Our heroic verfe is remarkable for the variety of its pauses. Some paufe is found in the verse of all nations; in the French it is tirefome for its uniformity, for in every line of twelve fyllables, immediately after the fixth there occurs a regular reft of the voice, dividing the line into two equal parts, and this monotonous structure runs through the whole of a Tragedy, or an Epic Poem. Take for an example the firft lines that occur in Voltaire's Tragedy of Adelaide du Guefclin, and try them by this rule.

Quand j'ai dit que bientot on verrait reunis
Les debris difperfés de l'empire des lis:

Je vous le dis encore au fein de votre gloire;
Et yos lauriers brillants, cueillis par la victoire,
Pourront fur votre front fe fletrir deformais,
S'ils n'y font foutenus de l'olive de paix ;
Tous les chefs de l'etat lafsés de ces ravages

Cherchent un port tranquille apres tant de naufrages.

Our verfe has the diftinguished fuperiority of admitting the paufe to be varied through different. fyllables of the line; and thus the cadence of the verfe may be diversified in a manner the most pleafing to the ear. Try the experiment on some of the firft verfes in Falconer's Shipwreck.

"While jarring interests wake the world to arms,
And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms,
While Albion bids th' avenging thunders roll
Along her vaffal deep from poie to pole;

Sick of the fcene, where War with ruthlefs hand
Spreads defolation o'er the bleeding land,
'Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar,
That ftands all lonely on the fea-beat fhore,
Far other themes of deep distress to fing,
Than ever trembled from the vocal string."

But

But this variety of paufes may be better excmplified in blank verfe, and that Milton tried the whole compafs of them with fuccefs is evident from many, and particularly the following paffages:

-Yet not the more

Ceafe I to wander where the Mufes haunt,
Clear Spring, or fhady grove, or funny hill,
Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief
Thee Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I vifit-

Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in fhadicft covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seafons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the fweet approach of even, or morn.

He who reads Milton's Paradife Loft with a true relish for its beauties, will never embrace the opinion of the Critic, who afferted, that "blank verse is verfe only to the eye." Blank verfe is the glory of the English Poetry, which the French language, from its want of energy and vigour, cannot support. It gives great freedom to the poet, and allows him to take the moft lofty flights, unfhackled by the chains of rhyme. It requires however great elevation of thought, fplendour of imagery, and elegance of diction to prevent him from finking into profe. And as the poet is under no neceffity to clofe the fenfe with the couplet, he muft "bridle in his ftruggling mufe" left the be too excurfive, and range beyond the proper bounds of defcription.

It gives

greater

greater fcope of expreffion and greater variety of pause than rhyme, and is well adapted to the ftrains of the tragic and the paftoral, as well as the Epic Mufe; as is evident from Shakespeare's Tragedies and Thomfon's Seasons.

We must however acknowledge, that it is chiefly to grave fubjects-to the details of the hiftorian, the arguments of the politician and the divine, the fpeculations of the philofopher, and the invention of the epic and the tragic poet, that our expreffions are beft adapted. Our language has energy and copioufnefs; but it accords not fo well with the mirth of the gay, or the pathos of the diftreffed, as fome others. In defcribing the pleasantries of the mind, in the effufions of delicate humour, and the trifling levities of focial intercourfe, the French poffefs a decided advantage. In delineating the tender paffions, the foothing of pity, and the ardour of love, we muft yield the fuperiority to the fofter cadence of Italian fyllables.

II. Defects of the English Language.

Although it is natural to indulge a partiality to our native language, as well as to our native foil; yet this prepoffeffion ought not to make us blind to the defects either of the one or the other. We fhall only advert to the principal imperfections of the language. Moft of the words, except fuch as are

of

of Roman or Grecian origin, are monofyllables ter minated by confonants; and this makes our pronunciation rugged and broken, and unlike the regular and eafy flow of claffic phrafeology. Many of them are harsh and inharmonious; and there are fome fyllables, which can fcarcely be pronounced by an Italian or a Frenchman, whofe organs of speech are accustomed to fofter expreffions. "It is

to the terminations with confonants that the harfhnefs of our language may be imputed. The melody of a language depends greatly upon its vowel terminations. In English not more than a dozen common words end in a: about two dozen end in o. In y we have not lefs than 4900 words, about an eighth of our language; our words amounting to about 35,000*.

The want of different terminations in verbs, as it introduces the frequent ufe of auxiliary verbs, obliges us to exprefs our meaning by circumlocutions. There is no diftinction in the perfons of the plural number of verbs, nor in the tenfes or perfons of the paffive voice. This is often the caufe of ambiguity; and foreigners, in the perufal of our books, must be very much at a lofs, without the clofeft attention to the preceding and fubfequent parts of fentences, to understand the particular fenfe of many paffages. Our accents are calculated to give confiderable variety to pronunciation; but the prevailing mode of throwing them back, in fome

y Heron's Letters, p. 247.

cafes,

cafes, to the first fyllable of a word, in a great degree, deftroys their use; and gives an indiftinct, hurried, and almost unintelligible found to the other fyllables. This practice is carried fo far as to make us totally difregard the quantity of fyllables in words, either wholly Latin, or derived from that language or Greek, as in bláfphemy, from Exonuia; irritate, from irrito; orător, from orător; fenător, from fenator; theatre, from theatrum; coroner and córŏnet, from corōna.

Zealous as fome-authors, particularly Dr. Warton in his Effay on the Genius of Pope, have been to establish the excellence of English with refpect to quantity, and to prove that it is in itself harmonious and mufical, we muft, after all their ingenious arguments, be obliged to leave to the Greeks and Latins the regular and uniform diftinctions of long and fhort fyllables; for although there are many of our words, which we can affirm to be long or fhort, yet a great number of them cannot be faid to be of any determinate quantity.

The mode of Spelling appears to have been in former times extremely vague and unfettled. It is not uncommon to find in our old writers the fame word fpelt differently, even in the fame page. Orthography began to be more an object of attention, and was refcued from its great uncertainty, at the beginning of the laft century. Yet authors of confiderable eminence have differed much from each other in their modes of fpelling fome parti

cular