mosthenes did not much observe this nicety,* though Tully himself says in his Orator: Crebra ista vocum concursio, quam magnâ ex parte vitiosam, fugit Demosthenes. If I am not mistaken, Malherbe of all the moderns has been the most scrupulous in this point; and I think Menage in his observations upon him says, he has not one in his poems. To conclude, I believe the hiatus * Neither was it observed by Plato or by Thucydides. The Greeks never admitted the hiatus in the Trimeter Iambics of their Tragedy or Comedy. In Epic Poetry and Hexameter Verse it had a place: Clarke gives six examples of it, and its use, in his notes on the 4th book of the Iliad, ver. 456. Menage has made some useful remarks on this subject in his large notes on the Works of Malherbe. And on this subject says Boileau, Art. Poet. Chant. i. v. 107. Gardez qu'une voyelle à courir trop hâtée, Ne soit d'une voyelle en son chemin heurtée. Warton. I rather wonder he has in this letter said nothing of Alliteration, of which his master, Dryden, was so fond, and which he practised with so much success; but which has been carried to a ridiculous excess by some late writers of note. A curious and learned discourse on the Alliterative Metre, without rhyme, (for Alliteration was a favourite figure of rude poets,) is given in the 2nd volume of the entertaining Reliques of Ancient Poetry. To these observations on English versification, I desire to add the following from the sensible and ingenious Mr. Webb: "The sole aim of versification is harmony. To understand this properly, we must divide it into two kinds. The first consists of a general flow of verse, most pleasing to the ear, but independent on the sense: the second, in bringing the sound or measure of the verse to correspond with, and accompany the idea. The former may be called a verbal harmony, the latter a sentimental. If we consider the flow of verse merely as music, it will then be allowed, that. variety is less, necessary than sweetness: and that a continued repetition of the same movements must be tiresome in poetry, as it would in music. On examining Mr. Pope's verses, we shall find, that in eighteen out of twenty, the pauses rest on the fourth should be avoided with more care in poetry than in oratory; and I would constantly try to prevent and last, or the fifth or last syllables; and that, almost without exception, the period is divided into two equal lines, and, as it were, linked by the rhyme into a couplet. For example, All are but parts of one stupendous whole, That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Essay on Man. "Every ear must feel the ill effect of the monotony in these lines; the cause of it is obvious; this verse consists of ten syllables, or five feet; when the pause falls on the fourth syllable, we shall find, that we pronounce the six last in the same time that we do the four first; so that the couplet is not only divided into two equal lines, but each line, with respect to time, is divided into two equal parts; as, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees : Or else, the pause falls on the fifth syllable, and then the line is divided with a mechanic exactness; as, Spreads undivided, operates unspent. Mr. Pope in a letter to Mr. Walsh, speaking of English verse, says: "There is naturally a pause at the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllable. It is upon these the ear rests, and upon the judicious change and management of which depends the variety of versification." Of this he gives the following examples: At the fifth: Where'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings. At the fourth: Homage to thee, and peace to all she brings. At the sixth : Like tracks of leverets, in morning snow. "In this place, Mr. Pope takes no notice of the second pause, which always rests on the last word of each line, and is strongly marked by the rhyme. But, it is on the balance between the two it, unless where the cutting it off is more prejudicial to the sound than the hiatus itself. pauses, that the monotony of the verse depends. Now this balance is governed by the equal division of the line in point of time. Thus, if you repeat the two first examples given, you will find no difference, as to the time, whether the pause falls on the fourth or fifth syllable; and this, I think, will extend even to the last example; or, if there should be any difference, it is so trifling, that it will generally escape the ear. But this is not so in blank verse; for the lines being made often to run one into the other, the se-cond pause is sunk; the balance, from the equal division of each line, is removed, and by changing the pauses at pleasure, an opening is given into an unlimited variety. "Observe the effects in the first lines of Paradise Lost: Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly muse. "In these, and the lines which immediately follow, the pauses are shifted through all the ten syllables. "But this variety is not inseparable from the nature of blank verse. In Addison's Cato, there is, I think, the very same monotony which we have condemned in Mr. Pope. Thus, Again: The dawn is overcast, the morning low'rs, And heavily in clouds brings on the day; The great, the important day, big with the fate Who knows not this? but what can Cato do Against a world, a base degenerate world, That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Cæsar ? Pent up in Utica, he vainly forms A poor epitome of Roman greatness. This is the very echo of the couplet measure." Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, p. 40. Warton. LETTER VII. SIR, FROM MR. WALSH. Abberley, July 21, 1707. HAVING received the favour of your letter of the third of this month, wherein you give me hopes of seeing you before the end of it, I am in daily expectation of receiving your commands to send a coach or horses to meet you at Worcester, and not put you to the inconvenience of such horses as you will find at the post-house. It was nothing but the fear that you should not send me word time enough for me to send horses to meet you, that makes me give you the trouble of this letter. And I expect no other answer but to that point; as for all others, Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni. Your, &c. Mr. WALSH died at forty-nine years old, in the year 1708, the year before the Essay on Criticism was printed, which concludes with his Eulogy. Warburton. Warburton should have said, "before the Essay on Criticism was written," as it was not printed till 1711. Pope has himself expressly stated that he wrote it in 1709, and kept it by him two years, which was the shortest time that he kept any of his pieces. POPE's observations on versification, as far as they go, are sensible and judicious; but, in my opinion, he is too confined in his ideas of harmony. He says, "there is naturally a pause at the fourth, fifth, and sixth syllables." This is very true, but for the sake of effect, the pause may be often placed on other syllables, which, when it is judiciously done, though a line so paused, considered separately and apart, might be inharmonious, yet mixed with lines more regularly paused, it often adds a richness, variety, and harmony, to the passage. The pause on the fourth, fifth, and sixth syllables I should consider as what are called the common chords in music; but a composition, where only common chords were introduced, would soon tire, however perfect they might be in themselves. Dryden's lines on "Bending the Bow," may be quoted as a happy example of representative metre: "At the full stretch of both his arms he drew, And almost join'd the horns of the tough yew." In blank verse, I would mention a striking passage in Dyer's "Fleece:" "The pilot steers Steady; with eye intent upon the steel, | VOL. VIII. H Bowles. |