If to her share fome female errors fall, Rape of the Lock. In accounting for the remarkable liveliness of this paffage, it will be acknowledged by every one who has an ear, that the modulation must ceme in for a fhare. The lines, all of them, are of the first order ; a very unusual circumftance in the author of this poem, fo eminent for variety in his verfification. Who can doubt, that, in this paffage, he has been led by delicacy of tafte to employ the first order preferably to the others? Second order. Our humble province is to tend the fair, To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs, Oh, thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate, Sudden, thefe honours fhall be fnatch'd away, To fifty chofen fylphs, of special note, Oh fay what ftranger caufe, yet unexplor❜d, A plurality of lines of the fourth order, would not have a good effect in fucceffion; because, by a reVOL. II. F markable markable tendency to reft, its proper office is to clofe a period. The reader, therefore, muft be fatisfied with inftances where this order is mixed with others. Not louder fhrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their laft. Again, Steel could the works of mortal pride confound, She fees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, Again, With earneft eyes, and round unthinking face, And this fuggefts another experiment, which is, to fet the different orders more directly in oppofition, by giving examples where they are mixed in the fame paffage. Firft and fecond orders. Sol through white curtains fhot a tim'rous ray, Not youthful kings in battle feiz'd alive, First and third. Think what an equipage thou haft in air, What guards the purity of melting maids, With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around, way. And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day! Second and third. Sunk in Thaleftris' arms, the nymph he found, On her heav'd bofom hung her drooping head, Mufing on the foregoing fubject, I begin to doubt whether I have not been all this while in a reverie. Here unexpectedly a fort of fairy-fcene opens, where every object is new and fingular. Is there any truth in the appearance, or is it merely a work of imagination? The fcene feems to be a reality; and if it can bear examination, it must exalt greatly the melody of English heroic verse. If uniformity prevail, in the arrangement, in the equality of the lines, and in the refemblance of the final founds; variety is still more confpicuous in the pauses and accents which are diverfified in a furprifing manner. The beauty that refults from combined objects, is justly observed to confift in a due mixture of uniformity and variety *. Of this beauty many instances have already occurred, but none more illuftrious than English verfification. However rude it may be by the fimplicity of arrangement, it is highly melodious by its paufes and accents, fo as already to rival the most perfect species known in Greece or Rome. And it is no difagreeable prospect to find it fufceptible of still greater refinement. We proceed to blank verse, which hath so many circumstances in common with rhyme, that what is neceffary to be faid upon it may be brought within a narrow compafs. With respect to form, it differs not from rhyme farther than in rejecting the jingle of fimilar founds. But let us not think this difference a trifle, or that we gain nothing by it but the purifying our verse from a pleasure fo childish. In truth, our verfe is extremely cramped by rhyme; and the great advantage of blank verfe is, that, being free from the fetters of rhyme, it is at liberty to attend the imagination in its boldest flights. Rhyme neceffarily divides verfe into couplets; each couplet makes a complete musical period; the parts of which are divided by paufes, and the whole fummed up by a full clofe at the end: the modulation begins anew with the next couplet: and in this manner a compofition in rhyme proceeds * See chap. 9. couplet couplet after couplet. I have more than once had occafion to obferve the influence that found and fense have upon each other by their intimate union. If a couplet be a complete period with regard to the melody, it ought regularly to be fo alfo with regard to the fenfe. This, it is true, proves too great a cramp upon compofition; and licences are indulged, as explained above. 'Thefe however must be used with difcretion, fo as to preferve fome degree of uniformity betwixt the fenfe and the mufic. There ought never to be a full close in the fenfe but at the end of a couplet; and there ought always to be fome pause in the fenfe at the end of every couplet. The fame period as to fenfe may be extended through feveral couplets; but in this cafe each couplet ought to contain a diftinct member, diftinguished by a pause in the fenfe as well as in the found; and the whole ought to be closed with a complete cadence. Rules fuch as thefe, muft confine rhyme within very narrow bounds. A thought of any extent, cannot be reduced within its compafs. The fense must be curtailed and broken into pieces, to make it square with the curtnefs of melody: and it is obvious, that fshort periods afford no latitude for inverfion. I have examined this point with the greater accuracy, in order to give a juft notion of blank verfe; and to fhow that a flight difference in form may produce a very great difference in fubftance. Blank verfe has the fame paufes and accents with rhyme; and a pause at the end of every line, like what concludes the first line of a couplet. In a word, the rules of melody in blank verfe, are the fame that obtain with refpect to the first line of a couplet. But luckily, being difengaged from rhyme, or, in other words, from couplets, there is access to make every line run into another, precifely |