The Attic warbler POURS HER THROAT.
Wakefield in his "Commentary" has a copious passage on this poetical
diction. He conceives it to be "an admirable improvement of the Greek
and Roman classics:"
--κἑεν αυδἡν: HES. Scut. Her. 396.
--Suaves ex ore _loquelas_
_Funde_. LUCRET. i. 40.
This learned editor was little conversant with modern literature, as he
proved by his memorable editions of Gray and Pope. The expression is
evidently borrowed not from Hesiod, nor from Lucretius, but from a
brother at home.
Is it for thee, the Linnet POURS HER THROAT?
_Essay on Man_, Ep. iii, v. 33.
Gray, in the "Ode to Adversity," addresses the power thus,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose IRON SCOURGE and TORTURING HOUR
The bad affright, afflict the best.
Wakefield censures the expression "_torturing hour_," by discovering an
impropriety and incongruity. He says, "consistency of figure rather
required some _material_ image, like _iron scourge_ and _adamantine
chain_." It is curious to observe a verbal critic lecture such a poet as
Gray! The poet probably would never have replied, or, in a moment of
excessive urbanity, he might have condescended to point out to this
minutest of critics the following passage in Milton:--
----When the SCOURGE
Inexorably, and the TORTURING HOUR
Calls us to penance.
_Par. Lost_, B. ii. v. 90.