tain kind, and as fpreading its extended branches all around, without ever thinking of the colour. In a word, qualities, though related all to one fubject, may be confidered separately, and the subject may be confidered with fome of its qualities independent of others; though we cannot form an image of any fingle quality independent of the fubject. Thus then, though an adjective named first be infeparable from the fubftantive, the propofition does not reciprocate. An image can be formed of the fubftantive independent of the adjective; and for this reason, they may be separated by a paufe, when the former is introduced before the latter:

For thee, the fates | feverely kind ordain

And curs'd with hearts | unknowing how to yield.

The verb and adverb are precisely in the fame condition with the fubftantive and adjective. An adverb, which expreffes a certain modification of the action expreffed by the verb, is not feparable from it even in imagination. And therefore I must also give up the following lines.

And

But an action may be conceived leaving out a particular modification, precifely as a subject may be conceived leaving out a particular quality; and therefore when by inver fion the verb is first introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause betwixt it and the adverb which follows. This may be done at the clofe of a line, where the pause is at least as full as that is which divides the line:

While yet he spoke, the Prince advancing drew
Nigh to the lodge, &c.

The agent and its action come next, expreffed in grammar by the active fubftantive and its verb. Betwixt thefe, placed in their natural order, there is no difficulty of interjecting a pause. An active being is not always in motion, and therefore it is eafily separable in idea from its action. When in a fentence the fubftantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow; and

as

as rest must precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportu nity for a pause.

On the other hand, when by inversion the verb is placed firft, is it lawful to feparate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer not, because an action is not in idea feparable from the agent, more than a quality from the fubftance to which it belongs. Two lines of the first rate for beauty have always appeared to me exceptionable, upon account of the pause thus interjected betwixt the verb and the confequent fubftantive; and I have now difcovered a reason to support my taste :

In thefe deep folitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive || Contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing || Melancholy reigns,

The point of the greatest delicacy regards the active verb and the paffive substantive placed in their natural order. On the one fide it will be observed, that these words fignify things which are not feparable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived with

out

out fome being that is put to death, nor painting without a furface upon which the colours are spread. On the other fide, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like substance and quality, united in one individual fubject. The active subject is perfectly distinct from that which is paffive; and they are connected by one circumstance only, that the action exerted by the former, is exerted upon the latter. This makes it poffible to take the action to pieces, and to confider it firft with relation to the agent, and next with relation to the patient. But after all, fo intimately connected are the parts of the thought, that it requires an effort to make a feparation even for a moment. The fubtilifing to fuch a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets however, taking advantage of this fubtilty, fcruple not to separate by a pause an active verb from its paffive fubject. Such pauses in a long work may be indulged; but taken fingly,

they certainly are not agreeable. I appeal to the following examples.

The

The peer now fpreads the glitt'ring forfex wide As ever fully'd the fair face of light

Repair'd to fearch | the gloomy cave of Spleen

Nothing, to make philosophy thy friend

H

Shou'd chance to make the well-dress'd rabble ftare

Or cross, to plunder || provinces, the main

These madmen never hurt | the church or state

How shall we fill a library with wit

What better teach || a foreigner the tongue?

Sure, if I fpare the minister, no rules
Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools.

On the other hand, when the paffive subject by inverfion is first named, there is no difficulty of interjecting a pause betwixt it and the verb, more than when the active fubject is first named. The fame reason holds in both, that though a verb cannot be feparated in idea from the fubftantive which governs it, and fcarcely from the fubftantive it governs; yet a substantive VOL. II. 3 E

may