that ought to be betwixt the pauses of fenfe and of melody. And in an English line, it is for the fame reafon equally wrong to divide a word by a full paufe. Let us juftify this reafon by experiments.

A noble fuperfluity it craves

Abhor, a perpetuity fhould stand

Are thefe lines diftinguishable from profe? Scarcely, I think.

The fame rule is not applicable to a femipaufe, which being fhort and faint, is not fenfibly difagreeable when it divides a word.

"

Relentless walls whofe darkfome round contains #

For her white virgins | hyme neals fing

In these deep folitudes || and awful cells

It must however be acknowledged, that the melody here fuffers in some degree. - A word ought to be pronounced without any reft betwixt its component fyllables. The

femipaufo

femipause must bend to this rule, and thereby vanisheth almost altogether.

With regard to the capital pause, it is so effential to the melody, that a poet cannot be too nice in the choice of its place, in order to have it full, clear, and diftinct. It cannot be placed more happily than with a pause in the sense; and if the fense require but a comma after the fourth, fifth, sixth, or feventh fyllable, there can be no difficulty about this musical pause. But to make fuch coincidence effential, would cramp verfification too much; and we have experience for our authority, that there may be a pause in the melody where the fenfe requires none. We must not however imagine, that a musical pause may be placed at the end of any word indifferently. Some words, like fyllables of the fame word, are so intimately connected as not to bear a separation even by a pause. No good poet ever attempted to separate a substantive from its article: the dividing fuch intimate companions, would be harsh and unpleafant. The following line, for example, VOL. II.

3 D

cannot

cannot be pronounced with a paufe as marked.

If Delia fmile, the flow'rs begin to fpring.

'

3

But ought to be pronounced in the following manner,

If Delia fmile, || the flow'rs begin to fpring.

If then it be not a matter of indifferency where to make the pause, there ought to be rules for determining what words may be feparated by a pause and what are incapable of such separation. I fhall endea vour to unfold these rules; not chiefly for their utility, but in order to exemplify some latent principles that tend to regulate our taste even where we are fcarce fenfible of them. And to that end, it seems the eli gible method to run over the verbal relations, beginning with the most intimate. The first that prefents itself, is that of adjective and fubftantive, being the relation of fubftance and quality, the most intimate of all. A quality cannot exist independent of a fubftance, nor is it feparable from it even in imagination, because they

make

make parts of the fame idea; and for that reason, it must, with regard to melody, be difagreeable, to bestow upon the adjective a fort of independent existence, by inter jecting a paufe betwixt it and its fubftantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines, nor any of the fort; for to my taste they are harsh and unpleasant.

Of thousand bright || inhabitants of air
The sprites of fiery || termagants inflame
The reft, his many-colour'd || robe conceal'd
The fame, his ancient || perfonage to deck

Ev'n here, where frozen || Chastity retires
I fit, with fad civility, I read
I

Back to my native || moderation flide

Or fhall we ev'ry decency confound

Time was, a fober || Englishman wou'd knock

And place, on good || fecurity, his gold

Taste, that eternal | wanderer, which flies

But ere the tenth revolving day was run 3 D 2

T

Firft

Go, threat thy earth-born || Myrmidons; but here

Hafte to the fierce || Achilles' tent (he cries)

All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove'

Your own refistless || eloquence employ

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I have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a cafe where I have the miffortune to diflike what paffes current in practice, every man upon the fpot may judge by his own taste. The foregoing reafoning, it is true, appears to me just it is however too fubtile, to afford conviction in oppofition to taste.

Confidering this matter in a fuperficial view, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the fame, whether the adjective go first, which is the natural order, or the fubftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon difcover this to be a mistake. Colour cannot be conceived independent of the furface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, growing in a certain fpot, as of a cer

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