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NUMB. 90. SATURDAY, January 26, 1751.

In tenui labor.

What toil in flender things!

VIRG.

IT is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without failing either to please or inftruct. Too much nicety of detail difgufts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down. rules of extenfive comprehenfion, is to common understandings of little ufe. They who undertake thefe fubjects are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arifes to their imagination, of frighting us with rugged fcience, or amusing us with empty found.

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In criticising the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to intersperse paffages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of attention and fince, in examining the variety and choice of the paufes, with which he has diverfified his num-bers, it will be neceffary to exhibit the lines in which they are to be found, perhaps the remarks may be well compenfated by the examples, and the irkfomeness of grammatical difquifitions fomewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his fcheme of verfification by the poets of Greece and Rome, whom he propofed to himself for his models, so far as the difference of his language from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed many inconveniences. infeparable from our heroick measure compared with that of Homer and Virgil, inconveniences, which it is no reproach to Milton not to have 8 overcome,

overcome, because they are in their own nature infuperable; but against which he has struggled with fo much art and diligence, that he may at leaft be faid to have deferved fuccefs.

The hexameter of the ancients may be considered as confifting of fifteen fyllables, so melodiously difpofed, that, as every one knows who has examined the poetical authors, very pleasing and fonorouslyrick measures are formed from the fragments of the heroick. It is, indeed, scarce poffible to break them in fuch a manner, but that invenias etiam disjecti membra poëta, some harmony will still remain, and the due proportions of found will always be difcovered. This measure therefore allowed great variety of pauses, and great liberties of connecting one verfe with another, becaufe wherever the line was interrupted, either part fingly was musical. But the ancients feem to have confined this privilege to hexameters; for in their other measures, though longer than the English heroick, those who wrote after the refinements of versification, venture fo feldom to change their pauses, that every variation may be supposed rather a compliance with neceffity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was constrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very harmonious in the utmost perfection; the fingle parts, therefore, into which it was to be fometimes broken by pauses, were in danger of lofing the very form of verfe. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care, fometimes happened.

As harmony is the end of poetical measures, no part of a verse ought to be fo feparated from the reft as not to remain ftill more harmonious than profe, or to fhew, by the difpofition of the tones,

that

that it is part of a verfe. This rule in the old hexameter might be eafily obferved, but in English will very frequently be in danger of violation; for the order and regularity of accents cannot well be perceived in a fucceffion of fewer than three fyllables, which will confine the English poet to only five pauses; it being supposed, that, when he connects one line with another, he fhould never make a full pause at less distance than that of three fyllables from the beginning or end of a verse.

That this rule fhould be univerfally and indifpenfably established, perhaps cannot be granted; fomething may be allowed to variety, and fomething to the adaptation of the numbers to the subject; but it will be found generally neceffary, and the ear will feldom fail to fuffer by its neglect.

Thus when a fingle fyllable is cut off from the reft, it must either be united to the line with which the sense connects it, or be founded alone. If it be united to the other line, it corrupts its harmony; if disjoined it must stand alone, and with regard to mufick be fuperfluous; for there is no harmony in a single sound, because it has no proportion to another.

Hypocrites aufterely talk,

Defaming as impure what God declares

Pure; and commands to fome, leaves free to all

When two fyllables likewife are abfcinded from the reft, they evidently want fome affociate founds to make them harmonious.

-Eyes

--more wakeful than to drouze, Charm'd with Arcadian pipe, the paft'ral reed

ΘΕ

Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. Meanwhile
To re-falute the world with facred light
Leucothea wak'd.

He ended, and the fun gave fignal high
To the bright minifter that watch'd: he blew.
His trumpet.

Firft in the east his glorious lamp was feen, Regent of day; and all th' horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocund to run His longitude through heav n's high road; the gray Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danc'd, Shedding fweet influence.

The fame defect is perceived in the following line, where the pause is at the second syllable from the beginning.

The race

Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the favage clamour drown'd
Both harp and voice; nor could the muse defend
Her fon. So fail not thou, who thee implores.

When the paufe falls upon the third fyllable or the feventh, the harmony is better preserved; but as the third and feventh are weak fyllables, the period leaves the ear unfatisfied, and in expectation of the remaining part of the verse.

He, with his horrid crew,

Lay vanquifh'd, rolling in the fiery gulph, Confounded though immortal. But his doom Referv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of loft happiness and lasting pain

Torments him.

God,

God, with frequent intercourse, Thither will fend his winged meffengers On errands of fupernal grace. So fung The glorious train afcending.

It may be, I think, eftablished, as a rule, that a pause which concludes a period should be made for the most part upon a strong fyllable, as the fourth and fixth; but thofe paufes which only fufpend the fenfe may be placed upon the weaker. Thus the reft in the third line of the firft paffage fatisfies the ear better than in the fourth, and the close of the fecond quotation better than of the third.

The evil foon

Drawn back, redounded (as a flood) on thofe
From whom it Sprung, impoffible to mix
With blessedness.

What we by day

Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides,
Tending to wild.

The paths and bow'rs doubt not but our joint

hands

Will keep from wilderness with ease as wide.
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Affift us.

The reft in the fifth place has the fame inconvenience as in the seventh and third, that the fyllable is weak.

Beaft now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, And fifh with fifh, to graze the herb all leaving, Devour'd

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