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action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these epithets
is a short description.
Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a
share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not satisfied
with his language as he found it settled in any one part of Greece, but
searched through its different dialects with this particular view, to
beautify and perfect his numbers he considered these as they had a greater
mixture of vowels or consonants, and accordingly employed them as the
verse required either a greater smoothness or strength. What he most
affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar sweetness, from its never
using contractions, and from its custom of resolving the diphthongs into
two syllables, so as to make the words open themselves with a more
spreading and sonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic
contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler Æolic, which often
rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent, and completed this variety
by altering some letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures,
instead of being fetters to his sense, were always in readiness to run
along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a further
representation of his notions, in the correspondence of their sounds to
what they signified. Out of all these he has derived that harmony which
makes us confess he had not only the richest head, but the finest ear in
the world. This is so great a truth, that whoever will but consult the
tune of his verses, even without understanding them (with the same sort of
diligence as we daily see practised in the case of Italian operas), will
find more sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other
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