is usually slow and distinct; a cesura or pause in the middle of the line is rigidly marked, and the unaccentuated vowels before consonants, though not absolutely sounded as they are when sung to musick, yet are felt by the reciter to be so many syllables, which fill up the rhythmical time, and, by a slight unarticulated breathing, contribute impalpably to the cadence. This remark will at once show that the short, lively cadence of the

English anapæstic verse bears no sort of affinity to the measured and elon gated cadence of the French heroic. French verse so pronounced would convey to a native ear a hubbub of sounds absolutely barbaric; and the most artful and happy effect of rhythmical imitation would inevitably be destroyed. We boast, and with reason, of our imitative harmony; can we deny it to our neighbours?

Diversified Echo.

Sous les coups rédoublés tous les banes rétentissent :
Les murs en sont émus, les vôutes en mugissent;
Et l'orgue même en pousse un long gémissementt.
Distant Sound.

L'air sifle, le ciel gronde, et l'onde aù loin mugit‡.
Extended Space.

D'où l'œil découvre aù loin l'air, la terre, et les flots§.
To pronounce the last verse glibly
and rapidly, would baffle the most
flexible organs.

French verse has been accused of a want of variety, perhaps without due consideration. The cesura that divides the line into two exact hemi

stichs, is the distinguishing pause of
French versification; but they some-
times adopt an arbitrary cesura, which,
like our own, does not fall invariably
in the centre, but rests, as the sense
may exact, near the beginning of a
verse, or towards its close.

Il faut des châtimens dont l'univers frémisse;
Qu'on tremble | en comparant l'offense et le supplice.
Je l'ai vu tout couvert d'une affrense poussière,
Revêtu de lambeaux, toût pâie, mais son œil
Conservait sous la cendre encor le même orgueil.

In the French couplet the sense is not necessarily bounded by the close of the second line. The verses often flow easily into each other. Que dis-je? ah! libre enfin des chaines de la ville

Ne pourais-je à mon gré solitaire et tranquille
Conder aux hameaux le reste de mes jours?

Le luxe des cités, et le faste des cours

N'ont jamais ébloui les régards du poëte;

Il songe en les fuyant à la douce retraite

Où sur des frais gazons, sous des ombrages verds

Il pourra méditer et soupirer ses vers**.

The English reader will accept a hasty translation of the passages quoted.
Beneath redoubled blows the benches ring;

Rock the firm walls, the vaulted roofs rebound,

And the deep organ breathes a long and groaning sound.

Air whistles, roars the heaven, the surge at distance howls,
Whence air, earth, sea, rush boundless on the sight.

There need such chastisements as may astound

A shuddering universe; yes, let mankind
Trembling compare the punishment and crime.
I have beheld him grim with dust, and clad
In tatter'd garb, and pale --- but still his eye
Beneath the dusky horror fish'd its pride.
** Ah! why at freedom from the imprisoning town,
Why may I not in solitary calm

To hamlets trust my residue of days?
The city's luxury, the pomp of courts,
Were never dazzling in the Poet's eyes:

He flies in thought to that serene retreat

Where, on fresh herbage, underneath the shade
Of verdant woods, he sits and meditates,
Or sighs his verses forth,

It seems probable, from the compositions of the earlier French Poets, that the metrical language of France might have attained a far greater degree of strength and freedom, had it not been refined down and restrained by the care of successive improvers. The modern French critics, indeed, object to the obsolete style in question, as barbarous; and it must be confessed that they are the best judges of their

own language. The practice of the old Poets will, at least, demonstrate the practicability of running one verse into another, which the French call enjambement, and even of combining words in the manner of the Greek epithets; a usage to which the language is commonly thought inadeThe following passage dequale. serves to be cited at length, from its quaint ingenuity. Trois fois cinquante jours le general naufrage enfin d'un tel ravage Devasta l'univers L'Immortel attendri, n'eût pas sonué si-tôt La retraite des eaux, que soudain flot sur flot Elles vont s'écouler; tous les fleuves s'abaissent; La mer rentre en prison; les montagnes rénaissent; Les bois montrent deja leur limoueux rameaux; Dejà la terre croit par le décroit des eaux;

Et bref la seule main de Dieu darde-onnerre
Montra la terre aù ciel et le ciel à la terre*.

DUBARTAS.

While I am on the subject of French verse, I shall observe that their lyric measure has great sweetness: witness these stanzas of Malherbe;

Le malheur de ta fille aù tombeau descendue

Par un commun trépas;

Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdue
Ne se rétrouve pas ?

Elle était de ce monde, où les plus belles choses

Ont le pire destin:

Et rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses
L'espace d'un matint.

The fall from a long verse to a short one, has in that language an effect spirited and ́pleasing.

Ont-ils perdu l'esprit ? ce n'est plus que poussière

Que cette majesté si pompeuse et si fière

Dont l'éclat orgueilleux étonnait l'anivers;
Et dans ces grands tombeaux où leurs âmes hautaines
Font encore les vaines

Ils sont mangés des verst.

Of the lighter lyric measure, employed on themes of pleasure and gallantry, it is unnecessary to speak; its ease and sprightliness of flow are generally acknowledged: my object has been to insist on the higher merits of French versification; which, I am persuaded, are only less relished, be

*Thrice fifty days the universal flood
Devastated the globe: but touch'd at length
With such drear havock, scarce th' Eternal
bade
[wave

The deeps retreat, when sudden wave on
Slide soft away; the rivers smooth subside;
The sea within its rocky dungeon rolls;
The mountains rise again; the woods put
forth
[now gains
Their slimy boughs; increasing earth
On the decreasing waters; the sole hand
Of the dread thunder-darting God reveals
The earth unto the heaven, the heaven to
earth.

Ah! thy daughter's hapless doom
Sunk within the common tomb;

cause they are less understood. In order to appreciate the metre of the French Poels, we must become inti mately versed in the living language; we must hear it declaimed by the best French tragedians; to discern its powers, we must understand its principles. RHYTHMUS. Yours, &c.

Seems it then a gloomy maze
Where thy reason wilder'd strays?
Creature of this world was she:
Fairest things the frailest be:
Rose she liv'd, a morning's pride,
And with roses bloom'd and died.

Could those haughty spirits die?
That fierce, vaunting majesty,
Whose pompous glare a universe dismay'd,
Is now but ashes and a shade.
And in those tombs of massive state,
Where still their souls affect the great,
On each majestic form
Riots the ravening worm,

Mr.

could any of your Correspondents ex
plain; it is this:

John de Daundelyon with his great dog,
Brought over this Bell on a Mili Cog.
Yours, &c.

to preclude the necessity of any far-D med BT is a small village

of Harwich. Its Church (a view of which, is inclosed, see Pl. II. fig. 2), dedicated to All-Saints, consists of a nave and chancel, with a square tower at the West end.

This place in denomination, in all ecclesiastical accounts, precedes Har wich, as being the mother-church. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,
Oct. 28, 1810.
SEND you a drawing of the Church

of Ferring in Sussex (see Pl. H. fig. 3.) situated about four miles East of Little Hampton, and within a quarter of a mile of the Sea. The village has many indications of rural beauty. As we have not yet been favoured with a History of this County, the following monumental inscriptions, literally transcribed, may not, perhaps, be unacceptable to your Readers. Should this be the case, I shall be happy to present you with what memoranda and inscriptions I have collected at different times during my rambles through this in teresting part of our Island.