be continued above three lines together, without the interposition of another: else it will be apt to weary the ear with one continued tone, at least it does mine: That at the fifth runs quicker, and carries not quite so dead a weight, so tires not so much, though it be continued longer. 3. Another nicety is in relation to Expletives, whether words or syllables, which are made use of purely to supply a vacancy: Do before verbs plural is absolutely such; and it is not improbable but future refiners may explode did and does in the same manner, which are almost always used for the sake of rhyme. The same cause has occasioned the promiscuous use of you and thou to the same person, which can never sound so graceful as either one or the other. 4. I would also object to the irruption of Alexandrine verses, of twelve syllables, which, I think, should never be allowed but when some remarkable beauty or propriety in them atones for the liberty: Mr. Dryden has been too free of these, especially in his latter works. I am of the same opinion as to Triple Rhymes. 5. I could equally object to the repetition of the He has not admitted one Alexandrine verse, or Triple rhyme, into his Essay on Man, nor into his Four Ethic Epistles, nor his Eloisa, nor Dunciad; and but rarely, too rarely, Fenton thought, into his Iliad; the ear, in so long a work, wanting some variety. But, in truth, the Alexandrine as much destroys the uniformity of numbers, as if an Iambic verse had, from time to time, been introduced among the Hexameters of Virgil. Cowley was the first who introduced Alexandrines in the midst of ten syllable lines. same Rhymes within four or six lines of each other, as tiresome to the ear through their Monotony. 6. Monosyllable Lines, unless very artfully managed, are stiff, or languishing: but may be beautiful to express Melancholy, Slowness, or Labour. 7. To come to the Hiatus, or Gap between two words, which is caused by two vowels opening on each other (upon which you desire me to be particular); I think the rule in this case is either to use the Cæsura, or admit the Hiatus, just as the ear is 9 On the contrary, as Mr. Webb very judiciously observes, Monosyllables may full as happily be employed on the opposite motions and affections; Me; fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole. Ah! come not, write not, think not, once of me. In our verse it is the sense that gives vigour to the movement. Monosyllables bring our ideas into a closer order, and more immediate comparison; consequently their relations become more striking. The feeblest and heaviest lines in our language are those which are overcharged with polysyllables." The same elegant critic has afterward made the following remark on Alexandrine verses: "A modern critic is of opinion, that the Alexandrine is best calculated to exemplify swiftness, because it most naturally exhibits the act of passing through a long space in a short time. Is it meant, that we pass through the long space of the Alexandrine, in as short a time as we should through the shorter space of the Pentameter? But this cannot be; for supposing an equal fluency in the syllables employed in each, their times must be always in proportion of twelve to ten. That line so often cited as an example of swiftness, sets this matter in the clearest light; Αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε-&c. From whence springs the swiftness in this instance? Is it not from hence, that we pass through a verse of seventeen syllables, in the same time that we should through a verse of thirteen? But our Alexandrine can never consist of more than twelve syllables. The inference is obvious." Observations on Poetry, page 178. least shocked by either: for the Cæsura sometimes offends the ear more than the Hiatus itself, and our language is naturally overcharged with consonants: As for example: If in this verse, we should The old have int'rest ever in their eye, say, to avoid the Hiatus, But th' old have int'rest. The Hiatus which has the worst effect, is when one word ends with the same vowel that begins the following; and next to this, those vowels whose sounds come nearest to each other, are most to be avoided. O, A, or U, will bear a more full and graceful sound than E, I, or Y. I know, some people will think these Observations trivial, and therefore I am glad to corroborate them by some great authorities, which I have met with in Tully and Quintilian. In the fourth book of Rhetoric to Herennius1, are these words: Fugiemus crebras vocalium concursiones, quæ vastam atque hiantem reddunt orationem; ut hoc est, Baccæ ænea amanissimæ impendebant. And Quintilian, 1. ix. cap. 4. Vocalium concursus cum accidit, hiat et intersistit, et quasi laborat oratio. Pessime longæ quæ easdem inter se literas committunt, sonabunt: Præcipuus tamen erit hiatus earum quæ cavo aut patulo ore efferuntur. Eplenior litera est, I angustior. But he goes on to reprove the excess on the other hand of being too solicitous in this matter, and says admirably, Nescio an negligentia in hoc, aut solicitudo sit Our author, in these early years, seems to be well acquainted with Quintilian and Cicero; I see, however, few traces of Dionysius of Halicarnassus; nor of Demetrius Phalereus. pejor. So likewise Tully (Orator. ad Brut.) Theopompum reprehendunt, quod eas literas tanto opere fugerit, etsi idem magister ejus Socrates: which last author, as Turnebus on Quintilian observes, has hardly one Hiatus in all his works. Quintilian tells us, that Tully and Demosthenes did not much observe this nicety, though Tully himself says in his Orator, Crebra ista vocum concursio, quam, magna ex parte vitiosam, fugit Demosthenes. If I am not mistaken, Malherbe of all the moderns has been the most scrupulous in this point; and I think Menage in his observations upon him says, he has not one in his poems. To conclude3, I believe the Hiatus should be avoided with more care in Poetry than in Oratory; and I would constantly try to prevent it unless where the cutting it off is more prejudicial to the sound than the Hiatus itself. I am, etc. A. POPE. 2 Neither was it observed by Plato or by Thucydides. The Greeks never admitted the Hiatus in the Trimeter Iambics of their Tragedy or Comedy. In Epic Poetry and Hexameter Verse it had a place; Clarke gives six examples of it, and its use, in his Notes on the 4th Book of the Iliad, ver. 456. Menage has made some useful remarks on this subject in his large notes on the Works of Malherbe. And on this subject says Boileau, Art. Poet. Chant. i. v. 107. 3 Guardez qu'une voyelle à courir trop hàtée, Ne soit d'une voyelle en son chemin heurtée. I rather wonder he has in this Letter said nothing of Alliteration, of which his master, Dryden, was so fond, and which he practised with so much success; but which has been carried to a ridiculous excess by some late writers of note. A curious and learned discourse on the Alliterative Metre, without rhyme, (for Alliteration was a favourite figure of rude poets,) is given in the 2d vol. of the entertaining Reliques of Ancient Poetry. Mr. Walsh died at forty-nine years old, in the year 1708, the year before the Essay on Criticism was printed, which concludes with his Eulogy. To these observations on English Versification, I desire to add the following from the sensible and ingenious Mr. Webb: "The sole aim of versification is harmony. To understand this properly, we must divide it into two kinds. The first consists of a general flow of verse, most pleasing to the ear, but independent on the sense the second, in bringing the sound or measure of the verse to correspond with, and accompany, the idea. The former may be called a verbal harmony, the latter a sentimental. If we consider the flow of verse merely as music, it will then be allowed, that variety is less necessary than sweetness; and that a continued repetition of the same movements must be tiresome in poetry, as it would in music. On examining Mr. Pope's verses, we shall find that in eighteen out of twenty, the pauses rest on the fourth and last, or the fifth or last syllables; and that, almost without exception, the period is divided into two equal lines, and, as it were, linked by the rhyme into a couplet. For example, 66 All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Essay on Man. 'Every ear must feel the ill effect of the monotony in these lines; the cause of it is obvious; this verse consists of ten syllables, or five feet; when the pause falls on the fourth syllable, we shall find, that we pronounce the six last in the same time that we do the four first; so that the couplet is not only divided into two equal lines, but each line, with respect to time, is divided into two equal parts; as, Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the Breeze, Glows in the Stars, and blossoms in the Trees: Or else, the pause falls on the fifth syllable, and then the line is divided with a mechanic exactness. As; Spreads undivided, operates unspent. "Mr. Pope in a letter to Mr. Walsh, speaking of English verse, |