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A ftanding fight; then foaring on main wing,
Tormented all the air; all air feem'd then
Conflicting fire: long time in even scale
The battle hung—

Milton.

The pauses at the end of these lines are so small when compared with those in the body of the lines, that an appeal may be made to every ear for the truth of what has been juft obferved. This difproportion in the pauses cannot, however, be faid to reduce the compofition to profe; nay, even if we were to use no pauses at all at the end of the lines, they would not, on this account, entirely lofe their poetic character; for, at worst, they might be called numerous or harmonious profe; and that the greatest part of blank verfe is neither more nor less than this, it would not be difficult to prove.

Mr. Sheridan defines numbers to be certain impreffions made on the ear at stated and regular distances; and as he supposes verse would be no verse without a pause at the end of each line, he must define verfe to be a certain number of impreffions made on the ear at stated and regular distances, terminated by a pause, so as to make this number of impreffions perceptibly equal in every line. But if a pause comes into the definition of verfe because it ferves to fhew the equal number of impreffions in every line, a pause that is infufficient for this purpose is not, ftrictly speaking, a poetical paufe; for if the pufe claffes words into fuch portions as obliges the ear to perceive the equality or inequality of these portions, the longest pauses will be the boundaries of thofe portions the ear will most readily perceive, and the fhort paufes will, like the demi-cæfura, appear either im

perceptible, or fubfervient only to the greater paufe: Thus the foregoing paffage from Milton will, while we are pronouncing it, addrefs the ear in the fame manner it does the eye in the following arrangement:

Deeds of eternal fame were done, but infinite;
For wide was spread that war and various ;
Sometimes on firm ground a ftanding fight;

Then foaring on main wing, tormented all the air;
All air feem'd then conflicting fire:

Long time in even scale the battle hung.

This arrangement of the words, though exactly claffed into thofe portions in which they come to the ear, seems to destroy the verse to the eye, and to reduce it into what may be called numerous profe: But have we not reafon to fufpect that the eye puts a cheat upon the ear, by making us imagine a pause to exift where there is only a vacancy to the eye? Mr. Sheridan has very properly accounted for the perception of falfe quantity in Latin verse by this affociation of visible and audible objects, and there feems an equal reason to fufpect the fame fallacy here.

The beft pronouncers of tragedy have never obferved this pause, and why it should be introduced into other compofition is not eafily comprehended: The numbers of the verfe, the dignity of the language, an inverfion of the common order of the words, fufficiently preferve it from falling into profe; and if the name of verse only be wanting, the lofs is not very confiderable. When the line is terminated by a rhyme, the boundaries of the verse are very difcernible by the smalleft paufe; though the moft harmonious rhyming verse must be ac

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knowledged to be that where the rhyme is accompanied by a confiderable pause in the sense; but as too long a fucceffion of these lines fatiates the ear with too much equality, we readily exchange found for variety or force of expreffion. Sometimes even the pauses before and after a rhyme are fo confiderable, and that at the end of the rhyme fo fmall, that the boundaries of the verse are loft in the rapidity of the expreffion.

Which, without paffing through the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches ; none
Go juft alike, yet each believes his own.

Pope.

Ibid.

In thefe lines I think it is evident, that if we make a small pause of fufpenfion, as Mr. Sheridan calls it, at the end of the first verse, the pauses of sense at judgment and heart, and at watches and alike, are fo much more perceptible, that every trace of the length of the verfe is loft: The fame may be obferved of the following lines of Milton:

Sing heav'nly Mufe, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen feed
In the beginning, how the heav'ns and earth
Rofe out of chaos: Or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flow'd
Faft by the oracle of God: I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous fong.

In the fifth, fixth, and feventh lines of this paffage, the pause in the sense falls fo diftinctly on the words chaos, more, and God, that a flight paufe at bill, flow'd, and thence, would not have the leaft power of informing the ear of the end of the line, and of the equality of the verfe,

and, therefore, for these purposes would be entirely useless. For in all pronunciation, whether profaic or poetic, at the beginning of every fresh portion, the mind muft neceffarily have the pause of the fenfe in view; and this profpect of the fenfe muft regulate the voice for that portion, to the entire neglect of any length in the verse, as an attention to this muft neceffarily interrupt that flow or current in the pronunciation which the fenfe demands. Thus the current of the voice is stopped at chaos; and the fucceeding part of the verfe, Or if Sion hill, is fo much detached from the preceding part, that the admeasurement of the verfe is destroyed to the ear, and we might add a foot more to the latter part of the verfe without seeming at all to lengthen it; we might, for example, write the line in this manner,

Rofe out of Chaos; or if Sion's verdant hill

without any indication of falfe quantity to the ear, though the eye fcans it as too long by two fyllables.

The affectation which most writers of blank verse have of extending the sense beyond the line, whether neceffary or not, is followed by a fimilar affectation in the printer, who will often omit placing a paufe at the end of a line of verfe, where he would have inferted one in profe; and this affectation is ftill carried farther by the reader, who will generally run the fense of one line into another, where there is the leaft opportunity of doing it, in order to fhow that he is too fagacious to suppose there is any conclufion in the fenfe because the line concludes. This affectation, I fay, has poffibly given rise

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to the oppofite one adopted by the learned; namely, that of paufing where the fenfe abfolutely forbids a paufe, and fo, by fhunning Scylla, to fall into Charybdis: This error is excellently defcribed by Pope :

The vulgar thus through imitation err,

As oft the learn'd by being fingular;

So much they hate the crowd, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.

The truth is, the end of a line in verse naturally inclines us to a pause; and the words that refuse a pause fo feldom occur at the end of a verfe, that we often paufe between words in verse where we fhould not in profe, but where a paufe would by no means interfere with the fenfe: this, it is prefumed, has been fully fhown in the former part of this work; and this, perhaps, may be the reason why a pause at the end of a line in poetry is fuppofed to be in compliment to the verfe, when the very fame pause in profe is allowable, and, perhaps, eligible, but neglected as unneceffary: However this be, certain it is, that if we pronounce many lines in Milton, fo as to make the equality of impreffions on the ear diftinctly perceptible at the end of every line; if, by making this paufe, we make the paufes that mark the fenfe lefs perceptible, we exchange a folid advantage for a childish rhythm, and, by endeavouring to preferve the name of verfe, lofe all its meaning and energy.

Rule VI. In order to form a cadence in a period in rhyming verfe, we must adopt the falling inflexion with confiderable force, in the cæfura of the laft line but one.

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