392. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
CRITIQUE 0” @ PASSAGE Of MILTON, 
BOOK I, LINE 44. 
ILTON, in his firft book of Para- 
dife Lofl, after relating the caufe 
of our grand-parents’ fall, and the proud 
attempts of Satan againft the throne of 
Heaven, proceeds, 
Him the Almighty Power 
Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ ethereal fky, 
With hideous ruin and combuftion, down 
To bottomlefs perdition, there to dweil 
In acamantine chains and penal fire. 
Here both the fenfe and fentence appear 
complete. But the whole force of this 
beautiful paflage is difordered by the in- 
troduction—the mifpiacing, at leaft, of the 
following line, with which the fentence 
concludes : 
Who durft defy th? Omnipotent to arms, 
The proper pofition of this line, asa 
member of the former fentence, is evi- 
dently between ** Him,” and “the Al- 
mighty Power,” &c., and would there 
render the whole fentence more full and 
expreflive : but in its original pofition it 
has the contrary effeét—it embarraffes and 
disjoints it, and, like every thing that is 
arbitrarily dragged in after a fentence is 
complete, takes away from its ftrength 
and beauty. Befides, inftead of produ. 
cing that liftening paufe,—that final, that 
decifive reft on the ear betwixt one fen- 
tence and another,—betwixt what has been 
sfaid and what is to be faid ;—inftead of 
preparing the mind for what follows, it 
clogs the ideas, occafions an unpleafant 
chafm in the attention, by forcing the re- 
fleétion to recur to what has been faid be- 
fore, and thus neceflarily weakens the 
conception of the whole. This will hap- 
pen to every one in reading the fentence in 
gueftion when conneéted with the line, 
"Who durft defy th’ Omnipotent to arms, 
as the idea mult naturally go back to 
Him the Almighty Power, &c. 
without which it muft appear a miftimed 
exclamation, or altogether incomprehen- 
fible. 
But even without this objeétion there is 
ftill a lefs one, which, in my opinion, 
would be fatal to the ftru&ure of the fen- 
tence, admitting the arrangement in other 
refpects: the diftance of the relative 
*S who’’ from its antecedent ** him.”’ The 
antecedent is here the firft word in the 
fentence ; and the relative, inftead of 
being placed immediately after it, or 
as {con after as poffible, is referved till 
the fenfe and fentence is complete without 
Literary Criticifms. 
[June 1, 
either it or its attendant member, unlefs 
indeed in the pofition before pointed out « 
and could we not trace their connection 
by a decifion of the fenfe, it would be 
difficult to de it by any other means. Yet 
all this difficulty would have been avoid- 
ed had the fentence been arranged in the 
following fimple order : ' 
‘Him who Jurft thus defy 
Th’ Omnipotent. to arms, th’ Almighty 
Power 
Hurld headlong flaming from th’ ethereal 
fky, 
With hideous ruin and combuftion, down 
To bottomlefs perdition, there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fire. 
By this conftruGtion the relation of the 
members is preferved, the clofe poffeffes 
propriety and @rength, and the mind 
comes to the end of the fenfe with the ca- 
dence of the period. M. N. 
Poplar, Fan.13, 1806. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
I ence quefticned. a learned friend whofe 
name will be revered as long as claffi- 
cal learning is deemed an objeé of liberal 
purfuit among men, whether any com- 
mentator on our immortal bard, had exs 
plained to his fatisfaétion an expreffion he 
puts into the mouth of Beatrice in Much 
Ado about nothing. 
Don John incenfed me to flander the Lady 
Hero. 
He anfwered in the negative. It is evi- 
dent from the context that zzcenfe, to 
make angry, could not be the idea the 
poet meant to convey. Now there is in 
ule in many parts of the North of Eng. 
land, and in Nottinghamfhire in particu- 
lar, a word which I conjecture he ufed, 
and which in its fignification is perfectly 
adapted to exprefs the manner in which a 
prince might be fuppofed to influence his 
low companions. The word I mean is 
infenfe, to inftruét, er put in the head of 
any one : as for inftance, the judge is faid 
to zfeufe the jury how to bring in their 
verdiét: or, asa Nottingham man would 
fay, ‘Mr. Pitt zafenfed his majority to 
vote againft the abolition ef the flave. 
trade, while he endeavoured to preferve 
fome appearanee of confiftency by fitting 
in the minority.” It appears to me that 
_incenfe in its ordinary meaning has no 
fort of congruity with the relative fitua- 
tions of the two charaéters: but if any 
reader of your valuable Mifcellany can 
propofe a more eligible reading, I fhall be 
happy to fee it. M. M. 
Wakefield, 08.25, 1805. 
Ta 
