ierce Pains not feel,
Yet to their Genrals Voice they soon obey'd.--

--Who shall tempt with wandring Feet
The dark unbottom'd Infinite Abyss,
And through the palpable Obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his airy Flight
Upborn with indefatigable Wings
Over the vast Abrupt!

[--So both ascend
In the Visions of God-- Book 2.]

Under this Head may be reckon'd the placing the Adjective after the
Substantive, the Transposition of Words, the turning the Adjective into
a Substantive, with several other Foreign Modes of Speech which this
Poet has naturalized to give his Verse the greater Sound, and throw it
out of Prose.

The third Method mentioned by Aristotle is what agrees with the Genius
of the Greek Language more than with that of any other Tongue, and is
therefore more used by Homer than by any other Poet. I mean the
lengthning of a Phrase by the Addition of Words, which may either be
inserted or omitted, as also by the extending or contracting of
particular Words by the Insertion or Omission of certain Syllables.
Milton has put in practice this Method of raising his Language, as far
as the Nature of our Tongue will permit, as in the Passage
above-mentioned, Eremite, [for] what is Hermit, in common Discourse. If
you observe the Measure of his Verse, he has with great Judgment
suppressed a Syllable in several Words, and shortned those of two
Syllables into one, by which Method, besides the above-mentioned
Advantage, he has given a greater Variety to his Numbers. But this
Practice is more particularly remarkable in the Names of Persons and of
Countries, as Beelzebub, Hessebon, and in many other Particulars,
wherein he has either changed the Name, or made use of that which is not
the most commonly known, that he might the better depart from the
Language of the Vulgar.

The same Reason recommended to him several old Words, which also makes
his Poem appear the more venerable, and gives it a greater Air of
Antiquity.

I must likewise take notice, that there are in Milton several Words of
his own coining, as Cerberean, miscreated, Hell-doom'd, Embryon Atoms,
and many others. If the Reader is offended at this Liberty in our
English Poet, I would recommend him to a Discourse in Plutarch, [7]
which shews us how frequently Homer has made use of the same Liberty.

Milton, by the above-mentioned Helps, and by the Choice of the noblest
Words and Phrases which our Tongue would afford him, has