The adumbration of particular and diftinct images by an exact and perceptible refemblance of found, is fometimes ftudied, and fometimes cafual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noifes which they fignify. Such are Stridor, Balo, and Beatus, in Latin; and in English to growl, to buzz, to hifs, and to jarr. Words of this kind give to a verfe the proper fimilitude of found, without much labour of the writer, and fuch happiness is therefore rather to be attributed to fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great propriety, and undeniably contribute to enforce the impreffion of the idea. We hear the paffing arrow in this line of Virgil! Et fugit horrendum ftridens elapfa fagitta; Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing. POPE and the creaking of hell-gates, in the defcription by Milton; Open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring found Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate Harfh thunder. But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have obferved, feem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionyfius himself tells us, that the found of Homer's verfes fometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk is not this a difcovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who after long enquiry into the nature of the fcarlet colour, found that it reprefented nothing fo much as the clangour of a trumpet? The reprefentative power of poetick har : mony mony confifts of found and measure; of the force of the fyllables fingly confidered, and of the time which they are pronounced. Sound can femble nothing but found, and time can measure nothing but motion and duration. re The criticks, however, have ftruck out other fimilitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of thefe lines has been celebrated by writers whofe opinion the world has reafon to regard: Fertitur interea cœlum, & ruit oceano nox. Meantime the rapid heav'ns rowl'd down the light, Sternitur, exanimisque tremens procumbit humi bos. DRYDEN Down drops the beaft, nor needs a fecond wound; ·Parturiunt montes, nafcitur ridiculus mus. The mountains labour, and a mouse is born. DRYDEN, ROSCOMMON. If all thefe obfervations are juft, there must be fome remarkable conformity between the fudden fucceffion of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; fince we are told of all these images, that they are very strongly impreffed by the fame form and termination of the verse. We may, however, without giving way to enthufiafm, admit that fome beauties of this kind. may be produced. A fudden ftop at an unusual 2 fyllable fyllable may image the ceffation of action, or the paufe of difcourfe; and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo: I fled, and cried out death: Hell trembled at the hideous name, and figh'd From all her caves, and back refounded death. The measure or time in pronouncing may be varied fo as very strongly to reprefent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or flow fucceflion of ideas, and confequently the paffions of the mind. This at least was the power of the fpondiack and dactylick harmony, but our language can reach no eminent diverfities of found. We can indeed fometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, fhew the difficulty of a progress made by ftrong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or mark a flow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan ftruggling through chaos; So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on with difficulty and labour hethus he has defcribed the leviathans or whales; Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait. But he has at other times neglected fuch reprefentations, as may be observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which exprefs an action tardy and reluctant. Defcent and fall To us is adverfe. Who but felt of late, In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line remarkably rough and halting; Tripping ebb that ftole With foft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd His fluices. It is not indeed to be expected, that the found fhould always affift the meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has here certainly committed a fault like that of the player, who looked on the earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addreffed the earth. Those who are determined to find in Milton an affemblage of all the excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be offended that I do not celebrate his verfification in higher terms; for there are readers who discover that in this paffage, So ftretch'd out huge in length the arch fiend lay, a long form is described in a long line; but the truth is, that length of body is only mentioned in a flow line, to which it has only the refemblance of time to space, of an hour to a maypole. The fame turn of ingenuity might perform won ders upon the defcription of the ark: Then from the mountains hewing timber tall, Meafur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and height. In these lines the poet apparently defigns to fix the attention upon bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for what analogy can can there be between modulations of found and corporeal dimensions? Milton, indeed, feems only to have regarded this fpecies of embellishment fo far as not to reject it when it came unfought; which would often happen to a mind fo vigorous, employed upon a fubject fo various and extenfive. He had, indeed, a greater and a nobler work to perform; a fingle fentiment of moral and religious truth, a fingle image of life or nature, would have been cheaply loft for a thousand echoes of the cadence to the sense; and he who had undertaken to vindicate the ways of God to man, might have been accufed of neglecting his caufe, had he lavifhed much of his attention upon fyllables and founds. NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, February 12, 1751. Parcus Deorum cultor, & infrequens, Infanientis dum fapientia Confultus erro; munc retrorfum Vela dare, atque iterare curfus Cogor relictos. A fugitive from heav'n and prayer, I mock'd at all religious fear, Hoift fail, and back by voyage plow HOR. To that bleft harbour, which I left before. FRANCIS. SIR, To the RAMBLER. THERE are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me |