.1831.] The Beauty of Shakspeare' s Epithets. 651 



apparelled April treading on the limping heels of Winter," is as perfect a 

 piece of painting as any thing on canvass. How beautifully descriptive, 

 too, is the epithet " well-apparelled," and how much more palpably does 

 it describe that delicious month of flowers and foliage than any more ela- 

 borate description .could have done, though as particular in its details 

 and over-minute as some of those of the author of " The Seasons." * 



Yet although we admire the beauty, and advocate the use of epithets 

 in poetry, we are free to confess that this ornament has been used to an 

 excess, at once ridiculous and destructive of the effect intended; and 

 instead of being a beauty, became a disfiguring of beauty. Shakspeare, 

 who so well knew the nobler use of the epithet, knew also where it might 

 be misused ; this he has amusingly caricatured in bully Bottom's " raging 

 rocks with shivering shocks ;" and in the player-king in Hamlet. 



Epithets may, indeed, mean too much or too little ; there may be too 

 many as well as too few. A school of these prodigal epithet-mongers 

 sprung up after Darwin whose style of description, at the best, 

 trenched very close upon the borders of burlesque, and if at all exag- 

 gerated by an indiscreet admirer of his (< foreign ornaments," necessarily 

 and inevitably passed the border-line. These ill-starred imitators of the 

 Doctor were known in their day as the English Delia Cru scans, a 

 pestilential set of butterfly-gilders and gossamer-weavers, whom Mr. 

 Gilford, in his mighty wrath, swept away with an unmerciful broom, 

 when a ' ' particular hair" of it was potent enough to destroy the entire 

 race, and break down all their cobweb-looms. These wretched dog- 

 grelists were, indeed, the worst disgrace that ever befel the English 

 muse. They succeeded in bringing poetry for a time into contempt, 

 especially the poetry of epithet ; from which the one has recovered, 

 but the other has never since held up its beautiful head. It may be 

 hoped, however, that this, which is one of the grander graces of poetry, 

 will again revive in all the glory of the days of Spenser, Shakspeare, Chap- 

 man, and Milton, to the adornment of poesy, and the delight of better 

 tastes in all that is Cf beautiful and true." 



* The following instances, among thousands, of the force and fertility of Shakspeare's 

 power in this delightful art of painting, are selected at random from two or three of his 

 plays : 



The all-ending day of doom. A beauty-waning Widow. The pew-fellow of 



Remorse. The silver livery of advised Age. A key-cold Corpse. Grim-visaged 



War. Tardy-gaited Night. A lion-gaited Demon. High-sighted Tyranny. 



Honour-owing wounds. The beneficial Sun. Misery crammed with distressful 



bread. All-scorned Poverty. Short-armed Ignorance. The glass-faced Flatterer. 



Black-cornered Night. Tiger-footed Rage. The beached verge of the salt flood. 



The napless vesture of Humility. The honey-heavy dew of slumber. The 



chair-days of most reverend Age. 



The last is as perfect a picture as artist could paint. It would be easy to extend the 

 number of these examples from Shakspeare, and from others ; but they are enough for the 

 purpose. 



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