The  first  line  of  this  sonnet  is  distinguished  from  the  ordi-  5
nary  language  of  men  by  the  epithet  to  morning.  (For  we
will  set  aside,  at  present,  the  consideration,  that  the  par-
ticular word  "  smiling  "  is  hacknied,  and  —  as  it  involves  a
sort  of  personification  —  not  quite  congruous  with  the  com-
mon and  material  attribute  of  shining.)  And,  doubtless,  10
this  adjunction  of  epithets  for  the  purpose  of  additional  de-
scription, 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  ex-
claim. "  Come,  boys  !  the  rosy  morning  calls  you  up,"  he  15
will  be  supposed  to  have  some  song  in  his  head.  But  no  one
suspects  this  when  he  says,  "  A  wet  morning  shall  not  con-
fine 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  con-  20
fessedly  great  poet  from  Homer  to  Milton,  or  from  ^Eschy-
lus  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  25
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,  3°

"And  reddening  Phoebus  lifts  his  golden  fire,"


104  PRINCIPLES   OF  CRITICISM.
