To speak of the poetic diction of the classical poetry has become a commonplace of criticism. By universal consent certain words and phrases seem to have been stamped as Poetic diction reputable, national, and present, and to have formed the authorized storehouse of poetical supplies. If one writer hit out a good word or phrase, it became common property like air or sunshine, and other writers did not waste their time beating the bush for a different form of words. Frequently words in the accepted diction may be traced to some Latin author, but the point to be noted here is that, whatever the origin of the word, its use is incessant. The fatal grip with which certain words clung to the poetical mind in the classical period receives interesting exemplification from a comparison of Chapman's and Pope's translations of Homer. It will be observed that in frequent passages Pope uses the words "purple," " deck," "adorn," and "paint," chief words in the classical poetic diction. But in the corresponding passages in Chapman some other form of words is used. And in most cases Pope's use of these terms has no warrant in the original. Likewise, in Dryden's translation of Virgil the stock diction is used when there is no idea or picture in the Latin to call for it, and when the use of the stock phraseology results in distinct loss of force or beauty. Compare for instance, Virgil's vivid flavescet and Dryden's tame "the fields adorn, "I used with reference to harvests of ripened grain. Or compare novis rubeant quam prata coloribus and "painted meads ;" noctem ducentibus astris, and "stars adorn the skies." 3 We find the same spirit illustrated in Dryden's modernization of Chaucer. The fresh, spontaneous simplicity of a poet like Chaucer serves exceptionally well to show the comparatively insipid and feeble treatment of nature on the part of those poets who were content to take their expressions, as well as their facts, at second hand. "The briddes" becomes "the painted birds;" "a goldfinch" is amplified into “a goldfinch with gaudy pride of painted plumes." At the sun upriste " becomes

i

"Aurora had but newly chased the night

And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light.""

The same point is well exemplified in some of the changes made by Percy in the Ballads. For instance,

"As itt befell in Midsummer time

When burds singe sweetlye on every tree"

was modernized to,

'When Flora with her fragrant flowers

Bedeckt the earth so trim and gaye,
And Neptune with his daintye showers

Came to present the monthe of Maye." 2

Full illustration would require much more space than is here at command, but the point to be made is clear, namely, that even when the poet had his natural facts furnished for him, he instinctively put them into the moulds of an accepted poetic diction.

By all odds the most frequent and significant words in this stock poetic diction, so far as it has to do with the presentation of nature, are indicative of dress or adornment in some form. The word "paint" is everywhere. Snakes and lizards and birds; morning and evening; gardens, meadows, and fields; prospects, scenes, and landscapes; hills and valleys; clouds and skies; sunbeams and rainbows; rivers and waves; and flowers from tulips to white lilies—nothing escapes. It is little wonder that Somerville called God "the Almighty Painter."3 The word "paint' is really an Elizabethan survival, and as such came into the possession of Cowley whose use of it is absolutely vicious. A rainbow is "painted tears." The wings of birds are "painted oars.' David after the fight with the giant is "painted gay with blood," and the blood of the Egyptians lost in the Red Sea "new paints the waters' name." "Gaudy" is another word of frequent In general the meaning was as now," ostentatiously

occurrence.

I

1 Dryden: Works 12:5; 11: 221.

2 Percy: Reliques 2: 190.

3 Somerville: To Anne Coventry, l. 25.

* Cowley: The Shortness of Life, st. 11; The Muse; Davideis, 2: 29; The

Plagues of Egypt, st. 17.

.

4

I

fine" as we see in Shakespeare's phrase "rich but not gaudy," and in Dryden's "gaudy pride of painted plumes." In that sense it was fitly applied to peacocks, and perhaps even to rainbows, but such phrases as "a gaudy fly," the "gaudy plumage"* of falcons; the "gaudy axles of the fixed stars," the "gaudy month" of May, the "gaudy opening dawn," the "gaudy milky soil" and the "gaudy Tagus" seem to have no exact meaning. “Bright” might often serve as a synonym, but not in the application of the word to flies and falcons. The word "adorn" is likewise eminently serviceable. Fruit adorns the trees, fleecy flocks adorn the hills, flowers adorn the green, rainbows adorn clouds, blades of grass adorn fields, vegetables adorn gardens, Phœbus adorns the west and is himself adorned with all his light, and Emma's eyes adorn the fields she looks on. "Deck" is another favorite. Flora's rich gifts deck the field, herbs deck the spring, and corals deck the deep. Vales, meadows, fields, mountains, rivers, shores, plains, paths, turf, gardens-all are profusely "damasked" or "enamell'd" or "embroider'd." The wings of butterflies and linnets are "gilded." The rising sun gilds the morn; the gaudy bow gilds the sky; gaudy light gilds the heavens; lightning gilds the storm; meteors and stars gild the night; and a Duchess gilds the rural sphere when she condescends to visit the country.

These milliner-like words were not, however, the only ones that the poet could claim as lawful heritage. He knew, for instance, that he could always call honey "a dewy harvest," or "balmy dew," or "ambrosial spoils," and have his hearers know what he meant. His birds, though almost necessarily a “choir " could be "feathered" or "tuneful" or "plumy" or "warbling" according to his taste. His fish were easily labeled as "finny," I Blackmore: Creation, 6: 170; 5: 101; Yalden: The Insect.

scaly," or "watery." Breezes were "whispering," "balmy," "ambrosial"; zephyrs were" gentle," "soft," and "bland"; gales were "odoriferous," "wanton," "Elysian"; and no other kinds of winds blew except in storm similes. "Vernal" and " verdant" come in at every turn. From Waller on the epithet "watery" seems eminently satisfactory to the poetic mind. Dryden may be taken as illustrative. To him the ocean is a watery desert," a "watery deep," a "watery plain," a watery way,” a “watery reign." The shore is a watery brink," or a “watery strand.” Fish are a watery line" or a watery race." Sea-birds are "watery fowl." watery war." Streams

watery ranks.

are

The launching of ships is a "watery floods." Waves are

The word occurs with wearisome iteration in succeeding poets. It is applied not only to the sea, but to rivers clouds, and rain, to glades, meads, and flowers, to landscapes, to mists, to the sky, to the sun, and to the rainbow. The set phrases for the sky are such as "azure sky," "heaven's azure," “concave azure,” “ azure vault," azure waste," "blue sky," "blue arch," "blue expanse," "blue vault," "blue vacant," "blue serene," "aërial concave," "ætherial vault, ̧”“ aërial vault," "vaulted sky," ” “vaulted azure," with such other changes as may be rung on these words. The chief words applied to stars, "spangle" and "twinkle," have been already noted. The usual adjectives for streams and brooks are pleasant, easy words like "liquid," "lucid," "limpid," "purling," "murmuring," and "bubbling." "Rural," "rustic" and "sylvan' rustic" and "sylvan" are epithets applied to anything belonging to the country, whether to the hours spent there, the songs of the birds, the charming countrymaidens and their loves, their bowers, their bliss, their toil. "Flowery" is so constantly used as descriptive of brooks, borders, banks, vales, hills, paths, plains, and meads, that it really has not much more meaning than the definite article prefixed to

'Many of these words occur in the translations by Dryden but in none of the instances quoted is there any justification in the Latin phrase for the adjective "watery." For instance, watery way"=spumantibus undis; "watery reign"=altum; "watery deep" pelago, and so on through the list."

2 See p. 19.

t

a noun.

"Vocal" is applied to vales, shades, hills, shores, mountains, grots, and woodlands. "Pendent" and "hanging" belong to cliffs, precipices, mountains, shades, and woods. Headlong" and "umbrageous" are favorite adjectives for groves or shades of any sort. "Mossy" applies to grottos, fountains, streams, caves, turf, banks, and so on. "Gray" is the usual descriptive "Lawns" are word for twilight, and "brown" for night.

usually "dewy."

Some words in this poetic diction are no longer much used. "Breathing," is an example. It usually referred to the air in gentle motion, as “breathing gales," but we also find "breathing earth," referring to mists, and "breathing sweets," and "breathing flowers" or "breathing roses," where the reference The is to perfume. "Maze" and "mazy" are also much used. Thames and other streams lead along "mazy trains." The track of the hare is an "airy maze." Paths meet in narrow mazes and stars unite in a mazy, complicated dance. Milton's stream flows with "mazy error." This word "error" is frequently used in its exact derived meaning. In another place Milton speaks Blair has a stream of streams that wander with "serpent error. that slides along in "grateful errors."" In Falconer the light strays through the forest with "gay romantic error." In Gay the fly floats about with "wanton errors."4 Dyer winds along a mazy path with "error sweet." Armstrong's "error" leads him through endless labyrinths." Addison's waves roll in "restless errors," "7 and Thomson treads the "maze of autumn with cheerful error."8 "Amusive” is a word applied by Pitt9 to the ocean,

Milton, Paradise Lost, 4:239; 7:302.

2 Blair: The Grave.

3 Falconer: The Shipwreck, 1:359.

4 Gay: Rural Sports, 1:226.

5 Dyer: Ruins of Rome, 1. 86.

"Armstrong: Art of Preserving Health, 2:7.

7 Addison: To the King, 1. 115.

8 Thomson: Autumn, 626; cf. also Summer, l. 1574; Autumn, 1. 628.

9 Pitt: Ode to John Pitt, st. 5; Mallet: Amyntor and Theodora, 1:153; Shenstone: To a Lady; Rural Elegance, st. 17.