_Our language sunk under him_, and was unequal to that greatness of soul which furnished him with such glorious conceptions."-- _Spectator_, No.297.This, however, Dr.
Johnson seems to regard as a mere compliment to genius; for of Milton he says, "The truth is, that both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantick principle." But the grandeur of his thoughts is not denied by the critic; nor is his language censured without qualification.

"Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copiousness and variety: he was master of his language in its full extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned."-- _Johnson's Life of Milton_: _Lives_, p.92.24.As words abstractly considered are empty and vain, being in their nature mere signs, or tokens, which derive all their value from the ideas and feelings which they suggest; it is evident that he who would either speak or write well, must be furnished with something more than a knowledge of sounds and letters.
Words fitly spoken are indeed both precious and beautiful--"like apples of gold in pictures of silver." But it is not for him whose soul is dark, whose designs are selfish, whose affections are dead, or whose thoughts are vain, to say with the son of Amram, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."-- _Deut._, xxxii, 2.

It is not for him to exhibit the true excellency of speech, because he cannot feel its power.

It is not for him, whatever be the theme, to convince the judgement with deductions of reason, to fire the imagination with glowing imagery, or win with graceful words the willing ear of taste.

His wisdom shall be silence, when men are present; for the soul of manly language, is the soul that thinks and feels as best becomes a man..