e of common life, as
those which he has printed in italics as possessing genuine
excellence. Of the five lines thus honourably distinguished, two of
them differ from prose, even more widely than the lines which either
precede or follow, in the position of the words.

_A different object do these eyes require;_
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
_And in my breast the imperfect joys expire._

But were it otherwise, what would this prove, but a truth, of which no
man ever doubted? Videlicet, that there are sentences, which would be
equally in their place both in verse and prose. Assuredly it does not
prove the point, which alone requires proof; namely, that there are
not passages, which would suit the one and not suit the other. The
first line of this sonnet is distinguished from the ordinary language
of men by the epithet to '_morning_'. (For we will set aside, at
present, the consideration, that the particular word '_smiling_' is
hackneyed and (as it involves a sort of personification) not quite
congruous with the common and material attribute of _shining_.) And,
doubtless, this adjunction of epithets for the purpose of additional
description, where no particular attention is demanded for the quality
of the thing, would be noticed as giving a poetic cast to a man's
conversation. Should the sportsman exclaim, '_Come boys! the rosy
morning calls you up_', he will be supposed to have some song in his
head. But no one suspects this, when he says, 'A wet morning shall not
confine us to our beds.' This then is either a defect in poetry, or it
is not. Whoever should decide in the affirmative, I would request him
to re-peruse any one poem, of any confessedly great poet from Homer to
Milton, or from Aeschylus to Shakespeare; and to strike out (in
thought I mean) every instance of this kind. If the number of these
fancied erasures did not startle him, or if he continued to deem the
work improved by their total omission, he must advance reasons of no
ordinary strength and evidence, reasons grounded in the essence of
human nature. Otherwise, I should not hesitate to consider him as a
man not so much proof against all authority, as dead to it.

The second line,

And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;--

has indeed almost as many faults as words. But then it is a bad line,
not because the language is distinct from that of prose, but because
it conveys incongruous images, because it confounds the cau