The aged tyrant, Judaies land that guides,
In feare and trouble to resist provides.

"I sing the sacred armies and the knight
That Christ's great tombe enfranchis'd and set free.
Much wrought he by his witte, much by his might,
Much in that glorious conquest suffred hee:
Hell hindered him in vaine: in vaine to fight
Asia's and Affrick's people armed bee;
Heav'n favour'd him: his lords and knights misgone
Under his ensigne he reduc'd in one."

I own that, to my ear and judgment, this is no improvement upon what we
may consider the author's second attempt, although I think that the slip
pasted over some (if not most) copies is better than the first
experiment.

THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.

* * * * *

SMALL WORDS.

I stand convicted by the critical acumen of your correspondent [Greek:
Ph]. of having misquoted the line from Pope which heads my "note" at p.
305. I entirely agree with [Greek: Ph]. that the utmost exactness is
desirable in such matters; and as, under such circumstances, I fear I
should be ready enough to accuse others of "just enough of learning to
misquote," I have not a word to say in extenuation of my own
carelessness.

But I entirely dispute [Greek: Ph].'s inference, and am unable to see
that the difference detracts in any substantial degree from the
applicability of my remarks, such as they were. {378}

What does Pope's epithet "low" mean? Is it used for "vulgar" (as I
presume [Greek: ph]. intends us to infer), or simply for "small, petty,
of little size or value"?

To me it appears impossible to read the line without seeing that Pope
had in his mind the latter idea, that of poor, little, shabby,
statureless monosyllables, as opposed to big, bouncing, brave, sonorous
polysyllables, such as Aristophanes called [Greek: hraemata hippokraemna].
After all, however, it would do me very little damage to concede that he
intended the meaning which [Greek: ph]. appears to attribute to the
epithet "low", for _if he did_ mean "_vulgar_" words, it is evident that
he considered vulgarity in such matters inseparable from littleness, as
the "low" words must, if his line is not to lose its point altogether,
have been _ten_ in number, that is, _every one a monosyllable_, a
"small" word.

Take it which way you will, the leading idea is that of "littleness;"
moreover, there is no propriety in the word "creep" as applied to
_merely vulgar_ words, while words p