monotony will be broken, the thought enforced, and the period rendered much more musical.

One example more, where this inflexion may be oftener repeated, will still better enable us to fhow the real nature and ufe of it:

I must confefs I think it below reasonable creatures to be altogether converfant in fuch diverfions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to fay for itfelf, I fhall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to fee perfons of the béft senfe páffing away a dózen hours togèther in fhuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas, but thofe of black and red fpots ranged together in different figures. Spec. No 93.

The neceffity of introducing the harmonic inflexion in the latter part of this fentence will better appear, by firft reading it in the common manner, and afterwards with the inflexion. we have been defcribing; this will fhow the difficulty of avoiding a monotony without adopting this inflexion, and the variety and force it gives to the language and fentiment when it is adopted. The words best and sense; paffing and away; dozen and together; shuffling and dividing; other and converfation; what and made up; thefe words, I fay, will be very apt to drag, and produce a famenefs of found if pronounced in the common way; but if the rifing inflexion is used on the firft, and the falling on the laft of every pair, the monotony will be prevented, and a fucceffion of founds introduced, very defcriptive of the repetition conveyed by the words.

But the great object of the harmonic inflexion is forming the cadence: here it is, that har

mony and variety are more peculiarly neceffary, as the ear is more particularly affected by the clofe of a fubject, or any branch of a fubject, than by any other part of the compofition. We have had frequent occafion to obferve, that though a series of fentences may all require to be pronounced with the falling inflexion; yet if they all belong to one subject, or one branch of a fubject, ufually called a paragraph, that the last of them only demands that depreffion of voice which marks a conclufion: to which obfervation we may add this general rule.

Rule 1. When a feries of fimilar fentences, or members of fentences, form a branch of a fubject or paragraph; the last fentence or member must fall gradually into a lower tone, and adopt the harmonic inflexion, on fuch words as form the most agreeable cadence.

EXAMPLES.

One of the most eminent mathematicians of the age has af fured me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil ⚫ was in examining Æneas's voyage by the map; as I queftion not but many a modern compiler of hiftory would be delighted with little mòre in that divine author than in the bare mat ters of fact. Spect. No 409.

Here we find placing the rifing inflexion upon the word little, and the falling upon more; and the falling upon divine, and the rifing upon author, gives both a distinctness and harmony to the cadence.

Gratian very often recommends the fine tafte as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this word arises very often in converfation, I fhall endeavour to give some account of it; and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are poffeffed of it, and how we may acquire that fìne tafe of writing which is so much talked of among the polite world. Spect. No 109.

Placing the rifing inflexion upon how, and the falling upon acquire; the falling inflexion upon fine, and the rifing upon writing, prevents a famenefs which would otherwife arise from the fimilitude of the three members, and gives an agreeable close to the fentence.

Since I have mentioned this unaccountable zeal which appears in atheifts and infidels, I must farther obferve, that they are likewife in a moft particular manner poffeffed with the spirit of bigotry. They are wédded to opinions full of contradiction and impoffibility, and at the fame time look upon the smallest difficulty in an àrticle of fáith as a fufficient reason for reject. ing it. Spect. N° 185.

As the rifing inflexion on the word wedded, and the falling on the word opinions, the falling on contradiction, and the rifing on impoffibility, prevents a famenefs in the first member of the laft fentence arifing from its fimilitude to the closing member of the firft; fo the rifing inflexion upon the words fame and fmalleft, and the falling upon time and difficulty, and the falling upon article, and the rifing upon faith; this arrangement of inflexions, I fay, on the latter part of the fentence, gives a force, harmony, and variety, to the cadence.

We may be fure the metaphorical word tafte would not have been fo general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental tafte, which is the fubject of this paper, and that fenfitive tafte which gives us a relish of every different flavour that affects the palate. Accordingly we find, there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty, as in the fenfe which is marked out by this common denomination. Spect. No 409.

If we do but place the rifing inflexion on accordingly, and the falling on find, the rifing on many, and the falling on refinement, in the last fentence, we fhall perceive a great variety, as well as harmony, added to the whole paffage. S

Harmony of Profe.

THE foregoing obfervations on the harmony

of the cadence, have, undoubtedly, fuggested to the reader that great object of ancient and modern compofition, the harmony of profe: this is a fubject fo intimately connected with harmonious pronunciation, that it feems neceffary to investigate the principles of that compofition which is generally efteemed harmonious, in order, if poffible, to throw fome light upon the most accurate mode of delivering it.

The ancients thought harmonious profe to be only a loofer kind of numbers, and refolved many paffages of their moft celebrated orations into fuch feet as compofed verfe. In modern languages, where accent feems to ftand for the quantity of the ancients, we find harmonious profe refolvable into an arrangement of accented fyllables, fomewhat fimilar to that of verfification. The return of the accented fyllable at certain intervals, feems the common definition of both.

In verfe we find thefe 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 undifciplined reader, in pronouncing this fentence, would be apt, from the greater fmoothness of the line, to lay the accent, or metrical emphafis, as it may be called, on the the word is in the first line; but as this would bring forward a word which, from its nature,

is always fufficiently understood, a good reader will place the accent on bort and date, and fink the words is the into a comparative obfcurity; and as this interval of two fyllables happens at the beginning of a line, it is fo far from having a bad effect on the ear, that it frequently relieves it from the too great fameness to which rhyming verfe is always liable.

And

But if this inequality of interval is sometimes for the fake of variety neceffary in verfe, it is not to be wondered, that for a fimilar reason, we avoid as much as poffible too great a regularity of interval between the accented fyllables in profe. Loofe and negligent, however, as prose may appear, it is not entirely deftitute of measure: for it may be with confidence afferted, that, wherever a style is remarkably smooth and flowing, it is owing in fome measure to a regular return of accented fyllables. though a strength and severity of ftyle has in it fomething more excellent than the foft and flowing, yet the latter holds certainly a diftinguifhed rank in compofition. The mufic of language never difpleafes us, but when fenfe is facrificed to found; when both are compatible, we should deprive a thought of half its beauty, not to give it all the harmony of which language is fufceptible. As all fubjects are not mafculine, fublime, and ftrong; all fubjects do not require, and, indeed, are not fufceptible of a ftrength and severity of style. Those, therefore, which are beautiful, didactic, and perfuafive, demand a smoothness and elegance of language; which is not only agreeable, as it is fuited to the objects it conveys, but, like fine colours or founds, is, in fome meafure, pleafing