ine, every word is to the
purpose. There are no lazy intervals: all has been considered, and
demands and merits observation. Even in the best writers you sometimes
find words and sentences which hang on so loosely, you may blow them off.
Milton's are all substance and weight: fewer would not have served his
turn, and more would have been superfluous. His silence has the same
effect, not only that he leaves work for the imagination, when he has
entertained it and furnished it with noble materials; but he expresses
himself so concisely, employs words so sparingly, that whoever will
possess his ideas must dig for them, and oftentimes pretty far below the
surface."

An illustration and contrast may serve to point the moral. Here is an
example of Spenser's diffuser style, taken from the second book of the
_Faerie Queene_. Guyon, escaped from the cave of Mammon, is guarded,
during his swoon, by an angel:--

Beside his head there satt a faire young man,

(This announces the theme, as in music.)

Of wondrous beauty and of freshest yeares,

(The fair young man was fair and young.)

Whose tender bud to blossom new began,

(The fair young man was young.)

And florish faire above his equal peers.

(The fair young man was fair, fairer even than his equals, who were also
his peers.)

In the remaining lines of the stanza the comparison of his hair to the
rays of the sun is played with in the same way:--

His snowy front curled with golden heares,
Like Phoebus' face adorned with sunny rayes,
Divinely shone; and two sharp winged sheares,
Decked with diverse plumes, like painted Jayes,
Were fixed at his back to cut his ayery wayes.

The whole stanza is beautiful, and musical with the music of redundance.
Nothing could be less like Milton's mature style. His verse, "with frock
of mail, Adamantean proof," advances proudly and irresistibly, gaining
ground at every step. He brings a situation before us in two lines, every
word contributing its share:--

Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,
Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night.

With as decisive a touch he sketches the story of Jacob--

In the field of Luz,
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, _This is the gate of Heaven_.

Or the descent of Raphael:--

Like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled
The circuit wide.

The packed line in