Here the third pair of fyllables in the firft, and fourth pair in the fecond, verfe, have their accents retrograde or inverted; the first fyllable being ftrong or acute, and the fecond weak. The detriment, which the measure fuffers by this inverfion of the accents, is fometimes lef's perceptible, when the verfes are carried one into another, but is remarkably ftriking in this place, where the vicious. verfe concludes a period; and is yet more offenfive in rhyme, when we regularly attend to the flow of every single line. This will appear by reading a couplet, in which Cowley, an author not fufficiently ftudious of harmony, has committed the fame fault; "His harmless life "Does with fubftantial bleffednefs abound, In these the law of metre is very grofsly violated by mingling combinations of found directly oppofite to each other, as Milton expreffes it in his Sonnet to Henry Lawes, by committing short and long, and fetting one part of the measure at variance with the reft. The ancients, who had a language more capable of variety than ours, had two kinds of verfe; the Iambick, confifting of fhort and long fyllables alternately, from which our heroick measure is derived; and the Trochaick, confisting in a like alternation of long and short. These were confidered as oppofites, and conveyed the contrary images of fpeed and flownefs; to confound them, therefore, as in thefe lines, is to deviate from the established practice. But, where the fenfes are to judge, authority is not neceffary; the ear is fufficient to detect diffonance; nor fhould I have fought auxiliaries, on fuch an occafion, against any name but that of Milton. "There is no reputation for genius," fays Quintilian, "to be gained by writing on things, which, however neceffary, have little fplendour or fhow. The height of a building attracts the eye, but the foundations lie without regard. Yet, fince there is not any way to the top of fcience but from the lowest parts, I fhall think nothing unconnected with the art of oratory, which he that wants cannot be an orator." Confirmed and animated by this illuftrious precedent, I fhall continue my inquiries into Milton's art of verfification. Since, however minute the employment may appear of analyfing lines into fyllables, and whatever ridicule may be incurred by a folemn deliberation upon accents and paufes, it is certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet; and that from the proper dif pofition of fingle founds refults that harmony which adds force to reafon, and gives grace to fublimity; which fhackles attention, and governs paffion. That verfe may be melodious and pleafing, it is neceffary, not only that the words be fo ranged as that the accent may fall on its proper place, e as that the accent may fall on its proper place,] Mr. Tyrwhitt fays, "It is agreed, I believe, that, in our heroick metre, thofe verfes, confidered tingly, are the moft harmonious, in which the accents fall upon the even fyllables; but it has never, that I know, been defined, how far a verfe may vary from this its most perfect form, and yet remain a verfe. On the tenth (or rhyming) 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 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 less harmonically conjoined; and by confequence, the flow of the verfe is longer interrupted. It is pronounced by Dryden, that a line of monofyllables is almoft always harfh, This, with regard to our language, is evidently true, not fyllable a strong accent is in all cases indispensably required; and, in order to make the line tolerably harmonious, it seems neceffary that at least two more of the even fyllables should be accented, the fourth being (almost always) one of them. Milton, however, has not fubjected his verfe even to thefe rules; and particularly, either by negligence or defign, he has frequently put an unaccented fyllable in the fourth place. See Par. Loft, B. iii. 36, 586, B. v. 413, 750, 874." Efay on the Lang, and Verfif. of Chaucer, p. 62. The fecond paffage, to which Mr. Tyrwhitt refers, is confidered by another critick as a verfe of admirable effect; the rapidity of the dactyl in the Second place, where it is unufual, having great force, especially when joined, as in this inftance, with other quick feet, the trochee or pyrrhick: "Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep." Again, B. ii. 880. "With impetuous] recoil, and jarring found." See Fofter's Eff. on Accent, 2d edit. p. 58. TODD. is evidently true,] With fubmiffion to Dr. Johnson's opinion, I think I may produce, from Milton's poetry, lines confitting of because monofyllables cannot compofe harmony, out 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, tafte.” The difference of harmony, arifing principally from the collocation of vowels and confonants, will be fufficiently conceived by attending to the following paffages: "Immortal amarant-there grows, "And flowers aloft fhading the fount of life, "And where the river of blifs through midft of Heaven "Rolls o'er Elyfian flowers her amber fiream; "With thefe that never fade the Spirits elect 46 Bind their refplendent locks inwreath'd with beams." The fame comparison that I propofe to be made between the fourth and fixth verfes of this paffage, monofyllables, which are by no means harfh; but, on the contrary, moft mufically expreffive: As in Comus, v. 87, of Thyrfis : "Who with his foft pipe, and smooth-dittied fong, And in Par, Loft, B. v. 193. "His praife, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, Many inftances indeed might be added. I must not omit that truly fublime defcription at the beginning of the address just cited: t "On Earth join all ye Creatures to extol "Him firft, him laft, him midft, and without end." TODD, may be repeated between the laft lines of the fol lowing quotations : "Underfoot the violet, "Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay "Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with flone "Of costlieft emblem." "Here, in close recefs, "With flowers, garlands, and fweet-fmelling herbs, Milton, whofe ear had been accustomed not only to the mufick of the ancient tongues, which, however vitiated by our pronunciation, excell all that are now in ufe; but to the foftness of the Italian, the mott mellifluous of all modern poetry; feems fully convinced of the unfitnefs of our language for fmooth verfification, and is therefore pleafed with an opportunity of calling in a fofter word to his affiftance; for this reafon, and I believe for this only, he fometimes indulges himfelf in a long series of 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 Geryon's fons "Call El Dorado." "The moon, whose orb e "Through optick glafs the Tufcan artist views • and I believe for this only,] Yet the second paffage, which Dr. Johnfon here cites, feems to have been introduced by Milton rather as a compliment to Galileo; as an affectionate remembrance alfo of thofe delightful fcenes in Italy which the poet had formerly visited. TODD, |