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that ought to be betwixt the pauses of fenfe and of melody. And in an English line, it is for the fame reafon equally wrong to divide a word by a full paufe, Let us justify this reafon by experiments.

A noble fuperfluity it craves

Abhor, a perpetuity should stand

Are these lines distinguishable from profe? Scarcely, I think.

The fame rule is not applicable to a femipause, which being short and faint, is not fenfibly disagreeable when it divides a word.

Relentless walls | whose darksome round | contains

For her white virgins || hyme neals fing

In these deep folitudes || and awful cells

It must however be acknowledged, that the melody here fuffers in fome degree. A word ought to be pronounced without any reft betwixt its component fyllables. The

femipause

femipause must bend to this rule, and thereby vanisheth almost altogether.

With regard to the capital pause, it is fo effential to the melody, that a poet cannot be too nice in the choice of its place, in order to have it full, clear, and diftinct. It cannot be placed more happily than with a pause in the fenfe; and if the fense require but a comma after the fourth, fifth, fixth, or feventh fyllable, there can be no difficulty about this mufical paufe. But to make fuch coincidence effential, would cramp verfification too much; and we have experience for our authority, that there may be a pause in the melody where the fenfe requires none. We must not however imagine, that a mufical pause may be placed at the end of any word indifferently. Some words, like fyllables of the fame word, are so intimately connected as not to bear a separation even by a pause. No good poet ever attempted to feparate a fubftantive from its article: the dividing fuch intimate companions, would be harth and unpleafant. The following line, for example, VOL. II.

3 D

cannot

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cannot be pronounced with a pause as

marked.

If Delia fmile, the || flow'rs begin to fpring

But ought to be pronounced in the following manner.

If Delia fmile, the flow'rs begin to fpring.

If then it be not a matter of indifferency where to make the paufe, there ought to be rules for determining what words may be separated by a pause and what are incapable of such separation. I fhall endea¬ your to unfold these rules; not chiefly for their utility, but in order to exemplify some latent principles that tend to regulate our tafte even where we are fcarce fenfible of them. And to that end, it feems the eli gible method to run over the verbal rela tions, beginning with the most intimate. The first that prefents itself, is that of adjective and fubftantive, being the relation of fubftance and quality, the most intimate of all. A quality cannot exist independent of a fubftance, nor is it feparable from it even in imagination, because they

make

make parts of the fame idea; and for that reason, it must, with regard to melody, be disagreeable, to bestow upon the adjective a fort of independent existence, by interjecting a pause betwixt it and its fubftantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines, nor any of the fort; for to my taste they are harsh and unpleasant.

Of thoufand bright || inhabitants of air
The fprites of fiery || termagants inflame
The reft, his many-colour'd robe conceal'd
The fame, his ancient || perfonage to deck
Ev'n here, where frozen || Chastity retires
I fit, with fad || civility, I read

Back to my native || moderation flide

Or fhall we ev'ry || decency confound
Time was, a fober | Englishman wou'd knock
And place, on good || fecurity, his gold

Tafte, that eternal wanderer, which flies

But ere the tenth revolving day was run 3 D 2

First

First let the juft equivalent be paid

Go, threat thy earth-born | Myrmidons; but here
Hafte to the fierce || Achilles' tent (he cries)

All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove
Your own refiftlefs | eloquence employ

I have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a cafe where I have the misfortune to diflike what paffes current in practice, every man upon the spot may judge by his own taste. The foregoing reafoning, it is true, appears to me just it is however too fubtile, to afford conviction in oppofition to taste.

Confidering this matter in a fuperficial view, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the fame, whether the adjective go firft, which is the natural order, or the fubftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon difcover this to be a mistake. Colour cannot be conceived independent of the surface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain fpot, as of a cer

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