[67] Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He speaks of “honeysuckles of a _purple_ dye,” and anticipates Gray in his couplet, Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades. (“The Fable of Thule”) (_Vide_ “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.) [68] But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats” (1905, Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural use of these adjectives that calls for censure. [69] Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle, “Philology of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the works of the poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s use of this form, see Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,” Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London and Berlin, 1886). [70] But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is justly pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are justified by “considerations of dramatic propriety.” [71] Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 252-3. [72] “Spring,” ll. 478 foll. [73] In “Summer,” Thomson had first used _feathery race_ which was later amended into _tuneful race_—apparently the best improvement he could think of! [74] For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895), Chap. IV, pp. 412 foll. [75] To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey, Vol. II, pp. 13-14). [76] _Vide_ “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,” by W. W. Skeat (1871). [77] Canto III, 652 foll. [78] “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope, “History English Poetry,” V, 216). [79] But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V, p. 218. [80] Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39. [81] To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford, 1914), p. 187. [82] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford, 1907.) [83] Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence” arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190. To C. Rowley, February 21, 1788, _ibid._, pp. 231 foll. [84] E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” [85] _Vide_ Courthope, _op. cit._, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on behalf of the language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists,” 1780. [86] Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, _op. cit._, p. 11. [87] _Vide_ especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language of poetry. [88] In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll. [89] For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth” (English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).