called to these
by Sir George Mackenzie, who repeated many of them from Waller and
Denham. Thereupon he searched other authors, Cowley, Davenant, and
Milton, to find further examples of them; but in vain. At last he had
recourse to Spenser, "and there I met with that which I had been looking
for so long in vain. Spenser had studied Virgil to as much advantage as
Milton had done Homer; and amongst the rest of his excellencies had
copied that."

By the "turns of words and thoughts" Dryden here means the repetition of
a word or phrase in slightly altered guise as the thought is turned over
in the mind and presented in a new aspect. There is an almost
epigrammatic neatness about some of the examples that he cites from Ovid
and Catullus. It is not surprising that he failed to find these elegant
turns in Milton, for they are few. Addison and Steele, writing in the
_Tatler_, reproach him with having overlooked the speech of Eve in the
Fourth Book of _Paradise Lost_:--

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile Earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming-on
Of grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair Moon,
And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising Sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers
Nor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.

Dryden remarks that the elegance he speaks of is common in Italian
sonnets, which are usually written on the turn of the first thought; and
certainly this speech of Eve might be truly compared, in all but the
metrical structure, to an interspersed sonnet. There is another elaborate
piece of repetition at the close of the Tenth Book, where the humble
prostration of Adam and Eve is described in exactly the form of speech
used by Adam to propose it. But the repetition in this case is too exact
to suit Dryden's meaning; by a close verbal coincidence the ritual of
penitence is emphasised in detail, and the book brought to a restful
pause. Scattered here and there throughout Milton's longe