ot, like Crabbe,
describe "as if for the police"; he chooses his detail with consummate
skill, but he makes use of it to suggest the emotions. It is impossible
to set his description of persons over against Milton's; for the drama
does not describe persons, it presents them in action; and a description,
where it occurs, is often designed merely to throw light on the character
and feelings of the speaker. "Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low"
is a description rather of Lear, as he hangs over the dead body of
Cordelia, refusing to believe that she is dead, than of Cordelia herself.
"An excellent thing in woman" is not a doctrine, but a last heartbreaking
movement of defiance, as if to refute any stander-by who dares to think
that there is something amiss, that a voice should not be so low as to be
inaudible.

The contrast of the methods may, therefore, be better noted in the
description of scenes. There is no very close parallel obtainable; but
the two passages compared by Lessing are not wholly dissimilar in theme,
and serve well enough to illustrate the difference of the styles. The
first, taken from the Seventh Book of _Paradise Lost_, tells how the King
of Glory, from the verge of his heavenly domain, beholds the gulf of
Chaos:--

On Heavenly ground they stood, and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable Abyss,
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains to assault
Heaven's highth, and with the centre mix the pole.

The other is the imaginary view from Dover Cliff, described by Edgar in
_King Lear_:--

How fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head;
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge
That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Johnson objected to this description: "No, sir; it should be all
precipice,--all vacuum. The crows impede your fall. The diminished
appearance of the boats, and other circumstances, are all very good