deed, probable, that the veneration with which Homer was read, produced many suppositious beanties: for though it is certain, that the sound of many of his verses very justly cor:esponds with the things expressed, yet, when the force of his imagination, which gave him full possession of every object, is considered, together with the flexibility of his language, of which the syllables might be often contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will seem un. Kikely that such conformity should happen less frequently even without design.

It is not however to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light of criticism, and who owed so much of his success to art and labour, endeavoured, among other excellencies, to exhibit this similitude; nor has he been less happy in this than in the other graces of versification. This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival of learning, displayed with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.

Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum.-
Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
Atque sono quæcunque canunt imitantur, & apta
Verborum facie, & quæsito carminis ore.
Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,—
Hic melior motuque pedum, & pernicibus ulis,
Molte viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:
Ille autem membris, ac mole ignuvius ingens
Jacedit, tardo molimine subsidendo.

Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,
Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.
Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit & artus,
Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,
Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso.--
Ergo ubi jum nauta spumas sulis ære ruentes
Incubuere mari, videus spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus æquor.
Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc & freta ventis
Icipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus

Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda
Ad scopulos, cumulo insequitur præruptus aquæ mons.**
Cum vero ex alto speculatus cærula Nereus
Leniit in morem stagni, placidæque paludis,
Labitur uncta vadis abies, nutat uncta carina.
Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
Ingentesque juvant ingentia; cuncta gigantem
Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa lacertique,
Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,
Adde moram, & pariter tecum quoque verba laborent
Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
Eternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
At mora si fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum perculsus graviter procumbit humi bos,
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultra
Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis

In medio interrupta: quiérunt cum freta ponti,
Postquam aura posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
Cernere erit, mediisque incœptis sistere versum.
Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
Invalidus jacit, & defectis viribus æger?
Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languetz
Sanguis hebet, frigent effatæ in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupeduntum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
Ingentes, totoque ferum dare funera campo.

'Tis not enough his verses to complete,
In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the sound a picture of the sense;
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the same;
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;

That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vast, curls up behind;
At once the image and the lines appear
Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
Lo! when the sailors steer the pond'rous ships,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
Incumbent on the main that roars around,
Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves resound;
The prows wide echoing thro' the dark profound.
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Tost by the storm the tow'ring surges rise;
While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore,
Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar.
Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rise, and over-hang the deep.
"But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging seas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.
When things are small, the terms should still be so;
For low words please us when the theme is low.
But when some giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait, and vast in ev'ry limb,
Stalks tow'ring on; the swelling words must rise
I just proportion to the monster's size.

If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce moves
When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor less, when pilots catch the friendly gales,
Unfurl their shrouds, and hoist the wide-stretch'd sails.
But if the poem suffers from delay,

Let the lines y precipitate away,

And when the viper issues from the brake,

Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack

His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.

When night descends, or stunn'd by nun'rous strokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too sinks with correspondent sound,
Flat with the steer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves subside, and tempests cease
And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;

So oft we see the interrupted strain

Stopp'd in the midst-and with the silent main
Pause for a space-at last it glides again.
When Priam strains his aged arins, to throw
His unavailing jav'line at the foe;

(His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unstrung
Then with the theme complies the artful song;
Like him the solitary numbers flow,

Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow.
Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.
The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,
Burns her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courser to the speed,

In full career to charge the warlike steed:

He piles the field with mountains of the slain;

He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain. PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope seems to have transplanted this flower, the growth of happier climates, into a soil less adapted to its nature, and less favourable to its increase.

Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud billows lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with great attention, and celebrated by a rival wit, may be judged what can be expected from the most diligent endeavours after this imagery of sound. The verse intended to represent the whisper of the vernal breeze, must be confessed not much to excel in softness or volubility and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of jarring consonants. The noise and turbalence of the torrent is, indeed, distinctly imaged,

for it requires very little skill to make our language rough: but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no particular heaviness, obstruction, or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is rather contrasted than exemplified; why the verse should be lengthened to express speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls used for that purpose by the ancients, two sport syllables were pronounced with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore, naturally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short time, But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and stately measure; and the word unbending, one of the most sluggish and slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its mo

tion.

These rules and these examples have taught our present criticks to inquire very studiously and mi❤ nutely into sounds and cadences. It is, therefore, useful to examine with what skill they have proceeded; what discoveries they have made; and whether any rules can be established which may guide us hereafter in such researches.