are many peculiarities in each. The first article with refpect to rhyme or metre, shall be difcuffed in a few words. Every line confifts of ten fyllables, five fhort and five long. There are but two exceptions, both of them rare. A couplet can bear to be drawn out, by adding a short fyllable at the end of each of the two lines:

There hero's wits are kept in pondrous vafes, dr And beau's in fnuff-boxes and tweezer cafes.

The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why, take it; I'm all fubmiflion; what you'd have it, make it.

This licence is fufferable in a fingle couplet but if frequent would foon become difguftful.

The other exception concerns the fecond line of a couplet, which is fometimes ftretched out to twelve fyllables, termed an Alexandrine line. uh at troup

A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong, yash 291d That, like a wounded fnake, drags its flow length hon

along.

It doth extremely well when employ'd to clofe a period with a certain pomp and folemnity fuitable to the fubject.

With regard to the second article, it is unneceffary to mention a fecond time, that the quantities employ'd in verfe are but two, the one double of the other; that every fyllable is reducible to one or other of these standards; and that a fyllable of the larger quantity is termed long, and of the leffer quantity fhort. It belongs more to the prefent article, to examine what peculiarities there may be in the English language as to long and fhort fyllables. In every language, there are fyllables that may be pronounced long or fhort at pleafure; but the English above all abounds in fyllables of that kind. In words of three or more fyllables, the quantity for the most part is invariable. The exceptions are more frequent in diffyllables; but as to monofyllables, they may without many exceptions be pronounced either long or fhort. Nor is the ear hurt by this liberty; being accustomed to the variation of quantity in the fame word. This shows that the melody of Eng

lifh

lish verfe muft depend lefs upon quantity, than upon other circumftances. In that particular it differs widely from Latin verse. There, every fyllable having but one found, ftrikes the ear constantly with its accustomed impreffion; and a reader must be de lighted to find a number of such syllables, disposed so artfully as to raise a lively sense of melody. Syllables variable in quantity cannot poffefs this power. Custom may render familiar, both a long and fhort pronunciation of the fame word; but the mind conftantly wavering betwixt the two founds, cannot be so much affected with a fyllable of this kind as with one which bears always the fame found. What I have further to fay upon quantity, will come in more properly under the following head, of arrange

ment.

And with refpect to arrangement, which may be brought within a narrow compass, the English heroic line is commonly Iambic, the first fyllable fhort, the fecond long, and fo on alternately through the whole line. One exception there is, pretty frequent. Many lines commence with a Trochæus,

Trochæus,naiz. a long and a fhort fyllable, But this affects not the order of the follow ing fyllables. Thefe go on alternately as ufual, one fhort and one long. The fol lowing couplet affords an example of cach kind: Pan

h

Some in the fields of pureft æther play,
And balk and whiten in the blaze of day.

-It is unhappy in the construction of English verfe, that it excludes the bulk of polyfyllables, though the most founding words in our language; for upon examina tion it will be found, that very few of them are compofed of fuch alternation of long and thort fyllables as to correfpond to either of the arrangements mentioned. English verfe accordingly is almost totally reduced to diffyllables and monofyllables. Magnanimity is a founding word totally excluded. Impetuofity is still a finer word by the refemblance of the found and fente; and yet a negative is put upon it, as well as upon numberless words of the fame kind. Polyfyllables compofed of fyllables long and short alternately, make a good figure in VOL. II.

3 C

verfe;

verfe; for example, obfervance, opponent, oftenfive, pindaric, productive, prolific, and fuch others of three fyllables. Imitation, imperfection, misdemeanour, mitigation, moderation, obfervator, ornamental, regulator, and others fimilar of four fyllables, beginning with two fhort fyllables, the third long, and the fourth fhort, may find a place in a line commencing with a Trochæus. I know not if there be any of five fyllables, One I know of fix, viz. misinterpretation. But words fo compofed are not frequent in our language.

One would not imagine without trial, how uncouth false quantity appears in verfe; not lefs than a provincial tone or idiom. The article the is one of the few monofyllables that is invariably fhort. See how harsh it makes a line where it must be pronounced long:

This nymph, to the deftruction of mankind,

Again:

Th'advent rous baron the bright locks admir'd.

Let