Page images
PDF
EPUB

ing upon divine, and the rising upon author, gives both a distinctness and harmony to the cadence.

Gratian very often recommends the fine taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this word arises very

often in conversation, I shall endeavour to give some account of it; and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fìne taste of writing, which is so much talked of among the polite world. Spect. No. 109.

Placing the rising inflection upon how, and the falling upon acquire; the falling inflection upon fine, and the rising upon writing, prevents a sameness which would otherwise arise from the similitude of the three members, and gives an agreeable close to the sentence.

Since I have mentioned this unaccountable zeal which appears in atheists and infidels, I must farther observe, that they are likewise in a most particular manner possessed with the spirit of bigotry. They are wédded to opinions full of contradiction and impossibility, and at the same time look upon the smállest difficulty in an àrticle of fáith as a sufficient reason for rejecting it. Spect. No. 185.

As the rising inflection on the word wedded, and the falling on the word opinions, the falling on contradiction, and the rising on impossibility, prevents a sameness in the first member of the last sentence arising from its similitude to the closing member of the first; so the rising inflection upon the words same and smallest, and the falling upon time and dif ficulty, and the falling upon article, and the rising upon faith; this arrangement of inflections, I say, on the latter part of the sentence, gives a force, harmony, and variety, to the cadence.

We may be sure the metaphorical word taste would not have been so general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental taste, which is the sub

ject of this paper, and that sensitive taste which gives us a relish of every different flavour that affects the palate Accórdingly we find, there are as mány degrees of refìnement in the intellectual faculty, as in the sense which is marked out by this common denomination. Spect. No. 409.

If we do but place the rising inflection on accordingly, and the falling on find, the rising on many, and the falling on refinement, in the last sentence, we shall perceive a great variety, as well as harmony added to the whole passage.

Harmony of Prose.

THE foregoing observations on the harmony of the cadence, have, undoubtedly, suggested to the reader that great object of ancient and modern composition, the harmony of prose: this is a subject so intimately connected with harmonious pronunciation, that it seems necessary to investigate the principles of that composition which is generally esteemed harmonious, in order, if possible, to throw some light upon the most accurate mode of delivering it.

The ancients thought harmonious prose to be only a looser kind of numbers, and resolved many passages of their most celebrated orations into such feet as composed verse. In modern languages, where accent seems to stand for the quantity of the ancients, we find harmonious prose resolvable into an arrangement of accented syllables, somewhat similar to that of versification. The return of the accented syllable, at certain intervals, seems the common definition of both.

In verse we find these intervals nearly equal; and it is this equality which forms the measure. Thus in the following couplet:

Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes;
And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.

Pope.

An undisciplined reader, in pronouncing this sentence, would be apt, from the greater smoothness of the line, to lay the accent, or metrical emphasis, as it may be called, on the word is in the first line; but as this would bring forward a word which, from its nature, is always sufficiently understood, a good reader will place the accent on short and date, and sink the words is the into a comparative obscurity ; and as this interval of two syllables happens at the beginning of a line, it is so far from having a bad effect on the ear, that it frequently relieves it from the too great sameness to which rhyming verse is always liable.

But if this inequality of interval is sometimes, for the sake of variety, necessary in verse, it is not to be wondered, that, for a similar reason, we avoid as much as possible too great a regularity of interval between the accented syllables in prose. Loose and negligent, however, as prose may appear, it is not entirely destitute of measure: for it may be with confidence asserted, that, wherever a style is remarkably smooth and flowing, it is owing in some measure to a regular return of accented syllables. And though a strength and severity of style has in it something more excellent than the soft and flowing, yet the latter holds certainly a distinguished rank in composition. The musick of language never displeases us, but when sense is sacrificed to sound; when both are compatible, we should deprive a thought of half its beauty, not to give it all the harmony of which language is susceptible. As all subjects are not masculine, sublime, and strong; all subjects do not require, and indeed are not susceptible of a strength and severity of style. Those, therefore, which are beautiful, didactick and persuasive, demand a smoothness and elegance of language; which is not only

agreeable, as it is suited to the objects it conveys, but, like fine colours or sounds, is, in some measure, pleasing for its own sake. Accordingly, we find, that, though we cannot so easily trace that accentual rhythmus which forms the harmony of the beginning and middle of a sentence, yet the latter part, or what is commonly called the cadence, consists (when harmoniously constructed) of such an arrangement of accented words as approaches nearly to verse. Every ear will immediately find a ruggedness and want of harmony in the conclusion of the following sen

tence :

We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. Addison.

The reason of this harshness seems to be, that vast chasm of unaccented words that extends from the word acting to the word end. The ear, indeed, sensible of the want of accent, lays a little stress upon though: but this does not quite remedy the evil : still there are four words unaccented, and the sentence remains harsh: but if we alter its structure, by placing a word that admits of an accent in the middle of these four words, we shall find harmony succeed to harshness and inequality.

We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would never be an end of them.

This difference, therefore, can arise from nothing but an unequal and unmetrical arrangement of accent in the former sentence, and a greater approach to equal and metrical arrangement of accent in the latter.

As a farther corroboration of the truth of this opinion, let us take a sentence remarkable for its harmony, and try whether it arises from the foregoing principles.

We hear at this distance but a faint echo of that thunder in Demosthenes, which shook the throne of Macedon to its foundations; and are sometimes at a loss for that conviction in the arguments of Cicero, which balanced in the midst of convulsions the tottering republick of Rome.

In the latter part of this sentence, we find the accented syllables at exactly equal intervals from the word sometimes to the word midst; that is, there are three unaccented syllables between every accented syllable and from the word midst to the word Rome, there is an exact equality of intervals; that is, two unaccented syllables, or, which is perfectly equivalent, syllables pronounced in the time of two, to one unaccented.

:

Now, if we change a few of the words of this sentence to others of different length and accent, we shall find the harmony of the sentence considerably diminished, though the sense may be inviolably preserved.

We hear at this distance but a faint echo of that thunder in Demosthenes which shook the throne of Macedon to its foundations and are sometimes at a loss for that force in the roofs of Cicero, which balanced in the midst of anarchy the tottering state of Rome.

s;

That full flow of prosaick harmony, so perceptible in the former sentence, is greatly diminished in this and the reason seems plainly pointed out: for as the harmony of verse is owing solely to an equal and regular return of accent, the harmony of prose must arisc from the same source; that is, as verse owes its harmony entirely to a regular return of accent, prose can never be harmonious by a total want of it. The sole difference between them seems to lie in the constant, regular, and artificial arrangement of accent in the one, and the unstudied, various, and even opposite arrangement in the other. Verse, with some few exceptions, proceeds in a regular alternation of accent, from one end of the poem to the other; harmo

« PreviousContinue »