or a Servant, as being subject to the King. 1789, Nov. ARCHEUS Surr.

CIII. An Emendation in Milton's Paradise Lost.

MR. URBAN,

Marlborough-street, Jan. 6. I DO not at present recollect, that the subject of the following remarks has been anticipated by any preceding writer. If you are of the same opinion, you may give them a place in your Magazine.

Yours, &c.

J. R-RT-N.

Milton, near the conclusion of his Paradise Lost, has the following lines:

"They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms.

Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

"If I might presume," says Mr. Addison, "to offer at the smallest alteration in this divine work, I should think the poem would end better with the passage here quoted, than with the two verses which follow:"

"They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way."

"These two verses," continues this excellent critic, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing passage, and renew, in the mind of the reader, that anguish which was pretty well laid by this considera

tion:"

"The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

Mr. Addison's observation is certainly just. The sentence of expulsion was pronounced with some comfortable intimations.

"Dismiss them not disconsolate,"

said the Almighty, when he gave his orders to Michael;

[ocr errors]

Send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace." Dr. Bentley, in order to remove the foregoing objection, corrects the two concluding lines in this manner:

"Then, hand in hand, with social steps, their way
Thro' Eden took, with heav'nly comfort chear'd."

No reader of taste, I presume, would wish to adopt this frigid alteration; and none, I think, would desire to expunge the two beautiful lines with which Milton concludes his poem. They give us a lively and natural representation of the melancholy state of our first parents, and the reluctance with which they left the delightful scenes of Paradise; and as they must necessarily pass through Eden, that is, the province in which Paradise was situated, before they proceeded into what they called the "wild" and "inhospitable world," I would, by all means, preserve that part of the description, altering only one word, for the sake of a better connexion, and invert the order of the four concluding verses in this manner:

"Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon; Then hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

Or, by placing a period at the end of the first line, the personal pronoun they may be retained; but the former reading, I think, is preferable.

By this alteration, the words of the Poet remain almost entirely unviolated: the beautiful picture of the loving, wandering, lingering, dejected pair, is preserved; they are represented as gradually proceeding from the garden, through the adjoining region, into the world at large; and are finally left, as they ought to be left, under the guidance and protection of Providence.

1791, Jan.

J. R.

CIV. On the Particle UN.

Feb. 12.

MR. URBAN, THE English language has of late years been so much studied, as to have received great improvement, and also to be more perfectly understood. Most of our writers, consequently, that compose in it, are found to acquit themselves with far more precision, perspicuity, and grammatical accuracy, than formerly they were wont to do. All this must be admitted; but still the use of the preposite particle un, which, I presume, never occurs but in compound words, seems to require some further consideration and elucidation; and I beg leave to submit the following observations concerning this monosyllable to the judgment of the public, through the channel of your Magazine. It is a business of greater importance in my eye, than to many, perhaps, at first sight may appear, as it most materially affects a very large portion of our words, substantives, adjectives, and adverbs, as may be seen by turning into Dr. Johnson's Dictionary.

The particle un, in compound words, implies a thing's being put into a different state or condition from what it was in before, as to undo, untie, unlock, &c.*; or displaced from its former situation, as unthroned, unhorsed, unparadised, &c. But now, Sir, in a very large catalogue of our words, this natural and original idea of un is in a manner, abandoned and lost, by its being confounded with in, and made convertible with it, so as merely to signify not. Thus, for instance, we have unpatient for impatient, Psalm xxxix. 3.; and many will say and write unfunded, for not

Dr. Johnson, . "un."

+ Milton.

Kuox, Winter Evenings, vol. II.

funded, and ungrateful for ingrateful, &c. whereas impatient, and ingrateful, would not only better preserve the etymology, but afford us a clearer notion of the thing or person meant to be expressed. What I propose therefore is, that un should never be used in such compounds, but always in, either literally retained, or softened, euphonie gratia, into im or il, as impertinent, illiberal, &c. and that all our future English Dictionaries should correct our orthography in this respect, the better to preserve analogy, and to give to readers a truer and more adequate sense of the respective words.

1791, April..

L. E.

CV. Pope's Imitation of a Passage in Silius Italicus.

MR. URBAN,

Jan. 4.

THE following celebrated passage in Pope's Temple of Fame, exhibits a familiar, and, at the same time, a very pleasing and poetical image.

"As, on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes,
The sinking stone at first a circle makes;
The trembling surface, by the motion stirr'd,
Spreads in a second circle, then a third;

Wide, and more wide, the floating rings advance,
Fill all the wat❜ry plain, and to the margin dance:
Thus ev'ry voice and sound, when first they break,
On neighb'ring air a soft impression make;
Another ambient circle then they move;
That, in its turn, impels the next above;
Thro' undulating air the sounds are sent,
And spread o'er all the fluid element."

Ver. 436.

In his Essay on Man, the author introduces the same image, with equal propriety:

"Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;

* Mr. Knox, vol. III. p. 225, writes, an unoffending individual; whereas the common word inoffending, or inoffensive, rather, would be equally as proper.

The centre mov'd, a circle strait succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next, and next all human race;
Wide, and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind;

Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast."

Ep. IV. 363.

In these two passages the image is beautifully enlarged and extended; is adorned with many striking circumstances, and is not abruptly, but gradually withdrawn from the reader's imagination. In this mode of conducting a simile, there is no poet, I think, superior, or even equal to Pope. We have a ludicrous view of the same object in the Dun eiad.

"As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,
One circle first, and then a second makes;
What DULNESS dropt among her sons, imprest
Like motion from one circle to the rest.
So from the midmost the nutation spreads
Round, and more round, o'er all the sea of heads."

B. II. 405.

It has been supposed, that this similitude is taken from the following passage in Shakespeare's Ilenry the Sixth:

"Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought."

Part I. of Henry VI. act I. sc. If.

The circular undulations, described by Shakespeare and Pope, might easily occur to any poet, accustomed to derive his similitudes from natural objects; yet it is, I think, very evident, that Pope has imitated the following passage in

Silius Italicus:

"Signa reportandi crescebat in agmine fervor.
Sic ubi perrumpit stagnantem calculus undam,
Exiguos format per prima volumina gyros;

« הקודםהמשך »