1^5 



means to express sapie)itlssi)num Solomonis aninuim. The same 



applies to 11. 894 — 



" Where eldest night and cliaos . . hold eternal anarchy." 

 II. 535. " Before each van 



Prick forth the aiiy knights, and couch 

 Their spears till thickest legions close." 

 II. 951. " At length a universal huhbub wild . . . 

 Assaults his ear with loudest vehemence."* 

 1 would hardly reckon among these passages the following : — ■ 



I. 251. " And thou, profoundest Hell, receive thy new possessor ;" 

 for as there are several Heavens, one above the other, so we may 

 imagine several hells, into the lowest of which Satan was hurled. 



It is a schoolboy rule, that two negatives make an affirmative. This 

 applied to Latin is quite correct, but it is neither true of German nor 

 of English. Where these languages are most unalloyed with classical 

 phraseology, viz. in the pages of writers independent of the so-called 

 revival of learning, and in the mouth of the common people, who 

 retain in its greatest purity the genuine old character of a language, 

 there, I say, we find two negatives to make not aa affirmative, but 

 simply to strengthen the negation. f It is, therefore, a Latinism when 

 Milton says — 



I. 3'25. " Nor did they not perceive the evil plight 



In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel." 

 And V. 553. " Nor knew I not 



To be both will and deed created free." 



With respect to adverbs generally, it must be observed by the most 

 superficial reader, that Milton studiously avoids, wherever he can, the 

 adverbial termination ly, thereby likening his adverbs to adjectives — 



E.g. II. 816. "And thus answered smooth." 

 This can hardly be called a Latinism or Graecism, for Milton has not 

 confined himself to the cases in which the classical languages admit of the 

 adjective to qualify the verb. The Greek and the Latin adjectives can 

 be used either subjectively or objectively to qualify a verb where we 

 should expect an adverb. Subjectively used, it is always in the gender 

 of the subject of the clause, and it is looked upon as belonging rather 

 to the subject than to the verb, e.g. &kov airfiXQe we translate, " he 

 went away unwillingly ;" but we should express the meaning quite 

 satisfactorily by saying " he (being) unwilling went away." On the 



• r/.VUcgro I. " Heiico loathed melancholy 



Of Cerberus and blackest inidnight born. " 

 t The two negalivos makii Ingically an aifinnativn, and, tberel'ore, arc .ivoided by good 

 wiitors. When I say lb( y are geniiino TCnglish, I Jo not pretend lo niiiiutuiu tlial tboy are 

 (.'oi.d Rnglisb. 



