pathy with that character; an effect which is
accomplished by unsettling ordinary habits of thinking, and thus
assisting the Reader to approach to that perturbed and dizzy state of
mind in which if he does not find himself, he imagines that he is
_balked_ of a peculiar enjoyment which poetry can and ought to bestow.

The sonnet quoted from Gray, in the Preface, except the lines printed in
Italics, consists of little else but this diction, though not of the
worst kind; and indeed, if one may be permitted to say so, it is far too
common in the best writers both ancient and modern. Perhaps in no way,
by positive example, could more easily be given a notion of what I mean
by the phrase _poetic diction_ than by referring to a comparison between
the metrical paraphrase which we have of passages in the Old and New
Testament, and those passages as they exist in our common Translation.
See Pope's 'Messiah' throughout; Prior's 'Did sweeter sounds adorn my
flowing tongue,' etc., etc., 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and
of angels,' etc., etc. 1st Corinthians, chap. xiii. By way of immediate
example, take the following of Dr. Johnson:

Turn on the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes,
Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise;
No stern command, no monitory voice,
Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice;
Yet, timely provident, she hastes away
To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day;
When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain,
She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain.
How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours,
Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers?
While artful shades thy downy couch enclose,
And soft solicitation courts repose,
Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight,
Year chases year with unremitted flight,
Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow,
Shall spring to seize thee, like an ambush'd foe.

From this hubbub of words pass to the original. 'Go to the Ant, thou
Sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide,
overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her
food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O Sluggard? When wilt
thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a
little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one
that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.' Proverbs, chap. vi.

One more quotation, and I have done. It is from Cowper's V