Page:Johnson

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196

THE RAMBLER.

N° 88.

to our language, is evidently true, not because monosyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monosyllables, being of Teutonick original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and end with consonants, as,

⁠———Every lower faculty
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste.

The difference of harmony arising principally from the collocation of vowels and consonants, will be sufficiently conceived by attending to the following passages:

Immortal Amarant——there grows
And flow'rs aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heav'n
Rolls o'er Elysian flow'rs her amber stream;
With these that never fade, the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams.

The same comparison that I propose to be made between the fourth and sixth verses of this passage, may be repeated between the last lines of the following quotations:

⁠Under foot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich in-lay
Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone
Of costliest emblem.

⁠Here in close recess,
With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,
Espoused Eve first deck'd her nuptial bed;
And heav'nly choirs the hymenean sung

Milton, whose ear had been accustomed, not only to the musick of the ancient tongues, which, how-

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