[113] Vacant in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village” (“The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is used in its Latin sense of “free from care.”
[114] As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to have been floating about for a considerable period, though in most cases their first poetic use is apparently due to him.
[115] Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.
[116] Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them (vide “Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII, 359, where he apologizes for his coinage purpureal.
[117] For an account of the parallelism between certain of the eighteenth century stock epithets and various words and phrases from the Latin poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “cavus”: “liquid fountain” and liquidi fontes), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909), pp. 46-49.
[118] Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” op. cit., pp. 247 and 255.
[119] Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904), Vol. II, p. 479, note 1.
[120] Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920), Vol. II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.
[121] Cp. also Morel, op. cit., pp. 423-424.
[122] Vide Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.