description, but do not impress the mind at once with the horrible idea
of immense height. The impression is divided; you pass on, by
computation, from one stage of the tremendous space to another."

This criticism is, in effect, a plea for Milton's method, although by a
freak of fate it was uttered in vindication of Congreve. Some years
earlier, in his edition of Shakespeare, Johnson had remarked on the same
passage, and had indicated the poetic method that he approved: "He that
looks from a precipice finds himself assailed by one great and dreadful
image of irresistible destruction."

Johnson's critical opinions on poetry are deserving of the most careful
consideration, and, where they fail to convince, of an undiminished
respect. But not Johnson himself can raise a doubt as to which of the two
passages quoted above is the greater masterpiece of description proper.
Shakespeare sets a scene before your eyes, and by his happy choice of
vivid impression makes you giddy. The crows help, rather than impede your
fall; for to look into illimitable vacuum is to look at nothing, and
therefore to be unmoved. But the classic manner is so careful for unity
of emotional impression that it rejects these humble means for attaining
even to so great an end. It refuses to work by mice and beetles, lest the
sudden intrusion of trivial associations should mar the main impression.
No sharp discords are allowed, even though they should be resolved the
moment after. Every word and every image must help forward the main
purpose. Thus, while the besetting sin of the Romantics is the employment
of excessive, or irrelevant, or trivial or grotesque detail, the
besetting sin of the Classics is so complete an omission of realistic
detail that the description becomes inflated, windy and empty, and the
strongest words in the language lose their vital force because they are
set fluttering hither and thither in multitudes, with no substantial hold
upon reality. There is nothing that dies sooner than an emotion when it
is cut off from the stock on which it grows. The descriptive epithet or
adjective, if only it be sparingly and skilfully employed, so that the
substantive carry it easily, is the strongest word in a sentence. But
when once it loses its hold upon concrete reality it becomes the weakest,
and not all the protests of debility, superlative degrees, and rhetorical
insistence, can save it from neglect.

It is apparent, therefore, how necessar