Nay, he
might even have found an echo almost tallying with his own in
"To begirt the almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging,"
a pun worthy of Milton's worst prose. Or he might have twitted him with
"a _seq_uent king who _seeks_." As for the _sh_ sound, a poet could
hardly have found it ungracious to his ear who wrote,
"Gna_sh_ing for angui_sh_ and despite and _sh_ame,"
or again,
"Then bursting forth
Afre_sh_ with con_sc_ious terrors vex me round
That rest or intermi_ssion_ none I find.
Before mine eyes in oppos_ition_ sits
Grim Death, my son."
And if Milton disliked the _ch_ sound, he gave his ears unnecessary pain
by verses such as these,--
"Straight cou_ch_es close; then, rising, _ch_anges oft
His cou_ch_ant wat_ch_, as one who _ch_ose his ground";
still more by such a juxtaposition as "matchless chief."[369] The truth
is, that Milton was a harmonist rather than a melodist. There are, no
doubt, some exquisite melodies (like the "Sabrina Fair ") among his
earlier poems, as could hardly fail to be the case in an age which
produced or trained the authors of our best English glees, as ravishing
in their instinctive felicity as the songs of our dramatists, but he also
showed from the first that larger style which was to be his peculiar
distinction.
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