certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet; and that from the proper difpofition of fingle founds results that harmony that adds force to reason, and gives grace to fublimity; that fhackles attention, and governs paffions.

That verse may be melodious and pleasing, it is neceffary, not only that the words be fo ranged as that the accent may fall on its proper place, but that the fyllables themselves be fo chofen as to flow fmoothly into one another. This is to be effected by a proportionate mixture of vowels and confonants, and by tempering the mute confonants with liquids and femivowels. The Hebrew grammarians have obferved, that it is impoffible to pronounce two confonants without the intervention of a vowel, or without fome emiffion of the breath between one and the other this is longer and more perceptible, as the founds of the confonants are lefs harmonically conjoined, and, by confequence, the flow of the verfe is longer interrupted.

It is pronounced by Dryden, that a line of monofyllables is almost always harfh. This, with regard to our language, is evidently true, not because monofyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monofyllables being of Teutonick original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and end with confonants, as,

-Every lower faculty

Of fenfe, whereby they hear, fee, smell, touch, taste.

The difference of harmony arifing principally from the collocation of vowels and confonants, will

be

be fufficiently conceived by attending to the following paffages:

Immortal Amarant- -there grows

And flow'rs aloft, fhading the fount of life,

And where the river of blifs through midst of heav'n

Rolls o'er Elyfian flow'rs her amber ftream;

With these that never fade, the spirits elect
Bind their refplendent locks inwreath'd with beams.

The fame comparison that I propose to be made between the fourth and fixth verses of this paffage, may be repeated between the laft lines of the follow ing quotations :

Under foot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich in-lay

Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with flone
Of coftlieft emblem.

Here in clofe recefs

With flowers, garlands, and fweet-fmelling herbs,
Efpoused Eve firft deck'd her nuptial bed;
And heav'nly choirs the hymenean fung.

Milton, whofe ear had been accustomed, not only to the mufick of the ancient tongues, which, however vitiated by our pronunciation, excel all that are now in use, but to the foftness of the Italian, the moft mellifluous of all modern poetry, feems fully convinced of the unfitnefs of our language for fmooth verfification, and is therefore pleased with an opportunity of calling in a fofter word to his af fistance; for this reason, and I believe for this only, he fometimes indulges himself in a long feries of

proper

proper names, and introduces them where they add little but mufick to his poem.

The richer feat

Of Atabalipa, and yet unfpoil'd

Guiana, whofe great city Gerion's fons
Call El Dorado.

The moon

The Tuscan artist views

At evening, from the top of Fefole

Or in Valdarno, to defery new lands.

He has indeed been more attentive to his fyllables than to his accents, and does not often offend by collifions of confonants, or openings of vowels upon each other, at leaft not more often than other writers who have had lefs important or complicated fubjects to take off their care from the cadence of their lines.

The great peculiarity of Milton's verfification, compared with that of later poets, is the elifion of one vowel before another, or the fuppreffion of the laft fyllable of a word ending with a vowel, when a vowel begins the following word. As

Knowledge

Oppreffes elfe with furfeit, and foon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

This licence, though now difufed in English poetry, was practifed by our old writers, and is allowed in many other languages ancient and modern, and therefore the criticks on Paradife Loft have, without much deliberation, commended Milton for continuing it. But one language cannot communicate.

In the original Rambler, in folio, our author's opinion appears different, and is thus expreffed :-"This licence, though an inno vation in English poetry, is yet allowed in many other languages ancient and modern, and therefore the criticks on Paradise Loft have, without much deliberation, commended Milton for introducing it."

C.

its rules to another.

We have already tried and rejected the hexameter of the ancients, the double clofe of the Italians, and the alexandrine of the French; and the elifion of vowels, however graceful may seem to other nations, may be very unfuitable to the genius of the English tongue.

it

There is reafon to believe that we have negligently loft part of our vowels, and that the filent e, which our ancestors added to most of our monofyllables, was once vocal. By this detruncation of our fyllables, our language is overstocked with confonants, and it is more neceffary to add vowels to the beginning of words, than to cut them off from the end.

Milton therefore feems to have fomewhat mistaken the nature of our language, of which the chief defect is ruggedness and afperity, and has left our harsh cadences yet harsher. But his elifions are not all equally to be cenfured; in fome fyllables they may be allowed, and perhaps in a few may be fafely imitated. The abfciffion of a vowel is undoubtedly vicious when it is ftrongly founded, and makes, with its affociate confonant, a full and audible fyllable. What he gives,

Spiritual, may to pureft fpirits be found,

No ingrateful food, and food alike thefe pure
Intelligential fubftances require.

Fruits,Hefperian fables true,

If true, here only, and of delicious taste.

Evening now approach'd,

For we have alfo our evening and our morn.

Of guests he makes them flaves,
Inhofpitably, and kills their infant males.

And

And vital Virtue infus'd, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass.-

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own
To ferve him.

I believe every reader will agree that in all those paffages, though not equally in all, the mufick is injured, and in fome the meaning obfcured. There are other lines in which the vowel is cut off, but it is so faintly pronounced in common speech, that the lofs of it in poetry is fcarcely perceived; and therefore fuch compliance with the measure may be allowed.

.

Nature breeds

Perverse, all monftrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable; and worfe

Than fables yet have feign'd

From the fhore

They view'd the vast immensurable abyss.
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire.

To none communicable in earth or heav'n.

Yet even these contractions encrease the roughness of a language too rough already; and though in long poems they may be fometimes fuffered, it never can be faulty to forbear them.

Milton frequently uses in his poems the hyperme trical or redundant line of eleven, fyllables.

Thus it fhall befal

Him who to worth in woman over-trufting

Lets her will rule.

I alfo err'd in over-much admiring.