In the accommodation of found to sense, quick iambicks, dactyles, and very short fyllables, represent hafte and jumping, or unequal motion. Spondees, particularly those made up of monofyllables and trochees, exprefs flowness, hindrance and difficulty of execution. Immediate are the works of God, more swift When Ajax ftrives fome rock's vaft weight to throw, The Rambler, vol. II. No. 92, 34, who fmiles, not without reafon, at the imaginary flight of Camilla in the heavy fyllables of an Alexandrine, and very properly checks the fancy of the poet as well as reader, in its purfuit of found with fenfe, "that on many occafions we make the mufick, which we imagine ourselves to hear; that we modulate the poem by our own difpofition, and ascribe to the numbers the effects of the fenfe"-But then he seems to run into the extreme, when he denies, that in the line which defcribes the efforts of Ajax, there is any particular heaviness, heaviness, obftruction, or delay. He muft be naturally or ftudiously dull of hearing, who cannot perceive acceleration in the lines of Milton, or retardation in those of Pope. It was necessary to give the reader fome ideas of the mixed feet obfervable in English heroick verfe, that are really melodious; because conceit and fancy frequently operate in the menfuration of lines, by what is commonly called scanning, particularly thofe of Milton; whose rythm in general is fo pleafing and descriptive, that it may incline a refined imagination to discover more variety of metre than the author intended, to vindicate many lines which have their proper quantity of fyllables, but no apt numbers; or falfely to cenfure fome, which will be found to have both, when properly read: Milton underftood vocal mufick, and therefore is not haftily to be blamed by thofe, who do not. Obferve, the time is to be as exactly kept in quick and very fhort fyllables as in others, only with the difference of haften ing with quavers, or femiquavers, instead of moving in minims and crotchets. The pause, otherwife called the cæfura, as we have obferved, p. 31, is a little rest, halt or stop, to be made judiciously in certain parts of a verse, for the fake of preferving the time of the numbers, as well as of pointing out the fenfe, variously drawn out, as Milton expreffeth himself in his preface, from one verse into another. The reader, if his own obfervation and understanding do not fufficiently direct him to discern on what fyllable the pause most properly falls, and is not fatisfied with what we have faid upon it, may confult the first note of Milton's Paradife Loft of Newton's edition; but particularly the Rambler, vol. II. No. 90. The English heroick verfe, which like the Grecian and Roman, varies the cæfura, is for this reafon far fuperior to the French, which confines it to the fixth fyllable, and by its mixture of feet is more various and pleafing than even the Grecian and Roman. To To the iambick meafure may be reduced that of the dactylick and anapæstick, very quick and lively, ufed in fongs or odes, by beating the two very fhort fyllables with an up hand the time of one short, thus, May I govern my paffions with abfolute sway, And grow wifer and better as time wears away. My time, o yě muses, was happily spent, When Phebe went with me where ever I went. Diogenes furly and proud. When terrible tempefts affail us. The revenge of a queen. The four first lines are equal in time to an iambick verfe of eight fyllables; the fifth to one of fix, fo is the fixth with a final weak fyllable, and the last to one of four. In this kind of measure, frequently, too much liberty is taken with quantity. Such is the meafure of English verfe, arifing from the nature of the English language; whofe general cadence is iambick, or trochaick, as will be found upon trial in almoft every well formed fentence. Take for inftance, the beginning of Genefis, which by leaving out the definite article article the before heaven and earth, or by an elifion, or two very short fyllables, will be a pure iambick verfe of twelve fyllables, excepting the first foot, which is a trochee. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Omit the before beginning, then it will make a trochaick verse of eleven fyllables, In beginning God created heaven and earth Divide the first verse, and it will become alternately a trochaick of five fyllables, and an iambick of fix. In beginning God Created heaven and earth. Again, Take Ifa. xl. 11. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, faith your Gōd. This iambick verfe of twelve fyllables, with two dactyles, or two long fyllables, or two very short instead of two iambicks, by omitting ye, will become a trochaick of eleven fyllables, and of nine by not reiterating comfort. |