MYRTILLA.

P.S. Remember I am past sixteen.

No. 85. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1751.

_Otia si tollas, periere Cupidinis arcus,_

_Contemptæque jacent, et sine luce faces._

OVID, Rem. 139.

At busy hearts in vain Love's arrows fly;

Dim'd, scorn'd, and impotent, his torches lie.

Many writers of eminence in physick have laid out their diligence upon the

consideration of those distempers to which men are exposed by particular

states of life, and very learned treatises have been produced upon the

maladies of the camp, the sea, and the mines. There are, indeed, few

employments which a man accustomed to anatomical inquiries, and medical

refinements, would not find reasons for declining as dangerous to

health, did not his learning or experience inform him, that almost every

occupation, however inconvenient or formidable, is happier and safer than

a life of sloth.

The necessity of action is not only demonstrable from the fabrick of the

body, but evident from observation of the universal practice of mankind,

who, for the preservation of health, in those whose rank or wealth

exempts them from the necessity of lucrative labour, have invented sports

and diversions, though not of equal use to the world with manual trades,

yet of equal fatigue to those who practise them, and differing only

from the drudgery of the husbandman or manufacturer, as they are acts of

choice, and therefore performed without the painful sense of compulsion.

The huntsman rises early, pursues his game through all the dangers and

obstructions of the chace, swims rivers, and scales precipices, till he

returns home no less harassed than the soldier, and has perhaps sometimes

incurred as great hazard of wounds or death; yet he has no motive to

incite his ardour; he is neither subject to the commands of a general,

nor dreads any penalties for neglect and disobedience; he has neither

profit nor honour to expect from his perils and his conquests, but toils

without the hope of mural or civick garlands, and must content himself

with the praise of his tenants and companions.

But such is the constitution of man, that labour may be styled its

own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be

considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by

frequent and violent agitation of the body.

Ease is the most that can be hoped from a sedentary and unactive habit;

ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure. The dance of spirits,

the bound of vigour, readiness of enterprize, and defiance of fatigue,

are reserved for him that braces his nerves, and hardens his fibres, that

keeps his limbs pliant with motion, and by frequent exposure fortifies

his frame against the common accidents of cold and heat.

With ease, however, if it could be secured, many would be content; but

nothing terrestrial can be kept at a stand. Ease, if it is not rising

into pleasure, will be falling towards pain; and whatever hope the dreams

of speculation may suggest of observing the proportion between nutriment

and labour, and keeping the body in a healthy state by supplies exactly

equal to its waste, we know that, in effect, the vital powers unexcited by

motion, grow gradually languid; that, as their vigour fails, obstructions

are generated; and that from obstructions proceed most of those pains

which wear us away slowly with periodical tortures, and which, though

they sometimes suffer life to be long, condemn it to be useless, chain us

down to the couch of misery, and mock us with the hopes of death.

Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed;

but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association

pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy

separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases

are from heaven, and chronical from ourselves: the dart of death indeed

falls from heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the

fate of man, but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly[53].

It is necessary to that perfection of which our present state is capable,

that the mind and body should both be kept in action; that neither

the faculties of the one nor of the other be suffered to grow lax or

torpid for want of use; that neither health be purchased by voluntary

submission to ignorance, nor knowledge cultivated at the expense of that

health, which must enable it either to give pleasure to its possessor,

or assistance to others. It is too frequently the pride of students

to despise those amusements and recreations, which give to the rest

of mankind strength of limbs and cheerfulness of heart. Solitude and

contemplation are indeed seldom consistent with such skill in common

exercises or sports as is necessary to make them practised with delight,

and no man is willing to do that of which the necessity is not pressing

and immediate, when he knows that his awkwardness must make him ridiculous

_Ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis,_

_Indoctusque pilæ, discive, trochive quiescit,_

_Ne spissæ risum tollant impune coronæ._

HOR. Art. Poet. 379.

He that's unskilful will not toss a ball,

Nor run, nor wrestle, for he fears the fall;

He justly fears to meet deserv'd disgrace,

And that the ring will hiss the baffled ass.

CREECH.

Thus the man of learning is often resigned, almost by his own consent, to

languor and pain; and while in the prosecution of his studies he suffers

the weariness of labour, is subject by his course of life to the maladies

of idleness.

It was, perhaps, from the observation of this mischievous omission in

those who are employed about intellectual objects, that Locke has, in his

"System of Education," urged the necessity of a trade to men of all ranks

and professions, that when the mind is weary with its proper task, it

may be relaxed by a slighter attention to some mechanical operation;

and that while the vital functions are resuscitated and awakened by

vigorous motion, the understanding may be restrained from that vagrance

and dissipation by which it relieves itself after a long intenseness of

thought, unless some allurement be presented that may engage application

without anxiety.

There is so little reason for expecting frequent conformity to Locke's

precept, that it is not necessary to inquire whether the practice

of mechanical arts might not give occasion to petty emulation, and

degenerate ambition; and whether, if our divines and physicians were

taught the lathe and the chisel, they would not think more of their

tools than their books; as Nero neglected the care of his empire for his

chariot and his fiddle. It is certainly dangerous to be too much pleased

with little things; but what is there which may not be perverted? Let

us remember how much worse employment might have been found for those

hours, which a manual occupation appears to engross; let us compute the

profit with the loss, and when we reflect how often a genius is allured

from his studies, consider likewise that perhaps by the same attraction

he is sometimes withheld from debauchery, or recalled from malice, from

ambition, from envy, and from lust.

I have always admired the wisdom of those by whom our female education

was instituted, for having contrived, that every woman, of whatever

condition, should be taught some arts of manufacture, by which the

vacuities of recluse and domestick leisure may be filled up. These arts

are more necessary, as the weakness of their sex and the general system

of life debar ladies from any employments which, by diversifying the

circumstances of men, preserve them from being cankered by the rust of

their own thoughts. I know not how much of the virtue and happiness of

the world may be the consequence of this judicious regulation. Perhaps,

the most powerful fancy might be unable to figure the confusion and

slaughter that would be produced by so many piercing eyes and vivid

understandings, turned loose at once upon mankind, with no other business

than to sparkle and intrigue, to perplex and to destroy.

For my part, whenever chance brings within my observation a knot of misses

busy at their needles, I consider myself as in the school of virtue;

and though I have no extraordinary skill in plain work or embroidery,

look upon their operations with as much satisfaction as their governess,

because I regard them as providing a security against the most dangerous

ensnarers of the soul, by enabling themselves to exclude idleness from

their solitary moments, and with idleness her attendant train of passions,

fancies, and chimeras, fears, sorrows, and desires. Ovid and Cervantes

will inform them that love has no power but over those whom he catches

unemployed; and Hector, in the Iliad, when he sees Andromache overwhelmed

with terrours, sends her for consolation to the loom and the distaff.

It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm

possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied. The old

peripatetick principle, that _Nature abhors a vacuum_, may be properly

applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however absurd

or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object. Perhaps every man

may date the predominance of those desires that disturb his life and

contaminate his conscience, from some unhappy hour when too much leisure

exposed him to their incursions; for he has lived with little observation

either on himself or others, who does not know that to be idle is to

be vicious.

[Footnote 53: This passage was once strangely supposed by some readers

to recommend suicide, instead of _exercise_, which is surely the more

obvious meaning. See, however, a letter from Dr. Johnson on the subject,

in Boswell's Life, vol. iv. p. 162.]

No. 86. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1751.

_Legitimumque sonum digitis callemus et aure._

HOR. De Ar. Poet. 274.

By fingers, or by ear, we numbers scan.

ELPHINSTON.

One of the ancients has observed, that the burthen of government is

increased upon princes by the virtues of their immediate predecessors.

It is, indeed, always dangerous to be placed in a state of unavoidable

comparison with excellence, and the danger is still greater when that

excellence is consecrated by death; when envy and interest cease to act

against it, and those passions by which it was at first vilified and

opposed, now stand in its defence, and turn their vehemence against

honest emulation.

He that succeeds a celebrated writer, has the same difficulties to

encounter; he stands under the shade of exalted merit, and is hindered

from rising to his natural height, by the interception of those beams

which should invigorate and quicken him. He applies to that attention

which is already engaged, and unwilling to be drawn off from certain

satisfaction; or perhaps to an attention already wearied, and not to be

recalled to the same object.

One of the old poets congratulates himself that he had the untrodden

regions of Parnassus before him, and that his garland will be gathered

from plantations which no writer had yet culled. But the imitator treads

a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only hope to find a few

flowers or branches untouched by his predecessor, the refuse of contempt,

or the omissions of negligence. The Macedonian conqueror, when he was

once invited to hear a man that sung like a nightingale, replied with

contempt, "that he had heard the nightingale herself;" and the same

treatment must every man expect, whose praise is that he imitates another.

Yet, in the midst of these discouraging reflections, I am about to offer

to my reader some observations upon "Paradise Lost," and hope, that,

however I may fall below the illustrious writer who has so long dictated

to the commonwealth of learning, my attempt may not be wholly useless.

There are, in every age, new errours to be rectified, and new prejudices

to be opposed. False taste is always busy to mislead those that are

entering upon the regions of learning; and the traveller, uncertain of

his way, and forsaken by the sun, will be pleased to see a fainter orb

arise on the horizon, that may rescue him from total darkness, though

with weak and borrowed lustre.

Addison, though he has considered this poem under most of the general

topicks of criticism, has barely touched upon the versification; not

probably because he thought the art of numbers unworthy of his notice,

for he knew with what minute attention the ancient criticks considered

the disposition of syllables, and had himself given hopes of some

metrical observations upon the great Roman poet; but being the first who

undertook to display the beauties, and point out the defects of Milton,

he had many objects at once before him, and passed willingly over those

which were most barren of ideas, and required labour, rather than genius.

Yet versification, or the art of modulating his numbers, is indispensably

necessary to a poet. Every other power by which the understanding is

enlightened, or the imagination enchanted, may be exercised in prose. But

the poet has this peculiar superiority, that to all the powers which the

perfection of every other composition can require, he adds the faculty

of joining music with reason, and of acting at once upon the senses

and the passions. I suppose there are few who do not feel themselves

touched by poetical melody, and who will not confess that they are more

or less moved by the same thoughts, as they are conveyed by different

sounds, and more affected by the same words in one order than in another.

The perception of harmony is indeed conferred upon men in degrees very

unequal, but there are none who do not perceive it, or to whom a regular

series of proportionate sounds cannot give delight.

In treating on the versification of Milton, I am desirous to be generally

understood, and shall therefore studiously decline the dialect of

grammarians; though, indeed, it is always difficult, and sometimes

scarcely possible, to deliver the precepts of an art, without the terms

by which the peculiar ideas of that art are expressed, and which had not

been invented but because the language already in use was insufficient.

If, therefore, I shall sometimes seem obscure, it may be imputed to this

voluntary interdiction, and to a desire of avoiding that offence which is

always given by unusual words.

The heroick measure of the English language may be properly considered

as pure or mixed. It is pure when the accent rests upon every second

syllable through the whole line.

Courage uncertain dangers may abate,

But whó can beár th' appróach of cértain fáte.

DRYDEN.

Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights

His cónstant lámp, and wáves his púrple wíngs,

Reigns here, and revels; not in the bought smile

Of hárlots, lóveless, jóyless, únendéar'd.

MILTON.

The accent may be observed, in the second line of Dryden, and the second

and fourth of Milton, to repose upon every second syllable.

The repetition of this sound or percussion at equal times, is the most

complete harmony of which a single verse is capable, and should therefore

be exactly kept in distichs, and generally in the last line of a

paragraph, that the ear may rest without any sense of imperfection.

But, to preserve the series of sounds untransposed in a long composition,

is not only very difficult, but tiresome and disgusting; for we are soon

wearied with the perpetual recurrence of the same cadence. Necessity

has therefore enforced the mixed measure, in which some variation of the

accents is allowed; this, though it always injures the harmony of the

line, considered by itself, yet compensates the loss by relieving us from

the continual tyranny of the same sound, and makes us more sensible of

the harmony of the pure measure.

Of these mixed numbers every poet affords us innumerable instances, and

Milton seldom has two pure lines together, as will appear if any of his

paragraphs be read with attention merely to the musick.

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,

Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,

Which they beheld; the moon's resplendent globe,

_And starry pole: thou also mad'st the night,_

Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,

Which we in our appointed work employ'd

Have finish'd, happy in our mutual help,

_And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss,_

Ordain'd by thee; and this delicious place,

For us too large; where thy abundance wants

Partakers, and uncrop'd falls to the ground;

But thou hast promis'd from us two a race

To fill the earth, who shall with us extol

Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,

And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.

In this passage it will be at first observed, that all the lines are not

equally harmonious, and upon a nearer examination it will be found that

only the fifth and ninth lines are regular, and the rest are more or less

licentious with respect to the accent. In some the accent is equally upon

two syllables together, and in both strong. As

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, _both stood_,

_Both turned_, and under open sky ador'd

The God that made both sky, _air_, _earth_, and heav'n.

In others the accent is equally upon two syllables, but upon both weak.

--------------------------A race

To fill the earth, who shall with us extol

Thy goodness _infinite_, both when we wake,

_And when_ we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.

In the first pair of syllables the accent may deviate from the rigour

of exactness, without any unpleasing diminution of harmony, as may be

observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,

------------Thou also mad'st the night,

_Maker_ omnipotent! and thou the day,

But, excepting in the first pair of syllables, which may be considered as

arbitrary, a poet who, not having the invention or knowledge of Milton,

has more need to allure his audience by musical cadences, should seldom

suffer more than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.

There are two lines in this passage more remarkably unharmonious:

------------This delicious place,

For us too large; _where thy_ abundance wants

Partakers, and uncrop'd _falls_ to the ground,

Here the third pair of syllables in the first, and fourth pair in the

second verse, have their accents retrograde or inverted; the first

syllable being strong or acute, and the second weak. The detriment

which the measure suffers by this inversion of the accents is sometimes

less perceptible, when the verses are carried one into another, but is

remarkably striking in this place, where the vicious verse concludes

a period, and is yet more offensive 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 sufficiently studious of harmony, has

committed the same fault.

----------------His harmless life

Does with substantial blessedness abound,

And the soft wings of peace _cover_ him round.

In these the law of metre is very grossly violated by mingling

combinations of sound directly opposite to each other, as Milton

expresses in his sonnet, by _committing short and long_, and setting

one part of the measure at variance with the rest. The ancients, who had

a language more capable of variety than ours, had two kinds of verse,

the Iambick, consisting of short and long syllables alternately, from

which our heroick measure is derived, and Trochaick, consisting in a

like alternation of long and short. These were considered as opposites,

and conveyed the contrary images of speed and slowness; to confound

them, therefore, as in these lines, is to deviate from the established

practice. But where the senses are to judge, authority is not necessary,

the ear is sufficient to detect dissonance, nor should I have sought

auxiliaries on such an occasion against any name but that of Milton.

No. 87. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1751.

_Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,_

_Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,_

_Si modo culturæ patientem commodet aurem._

HOR. Lib. i. Ep. i. 38.

The slave to envy, anger, wine, or love,

The wretch of sloth, its excellence shall prove;

Fierceness itself shall hear its rage away.

When list'ning calmly to th' instructive lay.

FRANCIS.

That few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little

effect, as good advice, has been generally observed; and many sage

positions have been advanced concerning the reasons of this complaint,

and the means of removing it. It is indeed an important and noble

inquiry, for little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every

man could conform to the right as soon as he was shewn it.

This perverse neglect of the most salutary precepts, and stubborn

resistance of the most pathetick persuasion, is usually imputed to him

by whom the counsel is received, and we often hear it mentioned as a sign

of hopeless depravity, that though good advice was given, it has wrought

no reformation.

Others, who imagine themselves to have quicker sagacity and deeper

penetration, have found out that the inefficacy of advice is usually the

fault of the counsellor, and rules have been laid down, by which this

important duty may be successfully performed. We are directed by what

tokens to discover the favourable moment at which the heart is disposed

for the operation of truth and reason, with what address to administer,

and with what vehicles to disguise _the catharticks of the soul_.

But, notwithstanding this specious expedient, we find the world yet in the

same state: advice is still given, but still received with disgust; nor

has it appeared that the bitterness of the medicine has been yet abated,

or its powers increased, by any methods of preparing it.

If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of

directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not

be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are

frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few

general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity,

but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application.

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as

is necessary to make instruction useful. We are sometimes not ourselves

conscious of the original motives of our actions, and when we know them,

our first care is to hide them from the sight of others, and often from

those most diligently, whose superiority either of power or understanding

may entitle them to inspect our lives; it is therefore very probable that

he who endeavours the cure of our intellectual maladies, mistakes their

cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because he knows not

which of the passions or desires is vitiated.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can

never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious.

But for the same reason every one is eager to instruct his neighbours.

To be wise or to be virtuous, is to buy dignity and importance at a high

price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the

follies or the faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of

fame as to linger on the ground.

_--Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim_

_Tollere humo, victorque virûm volitare per ora._

VIRG. Geor. iii. 8.

New ways I must attempt, my groveling name

To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.

DRYDEN.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the

most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate

inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing

great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over

us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the

consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who

triumphs as their deliverer.

It is, indeed, seldom found that any advantages are enjoyed with that

moderation which the uncertainty of all human good so powerfully

enforces; and therefore the adviser may justly suspect, that he

has inflamed the opposition which he laments by arrogance and

superciliousness. He may suspect, but needs not hastily to condemn

himself, for he can rarely be certain that the softest language or most

humble diffidence would have escaped resentment; since scarcely any

degree of circumspection can prevent or obviate the rage with which the

slothful, the impotent, and the unsuccessful, vent their discontent upon

those that excel them. Modesty itself, if it is praised, will be envied;

and there are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is

a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is

a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

The number of those whom the love of themselves has thus far corrupted,

is perhaps not great; but there are few so free from vanity, as not to

dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense

of their own beneficence; and few to whom it is not unpleasing to receive

documents, however tenderly and cautiously delivered, or who are not

willing to raise themselves from pupillage, by disputing the propositions

of their teacher.

It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Arragon, that _dead counsellors

are safest_. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the

information that we receive from books is pure from interest, fear,

or ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive; because

they are heard with patience and with reverence. We are not unwilling

to believe that man wiser than ourselves, from whose abilities we may

receive advantage, without any danger of rivalry or opposition, and

who affords us the light of his experience, without hurting our eyes

by flashes of insolence.

By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many

temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences,

are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be

often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his

knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves

with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that

books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from

whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death

is indifferent.

We see that volumes may be perused, and perused with attention, to little

effect; and that maxims of prudence, or principles of virtue, may be

treasured in the memory without influencing the conduct. Of the numbers

that pass their lives among books, very few read to be made wiser or

better, apply any general reproof of vice to themselves, or try their own

manners by axioms of justice. They purpose either to consume those hours

for which they can find no other amusement, to gain or preserve that

respect which learning has always obtained; or to gratify their curiosity

with knowledge, which, like treasures buried and forgotten, is of no use

to others or themselves.

"The preacher (says a French author) may spend an hour in explaining and

enforcing a precept of religion, without feeling any impression from his

own performance, because he may have no further design than to fill up

his hour." A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and

moralists, without any practical regard to morality or religion; he may

be learning not to live, but to reason; he may regard only the elegance

of style, justness of argument, and accuracy of method; and may enable

himself to criticise with judgment, and dispute with subtilty, while the

chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his

life is unreformed.

But though truth and virtue are thus frequently defeated by pride,

obstinacy, or folly, we are not allowed to desert them; for whoever can

furnish arms which they hitherto have not employed, may enable them to

gain some hearts which would have resisted any other method of attack.

Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to

himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind; for the

arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because

they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been

passed over without consideration. To the position of Tully, that if

Virtue could be seen, she must be loved, may be added, that if Truth

could be heard, she must be obeyed.

No. 88. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1751.

_Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti:_

_Audebit, quæcunque parum splendoris habebunt,_

_Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,_

_Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant,_

_Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ._

HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. ii. 110.

But he that hath a curious piece designed,

When he begins must take a censor's mind.

Severe and honest; and what words appear

Too light and trivial, or too weak to bear

The weighty sense, nor worth the reader's care,

Shake off; though stubborn, they are loth to move,

And though we fancy, dearly though we love.

CREECH.

"There is no reputation for genius," says Quintilian, "to be gained by

writing on things, which, however necessary, have little splendour or

shew. The height of a building attracts the eye, but the foundations lie

without regard. Yet since there is not any way to the top of science,

but from the lowest parts, I shall think nothing unconnected with the

art of oratory, which he that wants cannot be an orator."

Confirmed and animated by this illustrious precedent, I shall continue my

inquiries into Milton's art of versification. Since, however minute the

employment may appear, of analysing lines into syllables, and whatever

ridicule may be incurred by a solemn deliberation upon accents and pauses,

it is certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet;

and that from the proper disposition of single sounds results that

harmony that adds force to reason, and gives grace to sublimity; that

shackles attention, and governs passions.

That verse may be melodious and pleasing, it is necessary, not only that

the words be so ranged as that the accent may fall on its proper place,

but that the syllables themselves be so chosen as to flow smoothly into

one another. This is to be effected by a proportionate mixture of vowels

and consonants, and, by tempering the mute consonants with liquids and

semivowels. The Hebrew grammarians have observed, that it is impossible

to pronounce two consonants without the intervention of a vowel, or

without some emission of the breath between one and the other; this is

longer and more perceptible, as the sounds of the consonants are less

harmonically conjoined, and, by consequence, the flow of the verse is

longer interrupted.

It is pronounced by Dryden, that a line of monosyllables is almost always

harsh. This, with regard to our language, is evidently true, not because

monosyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monosyllables,

being of Teutonick original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and

end with consonants, as,

--------Every lower faculty

_Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste._

The difference of harmony arising principally from the collocation of

vowels and consonants, will be sufficiently conceived by attending to the

following passages:

Immortal _Amarant_----there grows

And flow'rs aloft, shading the fount of life,

And where the river of bliss through midst of heav'n

_Rolls o'er Elysian flow'rs her amber stream;_

With these that never fade, the spirits elect

_Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams._

The same comparison that I propose to be made between the fourth and

sixth verses of this passage, may be repeated between the last lines of

the following quotations:

--------Under foot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich in-lay

_Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone_

Of costliest emblem.

--------Here in close recess,

With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,

Espoused Eve first deck'd her nuptial bed;

_And heav'nly choirs the hymenean sung._

Milton, whose ear had been accustomed, not only to the musick of the

ancient tongues, which, however vitiated by our pronunciation, excel

all that are now in use, but to the softness of the Italian, the most

mellifluous of all modern poetry, seems fully convinced of the unfitness

of our language for smooth versification, and is therefore pleased with

an opportunity of calling in a softer word to his assistance; for this

reason, and I believe for this only, he sometimes indulges himself in a

long series of proper names, and introduces them where they add little

but musick to his poem.

--------The richer seat

Of _Atabalipa_, and yet unspoil'd

_Guiana_, whose great city _Gerion's_ sons

Call _El Dorado_.----

The moon----The _Tuscan_ artist views

At evening, from the top of _Fesole_

Or in _Valdarno_, to descry new lands.--

He has indeed been more attentive to his syllables than to his accents,

and does not often offend by collisions of consonants, or openings of

vowels upon each other, at least not more often than other writers who

have had less important or complicated subjects to take off their care

from the cadence of their lines.

The great peculiarity of Milton's versification compared with that

of later poets, is the elision of one vowel before another, or the

suppression of the last syllable of a word ending with a vowel, when

a vowel begins the following word. As

--------Knowledge

Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns

Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

This licence, though now disused in English poetry, was practised by

our old writers, and is allowed in many other languages ancient and

modern, and therefore the criticks on "Paradise Lost" have, without much

deliberation, commended Milton for continuing it[54]. But one language

cannot communicate its rules to another. We have already tried and

rejected the hexameter of the ancients, the double close of the Italians,

and the alexandrine of the French; and the elision of vowels, however

graceful it may seem to other nations, may be very unsuitable to the

genius of the English tongue.

There is reason to believe that we have negligently lost part of our

vowels, and that the silent _e_ which our ancestors added to most of our

monosyllables, was once vocal. By this detruncation of our syllables, our

language is overstocked with consonants, and it is more necessary to add

vowels to the beginning of words, than to cut them off from the end.

Milton therefore seems to have somewhat mistaken the nature of our

language, of which the chief defect is ruggedness and asperity, and has

left our harsh cadences yet harsher. But his elisions are not all equally

to be censured; in some syllables they may be allowed, and perhaps in

a few may be safely imitated. The abscission of a vowel is undoubtedly

vicious when it is strongly sounded, and makes, with its associate

consonant, a full and audible syllable.

--------What he gives,

Spiritual, may to purest spirits be found,

_No_ ingrateful food, and food alike these pure

Intelligential substances require.

Fruits,----Hesperian fables true,

If true, here _only_, and of delicious taste.

----Evening now approach'd,

For we have _also_ our evening and our morn.

Of guests he makes them slaves,

Inhospita_bly_, and kills their infant males.

And vital Vir_tue_ infus'd, and vital warmth

Throughout the fluid mass.----

God made _thee_ of choice his own, and of his own

To serve him.

I believe every reader will agree, that in all those passages, though not

equally in all, the musick is injured, and in some the meaning obscured.

There are other lines in which the vowel is cut off, but it is so faintly

pronounced in common speech, that the loss of it in poetry is scarcely

perceived; and therefore such compliance with the measure may be allowed.

--------Nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Abomina_ble_, inuttera_ble_; and worse

Than fables yet have feigned.----

--------From the shore

They view'd the vast immensura_ble_ abyss.

Impenetra_ble_, impal'd with circling fire.

To none communica_ble_ in earth or heav'n.

Yet even these contractions increase the roughness of a language too rough

already; and though in long poems they may be sometimes suffered, it

never can be faulty to forbear them.

Milton frequently uses in his poems the hypermetrical or redundant line of

eleven syllables.

--------Thus it shall befall

Him who to worth in woman over-trust_ing_

Lets her will rule.----

I also err'd in over much admir_ing_.

Verses of this kind occur almost in every page; but though they are not

unpleasing or dissonant, they ought not to be admitted into heroick

poetry, since the narrow limits of our language allow us no other

distinction of epick and tragick measures, than is afforded by the

liberty of changing at will the terminations of the dramatick lines, and

bringing them by that relaxation of metrical rigour nearer to prose.

[Footnote 54: _Variation_. "This licence, though an innovation in English

poetry, is yet allowed in many other languages ancient and modern; and

therefore the criticks on Paradise Lost have, without much deliberation,

commended Milton for introducing it." _First folio edition._]

No. 89. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1751.

_Dulce est desipere in loco._

HOR. Lib. iv. Od. xii. 28.

Wisdom at proper times is well forgot.

Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favourer of idleness

or libertinism, has advanced, that whoever hopes to employ any part of his

time with efficacy and vigour, must allow some of it to pass in trifles.

It is beyond the powers of humanity to spend a whole life in profound

study and intense meditation, and the most rigorous exacters of industry

and seriousness have appointed hours for relaxation and amusement.

It is certain, that, with or without our consent, many of the few moments

allotted us will slide imperceptibly away, and that the mind will break,

from confinement to its stated task, into sudden excursions. Severe and

connected attention is preserved but for a short time; and when a man

shuts himself up in his closet, and bends his thoughts to the discussion

of any abstruse question, he will find his faculties continually

stealing away to more pleasing entertainments. He often perceives himself

transported, he knows not how, to distant tracts of thought, and returns

to his first object as from a dream, without knowing when he forsook it,

or how long he has been abstracted from it.

It has been observed that the most studious are not always the most

learned. There is, indeed, no great difficulty in discovering that this

difference of proficiency may arise from the difference of intellectual

powers, of the choice of books, or the convenience of information. But I

believe it likewise frequently happens that the most recluse are not the

most vigorous prosecutors of study. Many impose upon the world, and many

upon themselves, by an appearance of severe and exemplary diligence, when

they, in reality, give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their

minds with regulating the past, or planning the future; place themselves

at will in varied situations of happiness, and slumber away their days

in voluntary visions. In the journey of life some are left behind,

because they are naturally feeble and slow; some because they miss the

way, and many because they leave it by choice, and instead of pressing

onward with a steady pace, delight themselves with momentary deviations,

turn aside to pluck every flower, and repose in every shade.

There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think, than to

have learned the art of regaling his mind with those airy gratifications.

Other vices or follies are restrained by fear, reformed by admonition,

or rejected by the conviction which the comparison of our conduct with

that of others may in time produce. But this invisible riot of the mind,

this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless

of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartments, shuts out the cares

and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy; new

worlds rise up before him, one image is followed by another, and a long

succession of delights dances round him. He is at last called back to

life by nature, or by custom, and enters peevish into society, because he

cannot model it to his own will. He returns from his idle excursions with

the asperity, though not with the knowledge of a student, and hastens

again to the same felicity with the eagerness of a man bent upon the

advancement of some favourite science. The infatuation strengthens by

degrees, and like the poison of opiates, weakens his powers, without any

external symptoms of malignity.

It happens, indeed, that these hypocrites of learning are in time

detected, and convinced by disgrace and disappointment of the difference

between the labour of thought, and the sport of musing. But this

discovery is often not made till it is too late to recover the time that

has been fooled away. A thousand accidents may, indeed, awaken drones

to a more early sense of their danger and their shame. But they who are

convinced of the necessity of breaking from this habitual drowsiness, too

often relapse in spite of their resolution; for these ideal seducers are

always near, and neither any particularity of time nor place is necessary

to their influence; they invade the soul without warning, and have often

charmed down resistance before their approach is perceived or suspected.

This captivity, however, it is necessary for every man to break, who

has any desire to be wise or useful, to pass his life with the esteem

of others, or to look back with satisfaction from his old age upon his

earlier years. In order to regain liberty, he must find the means of

flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoick precept, teach

his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the

pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and

amicable communication.

It is, perhaps, not impossible to promote the cure of this mental malady,

by close application to some new study, which may pour in fresh ideas,

and keep curiosity in perpetual motion. But study requires solitude, and

solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to

sink into themselves. Active employment or public pleasure is generally

a necessary part of this intellectual regimen, without which, though some

remission may be obtained, a complete cure will scarcely be effected.

This is a formidable and obstinate disease of the intellect, of which,

when it has once become radicated by time, the remedy is one of the

hardest tasks of reason and of virtue. Its slightest attacks, therefore,

should be watchfully opposed; and he that finds the frigid and narcotick

infection beginning to seize him, should turn his whole attention against

it, and check it at the first discovery by proper counteraction.

The great resolution to be formed, when happiness and virtue are thus

formidably invaded, is, that no part of life be spent in a state of

neutrality or indifference; but that some pleasure be found for every

moment that is not devoted to labour; and that, whenever the necessary

business of life grows irksome or disgusting, an immediate transition be

made to diversion and gaiety.

After the exercises which the health of the body requires, and which

have themselves a natural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, the

most eligible amusement of a rational being seems to be that interchange

of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation; where

suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where

every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend,

and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased.

There must be a time in which every man trifles; and the only choice that

nature offers us, is, to trifle in company or alone. To join profit with

pleasure, has been an old precept among men who have had very different

conceptions of profit. All have agreed that our amusements should not

terminate wholly in the present moment, but contribute more or less to

future advantage. He that amuses himself among well-chosen companions,

can scarcely fail to receive, from the most careless and obstreperous

merriment which virtue can allow, some useful hints; nor can converse

on the most familiar topicks without some casual information. The loose

sparkles of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and the gay

contention for paradoxical positions rectify the opinions.

This is the time in which those friendships that give happiness or

consolation, relief or security, are generally formed. A wise and good

man is never so amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals.

Heroick generosity, or philosophical discoveries, may compel veneration

and respect, but love always implies some kind of natural or voluntary

equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness

which disencumber all minds from awe and solicitude, invite the modest

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 superiors descend from their elevation, we love them for lessening

the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom

we can receive no lasting advantage, will always keep our affections

while their sprightliness and mirth contribute to our pleasure.

Every man finds himself differently affected by the sight of fortresses

of war, and palaces of pleasure; we look on the height and strength of

the bulwarks with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, 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 impressed by them on the mind but joy and festivity. Such is the

difference between great and amiable characters; with protectors we are

safe, with companions we are happy.

No. 90. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1751.

_In tenui labor._

VIRG. Geor. iv. 6.

What toil in slender things!

It is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without

failing either to please or instruct. Too much nicety of detail disgusts

the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars

under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is

to common understandings of little use. They who undertake these subjects

are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arises to

their imagination, of frighting us with rugged science, or amusing us

with empty sound.

In criticising the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to

intersperse passages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of

attention; and since, in examining the variety and choice of the pauses

with which he has diversified his numbers, it will be necessary 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

disquisitions somewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his scheme of versification by the poets of Greece and Rome,

whom he proposed to himself for his models, so far as the difference of

his language from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed

many inconveniencies inseparable 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

insuperable; but against which he has struggled with so much art and

diligence, that he may at least be said to have deserved success.

The hexameter of the ancients may be considered as consisting of fifteen

syllables, so melodiously disposed, that, as every one knows who has

examined the poetical authors, very pleasing and sonorous 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 poetæ_, some harmony will still remain, and the due proportions

of sound will always be discovered. This measure therefore allowed great

variety of pauses, and great liberties of connecting one verse with

another, because wherever the line was interrupted, either part singly

was musical. But the ancients seem to have confined this privilege to

hexameters; for in their other measures, though longer than the English

heroick, those who wrote after the refinements of versification, venture

so seldom to change their pauses, that every variation may be supposed

rather a compliance with necessity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was constrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very

harmonious in the utmost perfection; the single parts, therefore, into

which it was to be sometimes broken by pauses, were in danger of losing

the very form of verse. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care,

sometimes happened.

As harmony is the end of poetical measures, no part of a verse ought to

be so separated from the rest as not to remain still more harmonious than

prose, or to show, by the disposition of the tones, that it is part of

a verse. This rule in the old hexameter might be easily observed, but in

English will very frequently be in danger of violation; for the order

and regularity of accents cannot well be perceived in a succession of

fewer than three syllables, which will confine the English poet to only

five pauses; it being supposed, that when he connects one line with

another, he should never make a full pause at less distance than that

of three syllables from the beginning or end of a verse.

That this rule should be universally and indispensably established,

perhaps cannot be granted; something may be allowed to variety, and

something to the adaptation of the numbers to the subject; but it will

be found generally necessary, and the ear will seldom fail to suffer by

its neglect.

Thus when a single syllable is cut off from the rest, it must either be

united to the line with which the sense connects it, or be sounded alone.

If it be united to the other line, it corrupts its harmony; if disjoined,

it must stand alone, and with regard to musick be superfluous; for there

is no harmony in a single sound, because it has no proportion to another.

----Hypocrites austerely talk,

Defaming as impure what God declares

_Pure_; and commands to some, leaves free to all.

When two syllables likewise are abscinded from the rest, they evidently

want some associate sounds to make them harmonious.

----Eyes----

----more wakeful than to drouze,

Charm'd with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed

Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. _Meanwhile_

To re-salute the world with sacred light

Leucothea wak'd.

He ended, and the sun gave signal high

To the bright minister that watch'd: _he blew_

His trumpet.

First in the east his glorious lamp was seen,

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 sweet influence.

The same defect is perceived in the following line, where the pause is at

the second syllable 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 savage clamour drown'd

Both harp and voice; nor could the muse defend

_Her son_. So fail not thou, who thee implores.

When the pause falls upon the third syllable or the seventh, the harmony

is the better preserved; but as the third and seventh are weak syllables,

the period leaves the ear unsatisfied, and in expectation of the

remaining part of the verse.

----He, with his horrid crew,

Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulph,

Confounded though immor_tal_. But his doom

Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought

Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments _him_.

God,--with frequent intercourse,

Thither will send his winged messengers

On errands of supernal grace. So sung

The glorious train ascend_ing_.

It may be, I think, established as a rule, that a pause which concludes

a period should be made for the most part upon a strong syllable, as

the fourth and sixth; but those pauses which only suspend the sense may

be placed upon the weaker. Thus the rest in the third line of the first

passage satisfies the ear better than in the fourth, and the close of the

second quotation better than of the third.

--------The evil soon

Drawn back, redounded (as a flood) on those

From whom it _sprung_; impossible to mix

With _blessedness_.

--------What we by day

Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,

One night or two with wanton growth derides,

Tending to _wild_.

The paths and bow'rs doubt not but our joint hands

Will keep from wilderness with ease as wide

As we need walk, till younger hands ere long

Assist _us_.

The rest in the fifth place has the same inconvenience as in the seventh

and third, that the syllable is weak.

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,

And fish with fish, to graze the herb all leaving,

Devour'd each _other_: Nor stood much in awe

Of man, but fled _him_, or with countenance grim,

Glar'd on him pass_ing_.

The noblest and most majestick pauses which our versification admits, are

upon the fourth and sixth syllables, which are both strongly sounded in

a pure and regular verse, and at either of which the line is so divided,

that both members participate of harmony.

But now at last the sacred influence

Of light _appears_, and from the walls of heav'n

Shoots far into the bosom of dim night

A glimmering _dawn_: here nature first begins

Her farthest verge, and chaos to retire.

But far above all others, if I can give any credit to my own ear, is the

rest upon the sixth syllable, which, taking in a complete compass of

sound, such as is sufficient to constitute one of our lyrick measures,

makes a full and solemn close. Some passages which conclude at this stop,

I could never read without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.

Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,

Thou with the eternal wisdom didst converse,

Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play

In presence of the almighty Father, pleas'd

With thy celestial _song_.

Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,

Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old,

Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,

Thrice happy isles! But who dwelt happy there,

He stayed not to in_quire_.

--------He blew

His trumpet, heard in Oreb since, perhaps

When God descended; and, perhaps, once more

To sound at general _doom_.

If the poetry of Milton be examined, with regard to the pauses and flow of

his verses into each other, it will appear, that he has performed all that

our language would admit; and the comparison of his numbers with those who

have cultivated the same manner of writing, will show that he excelled as

much in the lower as the higher parts of his art, and that his skill in

harmony was not less than his invention or his learning.

No. 91. TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1751.

_Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici;_

_Expertus metuit._

HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xviii. 86.

To court the great ones, and to sooth their pride,

Seems a sweet task to those that never tried;

But those that have, know well that danger's near.

CREECH.

The Sciences having long seen their votaries labouring for the benefit

of mankind without reward, put up their petition to Jupiter for a more

equitable distribution of riches and honours. Jupiter was moved at their

complaints, and touched with the approaching miseries of men, whom the

Sciences, wearied with perpetual ingratitude, were now threatening to

forsake, and who would have been reduced by their departure to feed in

dens upon the mast of trees, to hunt their prey in deserts, and to perish

under the paws of animals stronger and fiercer than themselves.

A synod of the celestials was therefore convened, in which it was

resolved, that Patronage should descend to the assistance of the

Sciences. Patronage was the daughter of Astrea, by a mortal father, and

had been educated in the school of Truth, by the Goddesses, whom she

was now appointed to protect. She had from her mother that dignity of

aspect, which struck terrour into false merit, and from her mistress

that reserve, which made her only accessible to those whom the Sciences

brought into her presence.

She came down, with the general acclamation of all the powers that favour

learning. Hope danced before her, and Liberality stood at her side, ready

to scatter by her direction the gifts which Fortune, who followed her,

was commanded to supply. As she advanced towards Parnassus, the cloud

which had long hung over it, was immediately dispelled. The shades,

before withered with drought, spread their original verdure, and the

flowers that had languished with chillness brightened their colours,

and invigorated their scents; the Muses tuned their harps, and exerted

their voices; and all the concert of nature welcomed her arrival.

On Parnassus she fixed her residence, in a palace raised by the Sciences,

and adorned with whatever could delight the eye, elevate the imagination,

or enlarge the understanding. Here she dispersed the gifts of Fortune with

the impartiality of Justice, and the discernment of Truth. Her gate stood

always open, and Hope sat at the portal, inviting to entrance all whom

the Sciences numbered in their train. The court was therefore thronged

with innumerable multitudes, of whom, though many returned disappointed,

seldom any had confidence to complain; for Patronage was known to neglect

few, but for want of the due claims to her regard. Those, therefore, who

had solicited her favour without success, generally withdrew from publick

notice, and either diverted their attention to meaner employments, or

endeavoured to supply their deficiencies by closer application.

In time, however, the number of those who had miscarried in their

pretensions grew so great, that they became less ashamed of their

repulses; and instead of hiding their disgrace in retirement, began to

besiege the gates of the palace, and obstruct the entrance of such as

they thought likely to be more caressed. The decisions of Patronage,

who was but half a Goddess, had been sometimes erroneous; and though

she always made haste to rectify her mistakes, a few instances of her

fallibility encouraged every one to appeal from her judgment to his own

and that of his companions, who are always ready to clamour in the common

cause, and elate each other with reciprocal applause.

Hope was a steady friend of the disappointed, and Impudence incited

them to accept a second invitation, and lay their claim again before

Patronage. They were again, for the most part, sent back with ignominy,

but found Hope not alienated, and Impudence more resolutely zealous; they

therefore contrived new expedients, and hoped at last to prevail by their

multitudes, which were always increasing, and their perseverance, which

Hope and Impudence forbad them to relax.

Patronage having been long a stranger to the heavenly assemblies, began to

degenerate towards terrestrial nature, and forget the precepts of Justice

and Truth. Instead of confining her friendship to the Sciences, she

suffered herself, by little and little, to contract an acquaintance with

Pride, the son of Falsehood, by whose embraces she had two daughters,

Flattery and Caprice. Flattery was nursed by Liberality, and Caprice by

Fortune, without any assistance from the lessons of the Sciences.

Patronage began openly to adopt the sentiments and imitate the manners of

her husband, by whose opinions she now directed her decisions with very

little heed to the precepts of Truth; and as her daughters continually

gained upon her affections, the Sciences lost their influence, till none

found much reason to boast of their reception, but those whom Caprice or

Flattery conducted to her throne.

The throngs who had so long waited, and so often been dismissed for want

of recommendation from the Sciences, were delighted to see the power of

those rigourous Goddesses tending to its extinction. Their patronesses

now renewed their encouragements. Hope smiled at the approach of Caprice,

and Impudence was always at hand to introduce her clients to Flattery.

Patronage had now learned to procure herself reverence by ceremonies and

formalities, and, instead of admitting her petitioners to an immediate

audience, ordered the ante-chamber to be erected, called among mortals,

the _Hall of Expectation_. Into this hall the entrance was easy to those

whom Impudence had consigned to Flattery, and it was therefore crowded

with a promiscuous throng, assembled from every corner of the earth,

pressing forward with the utmost eagerness of desire, and agitated with

all the anxieties of competition.

They entered this general receptacle with ardour and alacrity, and made

no doubt of speedy access, under the conduct of Flattery, to the presence

of Patronage. But it generally happened that they were here left to their

destiny, for the inner doors were committed to Caprice, who opened and

shut them, as it seemed, by chance, and rejected or admitted without any

settled rule of distinction. In the mean time, the miserable attendants

were left to wear out their lives in alternate exultation and dejection,

delivered up to the sport of Suspicion, who was always whispering into

their ear designs against them which were never formed, and of Envy,

who diligently pointed out the good fortune of one or other of their

competitors. Infamy flew round the hall, and scattered mildews from her

wings, with which every one was stained; Reputation followed her with

slower flight, and endeavoured to hide the blemishes with paint, which

was immediately brushed away, or separated of itself, and left the stains

more visible; nor were the spots of Infamy ever effaced, but with limpid

water effused by the hand of Time from a well which sprung up beneath the

throne of Truth.

It frequently happened that Science, unwilling to lose the ancient

prerogative of recommending to Patronage, would lead her followers into

the Hall of Expectation; but they were soon discouraged from attending,

for not only Envy and Suspicion incessantly tormented them, but Impudence

considered them as intruders, and incited Infamy to blacken them. They

therefore quickly retired, but seldom without some spots which they could

scarcely wash away, and which shewed that they had once waited in the

Hall of Expectation.

The rest continued to expect the happy moment, at which Caprice should

beckon them to approach; and endeavoured to propitiate her, not with

Homerical harmony, the representation of great actions, or the recital

of noble sentiments, but with soft and voluptuous melody, intermingled

with the praises of Patronage and Pride, by whom they were heard at once

with pleasure and contempt.

Some were indeed admitted by Caprice, when they least expected it, and

heaped by Patronage with the gifts of Fortune, but they were from that

time chained to her foot-stool, and condemned to regulate their lives by

her glances and her nods: they seemed proud of their manacles, and seldom

complained of any drudgery, however servile, or any affront, however

contemptuous; yet they were often, notwithstanding their obedience,

seized on a sudden by Caprice, divested of their ornaments, and thrust

back into the Hall of Expectation.

Here they mingled again with the tumult, and all, except a few whom

experience had taught to seek happiness in the regions of liberty,

continued to spend hours, and days, and years, courting the smile of

Caprice by the arts of Flattery; till at length new crowds pressed in

upon them, and drove them forth at different outlets into the habitations

of Disease, and Shame, and Poverty, and Despair, where they passed the

rest of their lives in narratives of promises and breaches of faith, of

joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments.

The Sciences, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace

of Patronage, and having long wandered over the world in grief and

distress, were led at last to the cottage of Independence, the daughter

of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support

themselves in dignity and quiet.

No. 92. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1751.

_Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum_

_Perstringis aures: jam litui strepunt._

HOR. Lib. ii. Ode i. 17.

Lo! now the clarion's voice I hear,

Its threat'ning murmurs pierce mine ear,

And in thy lines with brazen breath

The trumpet sounds the charge of death.

FRANCIS.

It has been long observed, that the idea of beauty is vague and undefined,

different in different minds, and diversified by time or place. It has

been a term hitherto used to signify that which pleases us we know not

why, and in our approbation of which we can justify ourselves only by

the concurrence of numbers, without much power of enforcing our opinion

upon others by any argument but example and authority. It is, indeed, so

little subject to the examinations of reason, that Paschal supposes it to

end where demonstration begins, and maintains, that without incongruity

and absurdity we cannot speak of _geometrical beauty_.

To trace all the sources of that various pleasure which we ascribe to the

agency of beauty, or to disentangle all the perceptions involved in its

idea, would, perhaps, require a very great part of the life of Aristotle

or Plato. It is, however, in many cases apparent, that this quality

is merely relative and comparative; that we pronounce things beautiful

because they have something which we agree, for whatever reason, to call

beauty, in a greater degree than we have been accustomed to find it in

other things of the same kind; and that we transfer the epithet as our

knowledge increases, and appropriate it to higher excellence, when higher

excellence comes within our view.

Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind; and therefore Boileau

justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and

been admired through all the changes which the mind of man has suffered

from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary

customs, have a better claim to our regard than any modern can boast,

because the long continuance of their reputation proves that they are

adequate to our faculties, and agreeable to nature.

It is, however, the task of criticism to establish principles; to improve

opinion into knowledge; and to distinguish those means of pleasing which

depend upon known causes and rational deduction, from the nameless and

inexplicable elegancies which appeal wholly to the fancy, from which we

feel delight, but know not how they produce it, and which may well be

termed the enchantresses of the soul. Criticism reduces those regions

of literature under the dominion of science, which have hitherto known

only the anarchy of ignorance, the caprices of fancy, and the tyranny

of prescription.

There is nothing in the art of versifying so much exposed to the power

of imagination as the accommodation of the sound to the sense, or the

representation of particular images, by the flow of the verse in which

they are expressed. Every student has innumerable passages, in which

he, and perhaps he alone, discovers such resemblances; and since the

attention of the present race of poetical readers seems particularly

turned upon this species of elegance, I shall endeavour to examine how

much these conformities have been observed by the poets, or directed by

the criticks, how far they can be established upon nature and reason, and

on what occasions they have been practised by Milton.

Homer, the father of all poetical beauty, has been particularly celebrated

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as "he that, of all the poets, exhibited

the greatest variety of sound; for there are," says he, "innumerable

passages, in which length of time, bulk of body, extremity of passion,

and stillness of repose; or, in which, on the contrary, brevity, speed,

and eagerness, are evidently marked out by the sound of the syllables.

Thus the anguish and slow pace with which the blind _Polypheme_ groped

out with his hands the entrance of his cave, are perceived in the cadence

of the verses which describe it."

Κυκλωψ δε στεναχων τε και ωδινων οδυνησι,

Χερσι ψηλοφοων.----

Meantime the Cyclop raging with his wound,

Spreads his wide arms, and searches round and round.

POPE.

The critick then proceeds to shew, that the efforts of Achilles struggling

in his armour against the current of a river, sometimes resisting and

sometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elisions of the syllables,

the slow succession of the feet, and the strength of the consonants.

Δεινον δ' αμφ' Ἁχιληα κυκωμενον ἱστατο κυμα

Ωθει δ' εν σακει πιπτων ῥοος· ουδε ποδεσσιν

Εσκε στηριξασθαι.----

So oft the surge, in wat'ry mountains spread,

Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head,

Yet, dauntless still, the adverse flood he braves,

And still indignant bounds above the waves.

Tir'd by the tides, his knees relax with toil;

Wash'd from beneath him, slides the slimy soil.

POPE.

When Homer describes the crush of men dashed against a rock, he collects

the most unpleasing and harsh sounds.

Συν δε δυω μαρψας, ὡστε σκυλακας ποτι γαιη

Κοπτ'· εκ δ' εγκεφαλος χαμαδις ῥεε, δευε δε γαιαν.

------His bloody hand

Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band,

And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor:

The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.

POPE.

And when he would place before the eyes something dreadful and

astonishing, he makes choice of the strongest vowels, and the letters

of most difficult utterance.

Τη δ' επι μεν Γοργω βλοσυρωπις εστεφανωτο

Δεινον δερκομενη· περι δε Δειμος τε Φοβος τε.

Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,

And circling terrors fill'd th' expressive shield.

POPE.

Many other examples Dionysius produces; but these will sufficiently shew,

that either he was fanciful, or we have lost the genuine pronunciation;

for I know not whether, in any one of these instances, such similitude

can be discovered. It seems, indeed, probable, that the veneration with

which Homer was read, produced many suppositious beauties: for though it

is certain, that the sound of many of his verses very justly corresponds

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 unlikely 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, et apta

Verborum facie, et quæsito carminis ore.

Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,----

Hic melior motuque pedum, et pernicibus alis,

Molle Viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:

Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens

Incedit tardo molimine subsiden le.

Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,

Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.

Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit et artus,

Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,

Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso.----

Ergo ubi jam nautæ spumas salis ære ruentes

Incubere mari, videas spumare reductis

Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus æquor.

Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis

Incipiunt 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, natat 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, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent

Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis

Æternum 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 ultro

Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis

In medio interrupta: quiêrunt cum freta ponti,

Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum

Cernere erit, mediisque incœptis sistere versum.

Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu

Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?

Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:

Sanguis hebet, frigent effœtæ in corpore vires.

Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,

Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum

Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres

Ingentes, totoque, ferum dare funera campo.

LIB. iii. 365.

'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 through 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 every limb,

Stalks tow'ring on; the swelling words must rise

In 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 move.

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 fly 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 num'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 arms, 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 gentle 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;

Nor so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

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

From these lines, laboured with 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 turbulence 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 short 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 motion.

These rules and these examples have taught our present criticks to inquire

very studiously and minutely 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.

No. 93. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1751.

_----Experiar, quid concedatur in illos,_

_Quorum flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina._

JUV. Sat. i. 170.

More safely truth to urge her claim presumes,

On names now found alone on books and tombs.

There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than

on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which

oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with

more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his

knowledge oblige him to resign.

Baillet has introduced his collection of the decisions of the learned, by

an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critick, and raise the

passions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large,

is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing

have been observed to be often such as cannot in the present state of

human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonstrations;

they are therefore wholly subject to the imagination, and do not force

their effects upon a mind pre-occupied by unfavourable sentiments, nor

overcome the counteraction of a false principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against

his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human

abilities. Interest and passion will hold out long against the closest

siege of diagrams and syllogisms, but they are absolutely impregnable

to imagery and sentiment; and will for ever bid defiance to the most

powerful strains of Virgil or Homer, though they may give way in time to

the batteries of Euclid or Archimedes.

In trusting therefore to the sentence of a critick, we are in danger not

only from that vanity which exalts writers too often to the dignity of

teaching what they are yet to learn, from that negligence which sometimes

steals upon the most vigilant caution, and that fallibility to which the

condition of nature has subjected every human understanding; but from

a thousand extrinsick and accidental causes, from every thing which can

excite kindness or malevolence, veneration or contempt.

Many of those who have determined with great boldness upon the various

degrees of literary merit, may be justly suspected of having passed

sentence, as Seneca remarks of Claudius,

_Una tantum parte audita,_

_Sæpe et nulla,_

without much knowledge of the cause before them: for it will not easily

be imagined of Langbaine, Borrichius, or Rapin, that they had very

accurately perused all the books which they praise or censure: or that,

even if nature and learning had qualified them for judges, they could

read for ever with the attention necessary to just criticism. Such

performances, however, are not wholly without their use; for they are

commonly just echoes to the voice of fame, and transmit the general

suffrage of mankind when they have no particular motives to suppress it.

Criticks, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by

interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they

illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to

have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the

work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected

to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato

was condemned to perish in a good cause.

There are prejudices which authors, not otherwise weak or corrupt, have

indulged without scruple; and perhaps some of them are so complicated

with our natural affections, that they cannot easily be disentangled from

the heart. Scarce any can hear with impartiality a comparison between the

writers of his own and another country; and though it cannot, I think, be

charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary

patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with

the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their

birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom

much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of

different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent

to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe, that there

was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally

persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own. I can

scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied

to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his

works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy

worthy of so much zeal, vehemence, and acrimony.

There is, indeed, one prejudice, and only one, by which it may be doubted

whether it is any dishonour to be sometimes misguided. Criticism has so

often given occasion to the envious and ill-natured of gratifying their

malignity, that some have thought it necessary to recommend the virtue

of candour without restriction, and to preclude all future liberty of

censure. Writers possessed with this opinion are continually enforcing

civility and decency, recommending to criticks the proper diffidence of

themselves, and inculcating the veneration due to celebrated names.

I am not of opinion that these professed enemies of arrogance and severity

have much more benevolence or modesty than the rest of mankind; or that

they feel in their own hearts, any other intention than to distinguish

themselves by their softness and delicacy. Some are modest because

they are timorous, and some are lavish of praise because they hope to

be repaid.

There is indeed some tenderness due to living writers, when they attack

none of those truths which are of importance to the happiness of mankind,

and have committed no other offence than that of betraying their own

ignorance or dulness. I should think it cruelty to crush an insect

who had provoked me only by buzzing in my ear; and would not willingly

interrupt the dream of harmless stupidity, or destroy the jest which

makes its author laugh. Yet I am far from thinking this tenderness

universally necessary; for he that writes may be considered as a kind of

general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits

the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his

merit to the publick judgment. To commence author is to claim praise,

and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace.

But whatever be decided concerning contemporaries, whom he that knows

the treachery of the human heart, and considers how often we gratify

our own pride or envy under the appearance of contending for elegance

and propriety will find himself not much inclined to disturb; there can

surely be no exemptions pleaded to secure them from criticism, who can

no longer suffer by reproach, and of whom nothing now remains but their

writings and their names. Upon these authors the critick is undoubtedly

at full liberty to exercise the strictest severity, since he endangers

only his own fame, and, like Æneas when he drew his sword in the

infernal regions, encounters phantoms which cannot be wounded. He may

indeed pay some regard to established reputation; but he can by that

shew of reverence consult only his own security, for all other motives

are now at an end.

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous,

because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest

of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized,

before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and

become precedents of indisputable authority.

It has, indeed, been advanced by Addison, as one of the characteristicks

of a true critick, that he points out beauties rather than faults. But

it is rather natural to a man of learning and genius to apply himself

chiefly to the study of writers who have more beauties than faults to

be displayed: for the duty of criticism is neither to depreciate, nor

dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason,

whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth,

whatever she shall dictate.

No. 94. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1751.

_----Bonus atque fidus_

_Judex * * * * per obstantes catervas_

_Explicuit sua victor arma._

HOR. Lib. iv. Od. ix. 40.

Perpetual magistrate is he

Who keeps strict justice full in sight;

Who bids the crowd at awful distance gaze,

And virtue's arms victoriously displays.

FRANCIS.

The resemblance of poetick numbers, to the subject which they mention or

describe, may be considered as general or particular; as consisting in

the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised

in the sound of some emphatical and descriptive words, or in the cadence

and harmony of single verses.

The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every

language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy

enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice

and variety of language readily supply him with just representations. To

such a writer it is natural to change his measure with his subject, even

without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgment.

To revolve jollity and mirth necessarily tunes the voice of a poet to gay

and sprightly notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection

on gloomy situations and disastrous events, will sadden his numbers,

as it will cloud his countenance. But in such passages there is only

the similitude of pleasure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without

any immediate application to particular images. The same flow of joyous

versification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation

of triumph; and the same languor of melody will suit the complaints of an

absent lover, as of a conquered king.

It is scarcely to be doubted, that on many occasions we make the musick

which we imagine ourselves to hear, that we modulate the poem by our own

disposition, and ascribe to the numbers the effects of the sense. We may

observe in life, that it is not easy to deliver a pleasing message in

an unpleasing manner, and that we readily associate 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 adaptations of harmony are

chimerical; that Homer had no extraordinary attention to the melody of

his verse when he described a nuptial festivity;

Νυμφας δ' εκ θαλαμων, δαιδων ὑπολαμπομεναων,

Ηγινεον ανα αστυ, πολυς δ' ὑμεναιος ορωρει.

Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,

And solemn 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 soft flute, and cittern's silver sound.

POPE.

That Vida was merely fanciful, when he supposed Virgil endeavouring to

represent, by uncommon sweetness of numbers, the adventitious beauty

of Æneas;

_Os, humerosque Deo similis: namque ipse decoram_

_Cæsariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventæ_

_Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflârat honores._

The Trojan chief appeared in open sight,

August in visage, and serenely bright.

His mother goddess, 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 harmony which he mentions:

Fountains! and ye that warble as ye flow,

Melodious murmurs! warbling tune his praise.

That Milton understood the force of sounds well adjusted, and knew the

compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; since he

was both a musician and a critick; but he seems to have considered these

conformities of cadence, as either not often attainable in our language,

or as petty excellencies unworthy of his ambition: for it will not be

found that he has always assigned the same cast of numbers to the same

objects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelic

beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be

found, upon comparison, very different:

And now a stripling cherub he appears,

Not of the prime, yet such as in his face

Youth smil'd celestial, and to every limb

_Suitable grace diffus'd, so well he feign'd;_

Under a coronet his flowing hair

_In curls on either cheek play'd: wings he wore_

_Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold._

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony,

and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance

and easy grace, which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however,

is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally

delights the ear and imagination:

A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore to shade

His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each shoulder 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 son he stood,

And shook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd

The circuit wide.----

The adumbration of particular and distinct images by an exact and

perceptible resemblance of sound, is sometimes studied, and sometimes

casual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises

which they signify. Such are _stridor_, _balo_, and _beatus_, in Latin; and

in English to _growl_, to _buzz_, to _hiss_, and to _jarr_. Words of this

kind give to a verse the proper similitude of sound, without much labour

of the writer, and such happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to

fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great propriety,

and undeniably contribute to enforce the impression of the idea. We hear

the passing arrow in this line of Virgil;

Et fugit _horrendum stridens_ elapsa sagitta;

Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing.

POPE.

And the creaking of hell-gates, in the description by Milton;

--------Open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

Th' infernal doors: and on their hinges grate

Harsh 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. Dionysius himself tells us, that the sound of Homer's verses

sometimes 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 nothing so

much as the clangour of a trumpet? The representative power of poetick

harmony consists of sound and measure; of the force of the syllables

singly considered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound

can resemble nothing but sound, and time can measure nothing but motion

and duration.

The criticks, however, have struck out other similitudes; 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 reason to regard:

_Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox._

Meantime the rapid heav'us rowl'd down the light,

And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night.

DRYDEN.

_Sternitur, exanimisque tremens procumbit humi bos._

Down drops the beast, nor needs a second wound;

But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.

DRYDEN.

_Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus._

The mountains labour, and a mouse is born.

ROSCOMMON.

If all these observations are just, there must be some remarkable

conformity between the sudden succession of night to day, the fall of an

ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; since we are

told of all these images, that they are very strongly impressed by the

same form and termination of the verse.

We may, however, without giving way to enthusiasm, admit that some

beauties of this kind may be produced. A sudden stop at an unusual

syllable may image the cessation of action, or the pause of discourse;

and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

--------I fled, and cried out _death_:

Hell trembled at the hedious name, and sigh'd

From all her caves, and back resounded _death_.

The measure of time in pronouncing may be varied so as very strongly

to represent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or

slow succession of ideas, and consequently the passions of the mind.

This at least was the power of the spondaick and dactylick harmony, but

our language can reach no eminent diversities of sound. We can indeed

sometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty

of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or

mark a slow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan

struggling through chaos;

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Mov'd on: with difficulty and labour he--

Thus he has described the leviathans or whales;

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait.

But he has at other times neglected such representations, as may be

observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which express an

action tardy and reluctant.

--------Descent and fall

To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,

When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear

Insulting, and pursu'd us through the deep,

With what confusion and laborious flight

We sunk thus low! Th' ascent is easy then.

In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line

remarkably rough and halting;

--------Tripping ebb; that stole

With soft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd

His sluices.

It is not, indeed, to be expected, that the sound should always assist the

meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has

here certainly committed a fault like that of a player, who looked on the

earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addressed

the earth.

Those who are determined to find in Milton an assemblage of all the

excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be

offended that I do not celebrate his versification in higher terms; for

there are readers who discover that in this passage,

So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,

a _long_ form is described in a _long_ line; but the truth is, that

length of body is only mentioned in a _slow_ line, to which it has only

the resemblance of time to space, of an hour to a maypole.

The same turn of ingenuity might perform wonders upon the description of

the ark:

Then from the mountains hewing timber tall,

Began to build a vessel of huge bulk;

Measur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and height.

In these lines the poet apparently designs to fix the attention upon

bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for

what analogy can there be between modulations of sound, and corporeal

dimensions?

Milton indeed seems only to have regarded this species of embellishment so

far as not to reject it when it came unsought; which would often happen

to a mind so vigorous, employed upon a subject so various and extensive.

He had, indeed, a greater and nobler work to perform; a single sentiment

of moral or religious truth, a single image of life or nature, would

have been cheaply lost for a thousand echoes of the cadence of the sense;

and he who had undertaken to _vindicate the ways of God to man_, might

have been accused of neglecting his cause, had he lavished much of his

attention upon syllables and sounds.

No. 95. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1751.

_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens,_

_Insanientis dum sapientiæ_

_Consultus erro; nunc retrorsum_

_Vela dare, atque iterare cursus_

_Cogor relictos._

HOR. Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. 1.

A fugitive from heav'n and prayer,

I mock'd at all religious fear,

Deep scienc'd in the mazy lore

Of mad philosophy; but now

Hoist sail, and back my voyage plow

To that blest harbour, which I left before.

FRANCIS.