mean
Phrases or Idioms in Virgil and Homer, they would not shock the Ear of
the most delicate Modern Reader, so much as they would have done that of
an old Greek or Roman, because we never hear them pronounced in our
Streets, or in ordinary Conversation.

It is not therefore sufficient, that the Language of an Epic Poem be
Perspicuous, unless it be also Sublime. To this end it ought to deviate
from the common Forms and ordinary Phrases of Speech. The Judgment of a
Poet very much discovers it self in shunning the common Roads of
Expression, without falling into such ways of Speech as may seem stiff
and unnatural; he must not swell into a false Sublime, by endeavouring
to avoid the other Extream. Among the Greeks, AEschylus, and sometimes
Sophocles, were guilty of this Fault; among the Latins, Claudian and
Statius; and among our own Countrymen, Shakespear and Lee. In these
Authors the Affectation of Greatness often hurts the Perspicuity of the
Stile, as in many others the Endeavour after Perspicuity prejudices its
Greatness.

Aristotle has observed, that the Idiomatick Stile may be avoided, and
the Sublime formed, by the following Methods. [4]

First, by the Use of Metaphors [: Such are those of Milton. [5]]

Imparadised in one anothers Arms.

--And in his Hand a Reed
Stood waving tipt with Fire.--

The grassie Clods now calvd,--

[Spangled with Eyes--]

In these and innumerable other Instances, the Metaphors are very bold
but just; I must however observe that the Metaphors are not [so] thick
sown in Milton which always savours too much of Wit; that they never
clash with one another, which, as Aristotle observes, turns a Sentence
into a kind of an Enigma or Riddle; [6] and that he seldom has recourse
to them where the proper and natural Words will do as well.

Another way of raising the Language, and giving it a Poetical Turn, is
to make use of the Idioms of other Tongues. Virgil is full of the Greek
Forms of Speech, which the Criticks call Hellenisms, as Horace in his
Odes abounds with them much more than Virgil. I need not mention the
several Dialects which Homer has made use of for this end. Milton, in
conformity with the Practice of the Ancient Poets, and with Aristotle's
Rule, has infused a great many Latinisms, as well as Graecisms, and
sometimes Hebraisms, into the Language of his Poem; as towards the
Beginning of it.

Nor did they not perceive the evil Plight
In which they were, or the f