ated and abstracted terms; and thus by degrees eradicates the
abundance of metaphor, which is used in the more early ages of society.
Otherwise, though the Greek compound words have more vowels in proportion
to their consonants than the English ones, yet the modes of compounding
them are less general; as may be seen by variety of instances given in
the preface of the Translators, prefixed to the SYSTEM OF VEGETABLES by
the Lichfield Society; which happy property of our own language rendered
that translation of Linneus as expressive and as concise, perhaps more so
than the original.

And in one respect, I believe, the English language serves the purpose
of poetry better than the antient ones, I mean in the greater ease of
producing personifications; for as our nouns have in general no genders
affixed to them in prose-compositions, and in the habits of conversation,
they become easily personified only by the addition of a masculine or
feminine pronoun, as,

Pale Melancholy sits, and round _her_ throws
A death-like silence, and a dread repose.
_Pope's Abelard._

And secondly, as most of our nouns have the article _a_ or _the_ prefixed
to them in prose-writing and in conversation, they in general become
personified even by the omission of these articles; as in the bold figure
of Shipwreck in Miss Seward's Elegy on Capt. Cook:

But round the steepy rocks and dangerous strand
Rolls the white surf, and SHIPWRECK guards the land.

Add to this, that if the verses in our heroic poetry be shorter than
those of the ancients, our words likewise are shorter; and in respect
to their measure or time, which has erroneously been called melody and
harmony, I doubt, from what has been said above, whether we are so much
inferior as is generally believed; since many passages, which have been
stolen from antient poets, have been translated into our language without
losing any thing of the beauty of the versification.

_B._ I am glad to hear you acknowledge the thefts of the modern poets
from the antient ones, whose works I suppose have been reckoned lawful
plunder in all ages. But have not you borrowed epithets, phrases, and
even half a line occasionally from modern poems?

_P._ It may be difficult to mark the exact boundary of what should be
termed plagiarism: where the sentiment and expression are both borrowed
without due acknowledgement, there ca