Note 9 — WORDS.
Reading edition
“At his command th’ uprooted hills retir’d Each to his place: they heard his voice and went Obsequious: Heaven his wonted face renew’d, And with fresh flowrets hill and valley smil’d.” Milton, P. L. B. vi.
“Was I deceiv’d, or did a sable Cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the Night?” Milton, Comus.
“Go to your Natural Religion: lay before her Mahomet and his disciples arrayed in armour and in blood:⸺shew her the cities which he set in flames; the countries which he ravaged:⸺when she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements; shew her the Prophet’s chamber, his concubines and his wives:⸺when she is tired with this prospect, then shew her the Blessed Jesus.—” See the whole passage in the conclusion of Bp Sherlock’s 9th Sermon, Vol. I.
In these beautiful passages, as in the English if you put it and its instead of his, she, her, you destroy the images, and reduce, what was before highly Poetical and Rhetorical, to mere prose and common discourse; so if you render them into another language, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, or German, in which Hill, Heaven, Cloud, Religion, are constantly Masculine, or Feminine, or Neuter, respectively, you make the images obscure and doubtful, and in proportion diminish their beauty.
This excellent remark is Mr. Harris’s, Hermes, p. 58.