metrical paufe, and to be in proportion to the quantity or diftinctness of that paufe. A regard to this one rule will direct that the fenfe comet nearer to a clofe at the principal pause than at the inferior pauses of the fame verse, at the end of an hexameter than of an Iambic verse, at the end of a couplet or rhyme than of blank verse, and at the end of a ftanza than of a fingle couplet; because, in the latter of all these cafes, there is a more fenfible paufe in the metre than in the former: yet, in violation of this rule, we fometimes fee no pause made at the end of a couplet, or even of a stanza of English verse; and the liberty of drawing on the fenfe from one blank verfe to another hath been greatly abused.

A very few examples will show the importance of attending to the metrical pause in the difpofition of words in Latin as well as English verfe. The coincidence of the metrical paufe with that of the words, makes the following of Virgil exceedingly harmonious;

Tityre tu patulæ recubans fub tegmine fagi
Ludere quæ vellem calamo permefit agrelli
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ.

A want of this coincidence makes this next, of
Ennius, very unharmonious:

Romæ mania terruit impiger Hannibal armis.

Who

Who could have imagined that the two following verfes could have the fame measure, and that the difpofition of the pause only could make so great a difference in the harmony:

Ad talos ftola demiffa, et circumdata palla.

Placatumque nitet diffufo lumine cœlum.

HORACE.

LUCRETIUS,

Sometimes, instead of one principal pause, there may be two equal pauses, at nearly equal diftances from the middle of the verfe, as in the following of Dr. Young:

From darkness teeming darkness where I lay.

If the principal pause immediately fucceed a long fyllable, it may be obferved to be more vigorous; if a short syllable be wanting to finish a word, the effect is more languid. If the chief paufe at the end of a verse be fucceeded by a fhort fyllable, it is wholly unfit to exprefs grandeur and sublimity, and is beft adapted to jocofe fubjects. It is impoffible to read a line thus conftructed, and not perceive this effect; for inftance, the following of Dryden:

Then all for women, painting, rhyming drinking,
Befides ten thoufand freaks, that died in thinking.

In many of the verfes quoted above, it must have been apparent that a trochee at the beginning of

a verfe

a verse hath even a good effect. It is enlivening, as in the following of Philips :

Happy the man, who, free from care and ftrife

For the fame reafon, a trochee is leaft difagreeable after the principal pause; because after that we, as it were, begin again. Thus the following verses, though admitting a trochee, as it is after the principal paufe, are not wholly void of har

mony:

Had they prevail'd || darkness had closed our days,
And death and filence had forbid his praife.

Hov'ring on wing under the cope of hell.

The foot which fucceeds the principal pause in the following line of Pope, is rather a trochee than a fpondee, and yet doth not, perhaps, contribute to the intended heaviness of the line:

And, like a wounded fnake, || drāgs his flow length along.

Notwithstanding a perfect uniformity in the meafure of verse is univerfally tiresome in a long poem, and variety is generally agreeable; yet, when there is any correfpondence in the sense of two lines, the most perfect uniformity in the cadence is the most agreeable, as in these of Mr. Pope :

Bright as the fun, || her eyes the gazers strike;
And, like the fun, they gaze on all alike.

And

And also in thefe:

Warms in the fun, || refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, || and bloffoms in the trees.
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,

Spreads undivided, || operates unfpent.

The chief advantage of blank verfe, in point of harmony, is, that, not being divided into couplets, there is no neceffity for, or expectation of a pause in the sense at the end of any particular verse; but the sense may be continued, without any interruption, to almost any length that is thought proper. Other differences of blank verfe and rhyme were confidered upon a former occafion.

LECTURE

LECTURE XXXV.

Of HARMONY in PROSE.

THE harmony of prose doth not depend upon any regular return of long or short fyllables, for that would constitute it verse, but is confiftent with any difpofition of long and fhort fyllables that is easy to pronounce, and at the fame time favours the fenfe. Very many long fyllables coming together make a ftyle rough and heavy; and many fhort fyllables have likewife a disagreeable effect, because there is nothing to support the voice, and for want of that it is apt to hurry on, and embarrass itself. For this reafon, people who are inclined to ftammar (as I know by experience) find great difficulty in pronouncing many fhort fyllables together. There are too many short fyllables together in the following fentence:

"This doctrine I apprehend to be erroneous, " and of ǎ pernicious tendency."

Those fingle words are the most agreeable to the ear, in which the long and fhort fyllables are