118 



for Bentley's alteration is — as Pearce (in Newton's edition) surmises — 

 this, that he missed a copulative particle between v. 312 and 313. But 

 he merely shifts the difficulty to another place ; for in his reading we 

 miss the conjunction between v. oil and 312, to join the two pai'ticiples 

 broke and sprung. Pearce, therefore, is for " keeping the old reading, 

 and for allowing the poet the liberty of dropping the copulative before 

 the words two planets, on account of that fire of imagination which was 

 kindled, and height of that noble fury with which he was possessed." 

 It does not seem to me that the fire of poetic imagination is likely to 

 sublimate away necessary particles : nor is it required in the present 

 case to allow the poet any grammatical license. This construction is 

 unimpeachably correct, but so wondrously stiff and complicated, so 

 un-English, that it almost requires a foreigner to understand it. The 

 fi'amework of the sentence is as follows : — Such as — two planets — 

 should combat. The predicate, should combat, is qualified by the 

 adverbial clause, " if among the constellations ivar ivere sprung ;" and 

 this is again qualified by the ablative absolute, "Nature's concord 

 (being) broke." " To set forth great things by small " is a parenthetical 

 phrase, which does not affect the structure of the sentence. The 

 subject, " two planets," is qualified by the participial phrase, " rushing 

 from, aspect malign of fiercest opposition." The structure of the 

 sentence is best seen from the subjoined diagram : — 



Such as two planets should combat. 



To set fortli, &e. Kushiug, &c. If war were sprung. 



Natui'e's concord broke. 



I cannot explain the syntax of this sentence better than by giving 

 a Latin translation of it ; and surely nothing could more clearly prove 

 the poet's tendency towards Latiuisms : — " Quales, ut magna parvis 

 explicentur, si, disrupta naturae concordia, helium inter sidera ortum 

 esset, duo planetse corruentes ex adverso, confligant in medio coelo, 

 orbesque implicates confundant." This sentence is grammatically 

 correct, and it is evident that no conjunction is missing in it. The 

 original is equally correct ; but neither can lay claim either to 

 perspicuity or to elegance. 



The first ten lines of the poem form a sentence of this complicated 

 nature, of seven parts, very artificially interlaced ; but every schoolboy 

 has become so familiar with it, that he no longer feels its strangeness 

 of construction, and though not able to analyse it, almost guesses how 

 the parts are joined together to form a whole.* 



• Many readers, either from inability or indolence, indulge in a very bad habit of resting 

 satisfied with having caught the general drift of a sentence, which they do, or think they 



