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 dislike what paffes current in practice, every man upon the spot may judge by his own tafte. The foregoing reafoning, it is true, appears to me juft: it is however too fubtile, to afford conviction in opposition 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 subftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon difcovered this to be a mistake. Colour cannot be conceived independent of the furface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain spot, as of a certain 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 feparately, and the fubject 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 substantive independent of the adjective; and for this reafon, they may be feparated by a pause, 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 precifely in the fame condition with the fubftantive and adjective. An adverb, which expreffes a certain modification of

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the

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 which it much || becomes you to forget "Tis one thing madly || to difperfe my store

But an action may be conceived leaving out a particu lar modification, precifely as a fubject may be conceived leaving out a particular quality; and therefore when by inverfion the verb is firft 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 paufe is at leaft 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 paufe. An active being is not always in motion, and therefore it is eafily feparable in idea from its action. When in a lentence the fubftantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow; and as reft muft precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportunity for a paufe.

On the other hand, when by inverfion the verb. is placed firft, is it lawful to feparate it by a paufe from the active substantive? I anfwer 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 paufe thus interjected betwixt the

verb and the confequent fubftantive; and I have now discovered a reafon to fupport my

taste :

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

The point of the greateft delicacy regards the active verb and the paffive fubftantive placed in their natural order. On the one fide it will be cbferved, that these words fignify things which are not feparable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived without fome being that is put to death, nor painting without a furface upon which the colours are fpread. On the other fide, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like fubftance and quality, united in one individual subject. The active fubject is perfectly diftinct from that which is paffive; and they are connected by one circumftance 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, efpecially in works of imagination. The best poets however, taking advantage of this fubtilty, fcruple not to feparate by a pause an active verb from its paffive fubject. Such paufes in a long work may be indulged; but taken fingly, they certainly are not agreeable. I appeal to the following examples.

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
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Nothing,

Nothing, to make || philosophy thy friend

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

Or crofs, to plunder || provinces, the main

These madmen never hurt || the church or state
How fhall 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 fubject 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 separated in idea from the fubftantive which governs it, and scarcely from the fubftantive it governs; yet a fubftantive may always be conceived independent of the verb. When the paffive subject is introduced before the verb, we know not that an action is to be exerted upon it; therefore we may reft till the action commences. For the fake of illustration take the following examples.

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Shrines! where their vigils | pale-ey'd virgins keep Soon as thy letters || trembling I unclofe

No happier tafk|| these faded eyes pursue

What is faid about placing the paufe, leads to a general obfervation, which I fhall have occafion for afterwards. The natural order of placing the active fubftantive and its verb, is more friendly to a pause than the inverted order. But in all the other connections, inverfion affords by far a better opportunity for a pause. Upon this depends one of the great advantages that blank verfe hath over rhyme. The privilege of inversion, in which it far excels

rhyme,

rhyme, gives it a much greater choice of paufes, than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.

We now proceed to the flighter connections, which fhall be difcuffed in one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepofitions freely admit a paufe betwixt them, which will be. clear from the following inftances.

Affume what fexes || and what shape they please
The light militia || of the lower fky.

Connecting particles were invented to unite in a pe riod two fubftantives fignifying things occafionally united in the thought, but which have no natural union. And betwixt two things not only feparable in idea, but really diftinct, the mind, for the fake of melody, chearfully admits by a paufe a momentary disjunction of their occafional union.

One capital branch of the fubject is ftill uponhand, to which I am directed by what is just now faid. It concerns thofe parts of ipeech which fingly reprefent no idea, and which become not fignificant till they be joined to other words. I mean conjunctions, prepofitions, articles, and fuch like acceffories, paffing under the name of particles. Upon thefe the question occurs, Whether they can be separated by a paufe from the words that make them fignificant? Whether, for example, in the following lines, the feparation of the acceffory prepofition from the principal fubftantive, be according to rule?

The goddess with a difcontented air

And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays
When victims at yon altar's foot we lay
So take it in the very words of Creech
An enfign of the delegates of Jove

Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd
While angels, with || their filver wings c'erfhade