This is the time in which those friendships that give happiness or confolation, relief or fecurity, are generally formed. A wife and good man is never fo amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals. Heroick generosity, or philofophical discoveries, may compel veneration and refpect, but love always implies fome kind of natural or voluntary equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness which difencumber all minds from awe and folitude, invite the modeft to freedom, and exalt the timorous to confidence. This easy gaiety is certain to please, whatever be the character of him that exerts it; if our fuperiors defcend from their elevation, we love them for leffening the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom we can receive no lafting advantage, will always keep our affections while their fprightliness and mirth contribute to our pleasure.

Every man finds himself differently affected by the fight of fortreffes of war, and palaces of pleasure; we look on the height and ftrength of the bulwarks with a kind of gloomy fatisfaction, for we cannot think of defence without admitting images of danger; but we range delighted and jocund through the gay apartments of the palace, because nothing is impreffed by them on the mind but joy and feftivity. Such is the difference between great and amiable characters; with protectors we are fafe, with com. panions we are happy.

NUMB. 90. SATURDAY, January 26, 1751.

VIRG.

In tenui labor.

What toil in flender things!

IT is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without failing either to please or inftruct. Too much nicety of detail difgufts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extenfive comprehenfion, is to common understandings of little ufe. They who undertake these subjects are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arifes to their imagination, of fright ing us with rugged science, or amusing us with empty found.

In criticifing the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to interfperfe paffages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of attention; and fince, in examining the variety and choice of the paufes with which he has diversified his numbers, it will be ne ceffary to exhibit the lines in which they are to be found, perhaps the remarks may be well compensated by the examples, and the irksomeness of grammatical difquifitions fomewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his scheme of verfification by the poets of Greece and Rome, whom he propofed to himfelf for his models, fo far as the difference of his lan guage from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed many inconveniencies infeparable from

our heroick measure compared with that of Homer and Virgil; inconveniencies, which it is no reproach to Milton not to have overcome, because they are in their own nature infuperable; but against which he has ftruggled with fo much art and diligence, that he may at least be faid to have deferved fuccefs.

The hexameter of the ancients may be confidered as confifting of fifteen fyllables, fo melodiously difpofed, that, as every one knows who has examined the poetical authors, very pleafing and fonorous lyrick measures are formed from the fragments of the heroick. It is, indeed, scarce possible to break them in such a manner but that invenias etiam disjecti membra poëtæ, fome harmony will still remain, and the due proportions of found will always be difcovered. This measure therefore allowed great variety of paufes, and great liberties of connecting one verse with another, because wherever the line was interrupted, either part fingly was mufical. But the ancients feem to have confined this privilege to hexameters; for in their other meafures, though longer than the English heroick, those who wrote after the refinements of verfification, venture fo feldom to change their pauses, that every variation may be fup. posed rather a compliance with neceffity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was constrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very harmonious in the utmost perfec. tion; the fingle parts, therefore, into which it was to be fometimes broken by paufes, were in danger of lofing the very form of verfe. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care, fometimes happened.

As

As harmony is the end of poetical measures, no part of a verfe ought to be fo feparated from the reft as not to remain ftill more harmonious than profe, or to fhew, by the difpofition of the tones, that it is part of a verfe. This rule in the old hexameter might be eafily obferved, but in English will very frequently be in danger of violation; for the order and regularity of accents cannot well be perceived in a fucceffion of fewer than three fyllables, which will confine the English poet to only five paufes; it being fuppofed, that when he connects one line with another, he fhould never make a full pause at less distance than that of three fyllables from the beginning or end of a verfe.

That this rule fhould be univerfally and indifpenfably established, perhaps cannot be granted; fomething may be allowed to variety, and fomething to the adaptation of the numbers to the fubject; but it will be found generally neceffary, and the ear will feldom fail to fuffer by its neglect.

Thus when a fingle fyllable is cut off from the reft, it must either be united to the line with which the sense connects it, or be founded alone. If it be united to the other line, it corrupts its harmony; if disjoined, it must stand alone, and with regard to mufick be fuperfluous; for there is no harmony in a fingle found, because it has no proportion to an other.

Hypocrites aufterely talk,

Defaming as impure what God declares

Pure; and commands to fome, leaves free to all.

When two fyllables likewife are abfcinded from the rest, they evidently want fome affociate founds to make them harmonious.

Eyes

more wakeful than to drouze,

Charm'd with Arcadian pipe, the past'ral reed
Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. Meanwhile
To re-falute the world with facred light
Leucothea wak'd.

He ended, and the Son gave signal high
To the bright minifter that watch'd; he blew
His trumpet.

Firft in the eaft his glorious lamp was feen,
Regent of day; and all th' horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run

His longitude through heav'n's high road; the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danc'd,

Shedding fweet influence.

The fame defect is perceived in the following line, where the paufe is at the fecond fyllable from the beginning.

The race

Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, 'till the favage clamour drown'd
Both harp and voice; nor could the mufe defend
Her fon. So fail not thou, who thee implores,

When the pause falls upon the third fyllable or the seventh, the harmony is better preserved; but as the third and feventh are weak fyllables, the period leaves

I