Page:Johnson - Rambler 3.djvu/217

N° 140. The remark therefore of the chorus on good or bad news seems to want elevation:

But of all meanness that has least to plead which is produced by mere verbal conceits, which, depending only upon sounds, lose their existence by the change of a syllable. Of this kind is the following dialogue:

And yet more despicable are the lines in which Manoah's paternal kindness is commended by the chorus:

Samson's complaint of the inconveniencies of imprisonment is not wholly without verbal quaintness: