" Almost every
aphoristic phrase that he has made current is borrowed from some one of
the classics, like his famous
"License they mean when they cry liberty,"
from Tacitus. This is no reproach to him so far as his true function,
that of poet, is concerned. It is his peculiar glory that literature was
with him so much an art, an end and not a means. Of his political work he
has himself told us, "I should not choose this manner of writing,
wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself (led by the genial power of
nature to another task), I have the use, as I may account, but of my left
hand."
Mr. Masson has given an excellent analysis of these writings, selecting
with great judgment the salient passages, which have an air of
blank-verse thinly disguised as prose, like some of the corrupted
passages of Shakespeare. We are particularly thankful to him for his
extracts from the pamphlets written against Milton, especially for such
as contain criticisms on his style. It is not a little interesting to see
the most stately of poets reproached for his use of vulgarisms and low
words. We seem to get a glimpse of the schooling of his "choiceful sense"
to that nicety which could not be content till it had made his native
tongue "search all her coffers round." One cannot help thinking also that
his practice in prose, especially in the long involutions of Latin
periods, helped him to give that variety of pause and that majestic
harmony to his blank-verse which have made it so unapproachably his own.
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