poetry, in every author whose force of fancy enables him to imprefs images strongly on his own mind, and whole choice and variety of language readily fup, ply him with just representations. To fuch a writer it is natural to change his measure with his fubject, even without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgment. To revolve jollity and mirth neceffarily tunes the voice of a poet to gay and fprightly notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection on gloomy fituations and difaftrous events, will fadden his numbers, as it will cloud his countenance. But in fuch paffages there is only the fimilitude of pleafure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without any immediate application to particular images. The fame flow of joyous verfification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation of triumph: and the fame languor of melody will fuit the complaints of an abfent lover, as of a conquered king.

It is fcarcely to be doubted, that on many occafions we make the mufick which we imagine ourfelves to hear, that we modulate the poem by our own difpofition, and afcribe to the numbers the ef fects of the fenfe. We may obferve in life, that it is not eafy to deliver a pleasing meflage in an unpleafing manner, and that we readily affociate beauty and deformity with those whom for any reason we love or hate. Yet it would be too daring to declare that all the celebrated adaptation of harmony are chimerical, that Homer had no extraordinary attention to the melody of his verfe when he defcribed a nuptial feftivity;

Νύμφας

Νύμφας δ ̓ ἐκ θαλάμων, δαἴδων ὑπολαμπομενάων,
Ηγίνεον ἀνὰ άσυ, πολὺς δ ̓ ἐμέναιος ὀρώρει ;

Here facred pomp, and genial feast delight,
And folemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the foft flute, and cittern's filver found.

POPE

that Vida was merely fanciful, when he supposed Virgil endeavouring to represent by uncommon sweetness of numbers the adventitious beauty of Eneas:

Os, humerofque Deo fimilis: namque ipfe decoram
Cafariem nato genitrix, lumenque juventæ
Purpureum, & lætos oculis afflárat honores;
The Trojan chief appear'd in open fight,
August in visage, and ferenely bright,
His mother goddefs, with her hands divine,

Had form'd his curling locks, and made his temples shine;

And giv❜n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,

And breath'd a youthful vigour on his face.

DRYDEN.

or that Milton did not intend to exemplify the har

Fountains and ye that warble as ye flow,

Melodious murmurs! warbling tune his praise.

That Milton understood the force of founds well adjusted, and knew the compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; fince he was both a musician and a critick; but he feems to have confidered these conformities of cadence, as either not often attainable in our language, or as petty VOL. V. excel.

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excellencies unworthy of his ambition: for it will not be found that he has always affigned the fame caft of numbers to the fame objects. He has given in two paffages very minute defcriptions of angelick beauty; but though the images are nearly the fame, the numbers will be found upon comparison very different:

And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet fuch as in his face
Youth fmil'd celestial, and to ev'ry limb
Suitable grace diffus'd, fo well he feign'd;
Under a coronet his flowing hair
In curls on either cheek play'd: wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume, Sprinkled with gold.

Some of the lines of this defcription are remarkably defective in harmony, and therefore by no means correfpondent with that fymmetrical elegance and The eafy grace which they are intended to exhibit. failure, however, is fully compenfated by the representation of Raphael, which equally delights the ear and imagination:

A feraph wing'd: fix wings he wore to shade.
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each fhoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair

Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in heav'n: the third his feet
Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
Sky-tinctur'd grain! like Maia's fon-he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide.--

The

The adumbration of particular and diftinct images by an exact and perceptible refemblance of found, is fometimes ftudied, and fometimes cafual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noifes which they fignify. Such are Stridor, Balo, and Beatus, in Latin; and in English to growl, to buzz, to hiss, and to jar. Words of this kind give to a verse the proper fimilitude of found, without much labour of the writer, and fuch happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to fortune than skill; yet they are fometimes combined with great propriety, and undeniably contribute to enforce the impreffion of the idea. We hear the paffing arrow in this line of Virgil ;

Et fugit horrendum ftridens elapfa fagitta;

Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing. POPE.

and the creeking of hell-gates, in the defcription by Milton;

Open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring found

Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harth thunder.

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have observed, seem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionyfius himself tells us, that the found of Homer's veries fometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk is not this a discovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after long inquiry into the nature of the scarlet colour, found that it represented

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represented nothing fo much as the clangour of a trumpet? The representative power of poetick harmony confifts of found and measure; of the force of the fyllables fingly confidered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound can refemble nothing but found, and time can measure nothing

but motion and duration.

The criticks, however, have ftruck out other fimilitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of these lines has been celebrated by writers whose opinion the world has reafon to regard :

Vertitur interea cœlum, & ruit oceano nox.

Meantime the rapid heav'ns rowl'd down the light,
And on the fhaded ocean rush'd the night.

Sternitur, exanimifque tremens procumbit humi bos.

DRYDEN.

Down drops the beaft, nor needs a fecond wound; But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.

Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus.

The mountains labour, and a mouse is born.

DRYDEN.

ROSCOMMON.

If all these observations are juft, there must be fome remarkable conformity between the fudden fucceffion of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; fince we are told of all thefe images, that they are very ftrongly impreffed by the fame form and termination

of the verfe.

We