Note 68 — Chapter I · THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY

These descriptions rouse Dr. Clarke to a climax of admiration. “Homer has been admired by some for reducing a catalogue of ships into tolerably flowing verse; but who, except a poetical sailor, the nursling of Apollo, educated by Neptune, would ever have thought of versifying his own sea-language? What other poet would even have dreamt of reef-tackles, haliards, clue-garnets, buntlines, lashings, laniards, and fifty other terms equally obnoxious to the soft sing-song of modern poetasters.”—“Monthly Review,” XXVII.