Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn
Desirous; &c.
Upon the mention of hills in the first quotation, and of day and evening in the second and last—he knew that he had some objections to answer, and accordingly set about doing it for fear of the consequences—I wish they had remained in their full force.
You have often read the Midsummer Night’s Dream—do you recollect this passage?
Lys. Hermia, for ought that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But, either it was different in blood——Her. O cross! too high, to be enthrall’d to low!——
Lys. Or else misgrafted in respect of years—
Her. O spite! too old, to be engag’d to young!
Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
Her. O hell! to chuse love by another’s eye!
Lys. Or if there were a sympathy in choice—
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it.
Read it without Hermia’s interruptions and it becomes one of the finest parts of the author—but it is miserably mangled as it stands.
You will remember that it is the improper use of the parenthesis I object to and not to the thing itself. “This figure of composition,” says a late ingenious author, “which is hardly ever used in common discourse, is much employed by the best writers of antiquity, in order to give a cast and colour to their style different from common idiom, and by Demosthenes particularly; and not only by the orators, but the poets.”
I would recommend to your consideration whether you had not better avoid giving any hint how the story of your poem is to conclude? Anticipation frequently spoils a fine incident. When Æneas is reciting to Dido what past at Troy, says he,
Arduus armatos mediis in mænibus astans
Fundit equus.