——When snow the Pasture sheets.
ib
To this head may be referred those innumerable terms in Shakespear which surprize us by their novelty; and which surprize us generally, on account of his preferring the specific idea to the general in the subjects of his Metaphors and the circumstances of his Description; an excellence in poetical expression which cannot be sufficiently studied. The examples are too frequent, and the thing itself too well understood, to make it necessary to enlarge on this article.
9. By plain words, i. e. such as are common in the figurative, uncommon in the literal acceptation.
Disasters vail’d the Sun—
Ham. A. I. S. 1.
See the note on the place.
Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine—
ib.
——Can’t such things be
And overcome us, like a Summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder?—
Macb. A. III. S. 5.
10. By transposition of words—unauthoriz’d use of terms—and ungrammatical construction. Instances in all his plays, passim.
11. By foreign idioms. ’Tis true these are not frequent in Shakespear. Yet some Latinisms and e’en Grecisms we have. As
Quenched of hope—
Cymb. A. v. S. 5.