this doubtless tends to strengthen the impression made by the discourse. This subject, I acknowledge, hath been very much canvassed by critics; I shall therefore be the (briefer in my remarks, confining myself chiefly to the two following points. First, I shall inquire what kinds of things language is capable of imitating by its sound, and in what degree it is capable; secondly, what rank ought to be assigned to this species of excellence, and in what cases it ought to be attempted. PART I. What are Articulate Sounds capable of Imitating, and in what Degree? First, I shall inquire what kinds of things language is ca pable of imitating by its sound, and in what degree it is capable. And here it is natural to think that the imitative power of language must be greatest when the subject itself is things audible. One sound may surely have a greater resemblance to another sound than it can have to anything of a different nature. In the description, therefore, of the terrible thunder, whirlwind, and tempest, or of the cooling zephyr and the gentle gale, or of any other thing that is sonorous, the imitation that may be made by the sound of the description will certainly be more perfect than can well be expected in what concerns things purely intelligible, or visible, or tangible. Yet even here the resemblance, if we consider it abstractly, is very faint. The human voice is doubtless capable of imitating, to a considerable degree of exactness, almost any sound whatever. But our present inquiry is solely about what may be imitated by articulate sounds, for articulation greatly confines the natural powers of the voice; neither do we inquire what an extraordinary pronunciation may effectuate, but what power in this respect the letters of the alphabet have when combined into syllables, and these into words, and these again into sentences, uttered audibly, indeed, and distinctly, but without any uncommon effort. Nay, the orator, in this species of imitation, is still more limited. He is not at liberty to select whatever articulate sounds he can find to be fittest for imitating those concerning which he is discoursing. That he may be understood, he is under a necessity of confining himself to such sounds as are rendered by use the signs of the things he would suggest by them. If there be a variety of these signs, which commonly cannot be great, he hath some scope for selection, but not otherwise. Yet so remote is the resemblance here at best, that in no language, ancient or modern, are the meanings of any words, except, perhaps, those expressing the cries of some animals, discoverable, on the bare hearing, to one who doth not understand the lan guage. Indeed, when the subject is articulate sound, the speaker or the writer may do more than produce a resemblance; he may even render the expression an example of that which he affirms. Of this kind precisely are the last three lines of the following quotation from Pope: These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire, But this manner, which, it must be owned, hath a very good effect in enlivening the expression, is not imitation, though it hath sometimes been mistaken for it, or, rather, confounded with it. As to sounds inarticulate, a proper imitation of them hath been attempted in the same piece, in the subsequent lines, and with tolerable success, at least in the concluding couplet: "Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar."+ An attempt of the same kind of conformity of the sound to the sense is perhaps but too discernible in the following quotation from the same author: "O'er all the dreary coasts' Dreadful gleams, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of injured ghosts."+ Milton's description of the opening of hell-gates ought not here to be overlooked: "On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate The same author has, in another performance, given an excellent specimen in this way : "Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw."| He succeeds the better here, that what he says is evidently accompanied with a design of exciting contempt. This induceth us to make allowance for his leaving the beaten road in search of epithets. In this passage of the Odyssey, Essay on Criticism. + Ibid. Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. § Paradise Lost b. iL Lycidas. An imitation of a line of Virgil, Ecl. iii.: "Stridenti miserum stipula disperdere carmen." "His bloody hand Snatch'd two unhappy of my martial band, And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor,* the sound, but not the abruptness of the crash, is, I imagine better imitated than in the original, which on account of both, especially the last, was much admired by the critic of Halicarnassus. An excellent attempt in this way we have in a poem by Dyer: "The Pilgrim oft At dead of night, mid his orison, hears Aghast the voice of time, disparting towers, Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon."+ But the best example to be found in our language is, in my opinion, the following lines of Mr. Pope: "What! like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse, Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay, Lull with Amelia's liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line."‡ The success here is the greater, that the author appears through the whole to deride the immoderate affectation of this overrated beauty, with which some modern poetasters are so completely dazzled. On the whole, the specimens produced, though perhaps as good as any of the kind extant in our language, serve to evince rather how little than how much can be done in this way, and how great scope there is here for the fancy to influence the judgment. But there are other subjects besides sound to which language is capable of bearing some resemblance. Time and motion, for example, or whatever can admit the epithets of quick and slow, is capable, in some degree, of being imitated by speech. In language there are long and short syllables, one of the former being equal or nearly equal to two of the latter. As these may be variously combined in a sentence, and syllables of either kind may be made more or less to predominate, the sentence may be rendered by the sound more or less expressive of celerity or tardiness. And though even here the power of speech seems to be much limited, there being but two degrees in syllables, whereas the natural degrees of quickness or slowness in motion or action may be infinitely varied, yet on this subject the imitative power of articulate sound seems to be greater and more distinctive than on * Pope's Od. In Homer thus: “ Σὺν δὲ δύω μάρψας, ὥστε σκύλακας, ποτὶ γαίῃ † Ruins of Rome, Dodsley's Collection, vol. i. + Sat i any other. This appears to particular advantage in verse, when, without violating the rules of prosody, a greater or a less number of syllables is made to suit the time. Take the following example from Milton: "When the merry bells ring round, To many ǎ youth and mānỹ ǎ maid In this passage the third line, though consisting of ten syllables, is, by means of two anapæsts, pronounced, without hurting the measure, in the same time with an iambic line of eight syllables, and therefore well adapted in sound to the airy diversion he is describing. At the same time, it must be owned that some languages have, in this particular, a remarkable superiority over others. In English the iambic verse, which is the commonest, admits here and there the insertion of a spondee for protracting, or of an anapæst, as in the example quoted, for quickening the expression.† · But, in my opinion, Greek and Latin have here an advantage, at least in their heroic measure, over all modern tongues. Accordingly, Homer and Virgil furnish us with some excellent specimens in this way. But that we may know what our own tongue and metre is capable of effecting, let us recur to our own poets, and first of all to the celebrated translator of the Grecian bard. I have made choice of him the rather as he was perfectly sensible of this beauty in the original which he copied, and endeavoured, as much as the materials he had to work upon would permit him, to exhibit it in his version. Let us take for an example the punishment of Sisyphus in the other world, a passage which had on this very account been much admired in Homer by all the critics both ancient and modern. Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone; Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground." * L'Allegro. + Perhaps the feet employed in ancient poetry are not, in strict propriety, applicable to the measures adopted by the English prosody. It is not my business at present to enter into this curious question. It suffices that I think there is a rhythmus in our verse plainly discernible by the ear, and which, as it at least bears some analogy to the Greek and Latin feet, makes this application of their names sufficiently intelligible. In Greek thus: “ Λᾶαν ἄνω ὤθεσκε ποτὶ λόφον— Αὖτις ἔπειπα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδής.”—Od. In Latin verse, Vida, in his Art of Poetry, hath well exemplified this beauty, from his great master, Virgil: "Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens Incedit tardo molimine subsidendo." Here not only the frequency of the spondees, but the difficulty of forming the elisions; above all, the spondee in the fifth root of the second line in It is remarkable that Homer (though greatly preferable to his translator in both) hath succeeded best in describing the fall of the stone, Pope in relating how it was heaved up the hill. The success of the English poet here is not to be ascribed entirely to the length of the syllables, but partly to another cause, to be explained afterward. I own I do not approve the expedient which this admirable versifier hath used, of introducing an Alexandrine line for expressing rapidity. I entirely agree with Johnson,* that this kind of measure is rather stately than swift; yet our poet hath assigned this last quality as the reason of his choice. "I was too sensible,” says he, in the margin, "of the beauty of this, not to endeavour to imitate it, though unsuccessfully. I have, therefore, thrown it into the swiftness of an Alexandrine, to make it of a more proportionable number of syllables with the Greek." Ay, but to resemble in length is one thing, and to resemble in swiftness is another. The difference lies here: in Greek, an hexameter verse, whereof all the feet save one are dactyls, though it hath several syllables more, is pronounced in the same time with an hexameter verse whereof all the feet save one are spondees, and is, therefore, a just emblem of velocity; that is, of moving a great way in a short time; whereas the Alexandrine line, as it consists of more syllables than the common English heroic, requires proportionably more time to the pronunciation. For this reason, the same author, in another work, has, I think, with better success, made choice of this very measure to exhibit slow 1ess: "A needless Alexandrine ends the song,. That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."+ It deserves our notice, that in this couplet he seems to give it as his opinion of the Alexandrine, that it is a dull and tardy measure. Yet, as if there were no end of his inconsistency on this subject, he introduceth a line of the same kind a little after in the same piece, to represent uncommon speed: "Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."+ A most wonderful and peculiar felicity in this measure, to be alike adapted to imitate the opposite qualities of swiftness and slowness. Such contradictions would almost tempt one stead of a dactyl, greatly retard the motion. For the contrary expression of speed, "Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra, Here everything concurs to accelerate the motion, the number of dactyls. + Ibid. |