are many peculiarities in each. The first article with respect to rhyme or metre, shall be difcuffed in a few words. Every line confifts of ten fyllables, five short and five long. There are but two exceptions, both of them rare. A couplet can bear to be drawn out, by adding a short syllable at the end of each of the two lines:

There hero's wits are kept in pond'rous vafes,
And beau's in fnuff boxes and tweezer-cafes.

The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why, take it; I'm all fubmiffion; what you'd have it, make it.

This licence is fufferable in a single couplet; but if frequent would foon become difguftful.

The other exception concerns the fecond line of a couplet, which is fometimes stretched out to twelve fyllables, termed an Alexandrine line.

A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong,

That, like a wounded fnake, drags its flow length

along.

It doth extremely well when employ'd to close a period with a certain pomp and folemnity fuitable to the fubject.

With regard to the second article, it is unneceffary to mention a fecond time, that the quantities employ'd in verfe are but two, the one double of the other; that every syllable is reducible to one or other of these standards; and that a fyllable of the larger quantity is termed long, and of the leffer quantity short. It belongs more to the present article, to examine what peculiarities there may be in the English language as to long and fhort fyllables. In every language, there are fyllables that may be pronounced long or fhort at pleasure; but the English above all abounds in fyllables of that kind. In words of three or more fyllables, the quantity for the most part is invariable. The exceptions are more fre quent in diffyllables; but as to monofyllables, they may without many exceptions be pronounced either long or fhort. Nor is the ear hurt by this liberty; being accustomed to the variation of quantity in the fame word. This shows that the melody of Eng

lish

lish verse must depend lefs upon quantity, than upon other circumftances. In that par ticular it differs widely from Latin verse. There, every fyllable having but one found, ftrikes the ear conftantly with its accustomed impreffion; and a reader must be delighted to find a number of fuch fyllables, disposed so artfully as to raise a lively sense of melody. Syllables variable in quantity cannot poffefs this power. Custom may ṛender familiar, both a long and short pronunciation of the fame word; but the mind conftantly wavering betwixt the two founds, cannot be fo much affected with a fyllable of this kind as with one which bears always the fame found. What I have further to fay upon quantity, will come in more properly under the following head, of arrange

ment.

And with respect to arrangement, which may be brought within a narrow compass, the English heroic line is commonly Iambic, the first fyllable short, the second long, and fo on alternately through the whole One exception there is, pretty freMany lines commence with

line. quent.

Trochæus,

Trochæus, viz. a long and a fhort fyllable, But this affects not the order of the following fyllables. Thefe go on alternately as ufual, one short and one long. The following couplet affords an example of each kind:

Some in the fields of pureft æther play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.

It is unhappy in the conftruction of English verfe, that it excludes the bulk of polyfyllables, though the most founding words in our language; for upon examination it will be found, that very few of them are compofed of fuch alternation of long and short syllables as to correfpond to either of the arrangements mentioned. English verfe accordingly is almoft totally reduced to diffyllables and monofyllables. Magnanimity is a founding word totally excluded, Impetuofity is ftill a finer word by the refemblance of the found and fenfe; and yet a negative is put upon it, as well as upon numberless words of the fame kind. Polyfyllables compofed of fyllables long and fhort alternately, make a good figure in VOL. II.

3 C

verfe;

verfe; for example, obfervance, opponent, oftenfive, pindaric, productive, prolific, and fuch others of three fyllables. Imitation, imperfection, misdemeanour, mitigation, moderation, obfervator, ornamental, regulator, and others fimilar of four fyllables, beginning with two fhort fyllables, the third long, and the fourth short, may find a place in a line commencing with a Trochæus. I know not if there be any of five fyllables, One I know of fix, viz. misinterpretation. But words fo compofed are not frequent in our language,

One would not imagine without trial, how uncouth false quantity appears in verse; not lefs than a provincial tone or idiom. The article the is one of the few monofyllables that is invariably fhort. See how harth it makes a line where it must be pronounced long:

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,

Again:

Th'advent'rous baron the bright locks admir'd.

Let