mark of great genius, is one of the most dangerous licences of poetry, and a true critic does not do his duty if he do not watch the poet's exertion of his privilege with jealous and scrutinizing eyes. Too loose a rein in this particular might accelerate a great deterioration of language: too tight a curb, on the other hand, might check or subvert the legitimate career of genius. It is incumbent on objectors to shew, by better arguments than italics, that the new phrases have not issued from the true mint of poetry, and are base or washed coin. Pope, than whom no individual could be more rigid in the sparing use of these licences, has a passage in his Essay on Criticism, which not only indulges the practice, but shews that he considers it essential to good poetry. This great poet and critic says, that writers of true poetical genius

Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears

Bright through the rubbish of some thousand years.
Command OLD WORDS that long have slept, to wake,
Words that wise Bacon, or brave Raleigh spake,
Or bid the NEW be English ages hence;
For use will father what's begot by sense.

Shakspeare was a neologist, and Spenser himself affects the obsolete.' Looking to Milton for authority, as the author of the greatest sacred epic in our language, it is quite notorious that he not only did not abstain from the coinage of new words, but vehemently affected them. Not his words only, but

his sentences are entirely new! He, indeed, carried the system to its ne plus ultra; for, if we concur with Johnson, he invented a new and peculiar diction for the express use of his epic poem, which, says the doctor, is so far removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.'

It cannot be denied, that to servile imitators of Milton (all whose view of being Miltonian consists in the use of certain epithets and idioms, nathless, eremite,''dark profound,' nor did he not,' &c. &c.,) this large creation of words has been the great stumbling-block. As all are not Miltons who wish to be so, too boundless an issue of questionable value in new words must be restrained. To Mr. Montgomery's honour, it may be truly said, that while he is barely chargeable with the creation of new, he is as sparing in the revival of ancient words, as any of the better brothers.' He sometimes, but very rarely, resorts to the use of a new compound; and, sometimes, but generally in obedience to analogy of language, imparts an active sense to a substantive quality or thing. It may be as truly added, that although his choice of subject- Milton's hero,' as Dryden termed Satan, and the construction of his poem in blank verse, might have seduced an inferior genius into imitation, he is not a copyist of Milton's invented and inverted style. Neither is he a mannerist: he is not, indeed, a copyist of the mere verbal physiognomy of any poet

living or dead. Compared with the classical poets of England, the construction of his verse may be said to come nearest to such a structure as might be supposed to result from a combination of Akenside, Young, and Cowper. While, in diction and sentiment, he unites the magnificent diversity and gloomy splendour of Young, he adds the natural flow and chastened vigour of Cowper, to the exuberant imagery, lofty eloquence, and platonic abstractions of Akenside. The faults of his style are those of Young and Akenside, the intermingled declamation and abrupt terseness of the first; of the second, his too great intertexture' as (Johnson characteristically terms it) of complicated clauses. Like Akenside's, his sentences are often too far prolonged, and the due closing of his periods is too long delayed. Like him, too, he often piles image on image, and aggregates ornament on ornament, while sometimes the new thought alone preserves the mellifluous cadences and dying falls' of the verse from surfeiting the ear with sweetness.

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What, then, are the limits to poetical neology? Pope has stated them

"If where the rules not far enough extend—
Some lucky licence answers to the full
The intent proposed—that licence is a rule.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.

But if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;

Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need,
And have at least good precedent to plead.

Essay on Criticism.

*

This is good sense, like every thought of Pope, who has been justly called the Poet of good sense;' in whom nothing ultra-nothing opposed to the golden mean could ever be detected, either in his politics or poetry. With so discreet a guide we cannot err. Old or obsolete words may be revived, or new words or phrases created, provided they be poetically appropriate, or justified by necessity; as, for instance, in cases where a word or phrase will express a thought or paint an image, not to be otherwise expressed or painted without a circumlocution: the use of such licence must be limited, indeed naturally will be, since the predicated cases of exceptions can but unfrequently occur, and must be warranted, as much as can be, by precedent.

Now, let us try the accuser and accused by this perspicuous and satisfactory critical law, as applied to diction. The following passage contains the Edinburgh Journalist's objections on the score of Mr. R. Montgomery's alleged false coinage of new words: ' Among other specimens, we find, "paradisal,"

"The Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory;' Prologue to Epistles. Proof of a wise and independent moderation. He was a consistent friend to rational liberty-a better distinction; one of those rare unpensioned friends of liberty who had not rendered his advocacy questionable by pecuniary advantage, or twice mendicated subscriptions.

"vasty," "impregn" (for impregnated,) a "dew-fall" (meaning a dew-drop,) "a most insinuous man,' "the greenery of hills," "halls of fictious glare" (obsolete,) "a pest which might pang the heart" (obsolete,) "dareful" (obsolete.)

Of all this consommé of verbal objections, the words termed obsolete are admitted by Pope's rule; pang is not new, but warranted by the poetical use of substantive verbs, as to medicine,'' to wing,' (Shakspeare;) dew-fall, I think, is used by Spenser., The greenery of hills is a beautiful picture-word (may I be allowed to use a new compound ?) of Coleridge: the words 'impregn' and 'paradisal' are Milton's; vasty' vasty deep' is Shakspeare's. Thus no objectionable epithet remains in the critic's fasciculus but insinuous. Insinuant was possibly written; though. philological analogy (in and sinuosus, winding into) might warrant the phrase, did the occasion claim it, which, I think, it does not. The word is, however, corrected in the second edition. None of these words are coined. They are not a false coinage of new words.'

6

The critic, had he taken pains, might have found many new words really belonging to Mr. Montgomery. Many of these words are energetic, glowing, and picturesque. They accord with the foregoing definition. They paint an ideal picture, or strong sentiment, not to be expressed, or painted otherwise, except by periphrasis, and they fix it on the mind. They,