  Light! I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing thy golden splendor pitchy darkness. There is no reason to suppose Satan's address to the sun in the Paradise Lost, more than a mere coincidence with these lines; but were it otherwise, it would be a fine instance, what usurious interest a great genius pays in borrowing. It would not be difficult to give a detailed psychological proof from these constant outbursts of anxious self-assertion, that Jonson was not a genius, a creative power. Subtract that one thing, and you may safely accumulate on his name all other excellencies of a capacious, vigorous, agile, and richly-stored intellect. Act i. sc. 1. 'Ovid'. While slaves be false, fathers hard, and bawds be whorish— The roughness noticed by Theobald and Whalley, may be cured by a simple transposition:— While fathers hard, slaves false, and bawds be whorish. Act iv. sc. 3. 'Crisp'. O—oblatrant—furibund—fatuate—strenuous. O—conscious. It would form an interesting essay, or rather series of essays, in a periodical work, were all the attempts to ridicule new phrases brought together, the proportion observed of words ridiculed which have been adopted, and are now common, such as 'strenuous', 'conscious', &c., and a trial made how far any grounds can be detected, so that one might determine beforehand whether a word was invented under the conditions of assimilability to our language or not. Thus much is certain, that the ridiculers were as often wrong as right; and Shakspeare himself could not prevent the naturalization of 'accommodation', 'remuneration', &c.; or Swift the gross abuse even of the word 'idea'.
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