Two dissyllables only among fifty-two words!
Bishop Hall, in one of his most powerful satires, speaking of the vanity of “adding house to house and field to field,” has these beautiful lines:
“Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store,
And he that cares for most shall find no more.”
“What harmonious monosyllables!” exclaims the critic, Gifford; yet they may be paralleled by others in the same writer, equally musical and equally expressive.
Was Milton tame? He knew when to use polysyllables of “learned length and thundering sound”; but he knew also when to produce the grandest effects by the small words despised by inferior artists. Read his account of the journey of the fallen angels:
“Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O’er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,—