it. There are many ideas and turns of thought which a Speaker may imitate very fuccessfully, when a writer (unless languages had been conftructed in a manner very different from what they are) is not able to contribute much to the fuccefs of the imitation.

A a 2

LECTURE

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LECTURE XXXIV.

Of HARMONY in VERSE.

ALL fpeech naturally divides itself into long and

fbort fyllables. Whatever language we speak, or whether it be quantity or accent that we attend to in it, we pronounce fome fyllables with more rapidity than others; and the art of verfification univerfally confifts in the difpofition of the long or short fyllables, according to fome rule. In fome kinds of verfe, indeed, there is more latitude than in others; but an utter inattention to the length of the fyllables would quite deftroy the harmony of any verfification in the world.

The regular difpofition of the long and fhort fyllables neceffarily divides every verse into certain diftinct portions, or feet, and the harmony of a verfe is moft diftinctly perceived when these portions or feet are kept as diftinct as poffible; because then the regular difpofition of the long and short fyllables, in which the effence of verfe confifts, is most apparent. To keep thefe divifions of verfe quite diftinct (which the mind, according to an obfervation lately made, naturally inclines to do, in

order

order to perfect the harmony) a momentary pause must be made after each of them, and this pause will be peculiarly eafy and natural, if fuch divifion, or foot, close with a long fyllable.

In order to have any perception of the harmony, of verse, and to feel the pleasure we receive from it, unmixed with that which we receive from other beauties of poetry, we must dispose unmeaning syllables, or fuch as have no other properties than length or bortnefs, in metrical order, and observe how we are affected by the pronunciation of them. By this method we fhall alfo perceive the peculiar beauty of the versification in use in any country, independent of any advantages it may derive from the peculiar properties of the language, or the art of the poet. For the fake of brevity, I fhall here-apply this method to English heroic verfe only, ufing the fyllables that the ingenious Mr. Mafon contrived for this purpose; viz. tum for the long fyllable and ti for the short one. The following line then will be the general standard of English Iambic verses;

Titum titūm ti tūm | ti tūm | tỉ tūm.

Let any perfon only pronounce these fyllables at his leifure, and he muft perceive a difpofition to pause a little after every long fyllable, and moft of all after the second foot, leaving the latter part of the verfe longer than the former; by which means it hath the additional beauty of a climax. Ac

cordingly,

cordingly, it will be found by experience that those verfes, Separately taken, are the most musical, in which the words are fo difpofed, that those pauses shall be the most diftinctly perceived; that is, where the divifion made by the words and the fenfe coincides with the metrical pause. To this, no doubt, is owing, in a great measure, the remarkable harmony of that stanza of Denham's which Dryden proposes as a paradox to be explained by the wits of his age:

Tho' deep, yet clear; || tho' gentle, yet not dull :
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

Anciently, I believe, in all nations, mankind were so captivated with the charms of verfe, that, in reciting poetry, no regard was paid to any thing but the metrical paufe; which made the pronunciation of verse a kind of finging or chanting: and accordingly, we never read of poems being read, but always of their being fung by them. Nor fhall we wonder at this, if we confider that, even in our own age, all perfons who have not been inftructed in the true art of pronunciation (which is governed wholly by the fenfe) naturally pronounce verse in the fame manner, and quite differently from their manner of pronouncing profe; so that it generally requires a good deal of pains to correct that vicious habit. Even among persons of a liberal education, we find fome lean more to the pause of the metre, and others more to the pause of the sense;

and

and there are no perfons, not even those who contend the most strenuously that verse ought to be pronounced exactly like profe, but diftinguish the metrical paufe as much as a regard to the fense will admit. Indeed, if we have a just taste for harmony, we shall perceive that a little interruption of the. metrical pause by the divifion of the sense hath no difagreeable effect, mufically confidered, as it contributes to throw an agreeable variety into the ftructure of verfe.

If we pay any regard to the fenfe, we must make no pause in the middle of a word, or between two words which together present only one idea, and separately are of no fignification; as between prepofitions, or adjectives, and their fubftantives, which are as infeparable in pronunciation as if they were fingle words. The greater is the coincidence of the metrical pause with the pause of the fenfe, and the more diftinguishable is verse from profe: and verses grow less and less diftinguishable as a regard to the fenfe throws the pause farther and farther from its natural place. If the metrical paufe be excluded intirely, the verse, notwithstanding the regular distribution of the long and short fyllables, will not be diftinguishable from profe, nor pafs for a verfe, except among others.

This a judicious ear will be able to observe in a Comparison of the following verfes in Pope's Effay

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