Hoc amet, hoc spernat, promissi carminis auctor:
i. e. “Be this rule held sacred and inviolate by him, who hath projected and engaged in a work, deserving the appellation of a poem.” Were the subject only the choice or invention of words, the solemnity of such an application must be ridiculous.
As for the construction, the commonest reader can find himself at no loss to defend it against the force of the Doctor’s objections.
46. In verbis etiam tenuis, &c.] I have said, that these preparatory observations concerning an unity of design, the abuse of language, and the different colourings of the several species of poetry, whilst they extend to poetic composition at large, more particularly respect the case of the drama. The first of these articles has been illustrated in note on v. 34. The last will be considered in note v. 73. I will here shew the same of the second, concerning the abuse of words. For 1. the style of the drama representing real life, and demanding, on that account, a peculiar ease and familiarity in the language, the practice of coining new words must be more insufferable in this, than in any other species of poetry. The majesty of the epic will even sometimes require to be supported by this means, when the commonest ear would resent it, as downright affectation upon the stage. Hence the peculiar propriety of this rule to the dramatic writer,
In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis.
2. Next, it is necessary to keep the tragic style, though condescending, in some sort, to the familiar cast of conversation, from sinking beneath the dignity of the personages, and the solemnity of the representation. Now no expedient can more happily effect this, than what the poet prescribes concerning the position and derivation of words. For thus, the language, without incurring the odium of absolutely invented terms, sustains itself in a becoming stateliness and reserve, and, whilst it seems to stoop to the level of conversation, artfully eludes the meanness of a trite, prosaic style.—There are wonderful instances of this management in the Samson Agonistes of Milton; the most artificial and highly finished, though for that reason, perhaps, the least popular and most neglected, of all the great poet’s works.
47. Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum.—] This direction, about disposing of old words in such a manner as that they shall have the grace of new ones, is among the finest in the whole poem. And because Shakespear is he, of all our poets, who has most successfully practised this secret, it may not be amiss to illustrate the precept before us by examples taken from his writings.
But first it will be proper to explain the precept itself as given by Horace.