Answer:
I think it mean that he is looking at all these other places (outports are Europian settlements in Canada) and watching them become tangled and hard to separate - like with a fishing line. Or they have to be careful and not become lost or tangled.
<span>It creates a rhythmic quality that is pleasing to the ear.
That's what poetry does.</span>
The fact that as he states it himself, he made sure to use examples from actual writers about the actual meaning and usage of a word. In other words, he quoted their writings to illustrate the meaning of the words as they were used by actual people.
Thus, the meaning and use of the words was no longer just theoretical but practical as well. He was also very prescriptive, meaning that he asserted his opinions by using humor or judgment on the intrinsic quality of the notions the words were describing. Here that can be clearly seen by the way he uses the adjective “undefiled” (meaning not dirtied) to refer to the only variety of the English language than in his view is the proper one.