Imatges de pàgina
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A full pause in an unusual place very aptly represents the ftopping of a stone, after an impetuous courfe down a hill, in the following paffage in Pope's tranflation of Homer:

From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds,
At ev'ry fhock the crackling wood refounds.

Still gath'ring force, it fmokes, and, urged amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down impetuous to the plain;
Then stops. So Hector. Their whole force he proved,
Refistless when he raged, and when he stopp'd, unmoved,

The whole of this paffage, particularly the description of the rolling of the ftone down the hill, is a happy example of defcriptive imitation.

The frequent paufes of meditation and foliloquy are happily imitated by Shakespeare upon many occafions, and particularly in Hamlet's meditation on death:

To be, or not to be-that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer
The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by oppofing, end them. To die, to fleep-

No more-and by a fleep to fay we end

The heart-ach, and a thousand nat'ral fhocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a confummation

Devoutly to be wish'd-to die, to sleep

To fleep-perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub

For in that fleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have fhuffled off this mortal coil,

Muft give us paufe

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A great variety of juft expreffion of fenfe by found, or at least intervals of found, may be observed in various parts of Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; particularly at the beginning, where he describes feveral inftruments of mufic:

Descend, ye Nine, descend and fing,
The breathing inftruments infpire;
Wake into voice each filent ftring,
And sweep the founding lyre.

In a fadly pleasing strain

Let the warbling lute complain;
Let the loud trumpet found,

Till the roofs all around

The fhrill echoes rebound.

While in more lengthen'd notes and flow
The deep, majeftic, folemn organs blow.
Hark the numbers foft and clear
Gently steal upon the ear;

Now louder, and yet louder rife,

And fill with spreading founds the skies.
Exulting in triumph now fwell the bold notes,
In broken air trembling the wild music floats;
Till, by degrees, remote and small,
The ftrains decay,

And melt away,

In a dying, dying fall.

And afterwards, when he describes the death of Orpheus:

But foon, too foon, the lover turns his eyes.

Again the falls, again fhe dies, fhe dies.

How wilt thou now the fatal fifters move?

No crime was thine, if 'twas no crime to love.

Now

Now under hanging mountains,
Befide the fall of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,

Rolling in meanders,

All alone,

Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan,
And calls her ghoft,

For ever, ever, ever loft.
Now with furies surrounded,
Defpairing, confounded,

He trembles, he glows

Amidst Rhodope's fnows:

See, wild as the winds, o'er the defart he flies →→
Hark-Hamus refounds with the Bacchanals cries-

Ah fee-he dies.

From reading the former of these paffages, in particular, it must be apparent how much it is in the power of pronunciation to affift and help out this expreffion of fenfe by found and intervals of found; and because, if we feel the fentiment, we unavoidably do give the language all the affiftance we can from pronunciation, the powers of written language have been fuppofed to be as extensive as thofe of language and pronunciation together. The obfervation of the different manner in which the words great and little are pronounced, according to the degree of the quality we intend to exprefs, may fuffice to fhew us both how naturally we endeavour to favour the fenfe by the found, and alfo how far we are able to do it. The peculiar beauty, particularly, of the former of the two paffages quoted from Pope may be loft by an injudicious pronunciation. Also the words.

fal'n,

fall'n, fall'n, fallin, fall'n, in Dryden's Feaft of Alexander, require to be pronounced with a tone of voice growing continually more and more languid, to preserve the beauty of the passage in which they are introduced. Indeed no perfon, who reads the poem with any feeling and taste, can avoid doing it. There are many ideas and turns of thought which a Speaker fuccessfully, when a writer (unless languages had been constructed in a manner véry different from what they are) is not able to contribute much to the fuccefs of the imitation.

may imitate very

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LECTURE XXXIV..

Of HARMONY in VERSE.

1

A

LL fpeech naturally divides itself into long and short fyllables. Whatever language we speak, or whether it be quantity or accent that we attend to in it, we pronounce fome fyllables with more rapidity than others; and the art of verfification univerfally confifts in the difpofition of the long or short fyllables, according to fome rule. In fome kinds of verse, indeed, there is more latitude than in others; but an utter inattention to the length of the fyllables would quite deftroy the harmony of any versification in the world.

The regular difpofition of the long and short fyllables neceffarily divides every verse into certain distinct portions, or feet, and the harmony of a verse is moft diftinctly perceived when these portions or feet are kept as diftinct as poffible; because then the regular disposition of the long and short fyllables, in which the effence of verfe confifts, is moft apparent. To keep thefe divifions of verse quite diftinct (which the mind, according to an obfervation lately made, naturally inclines to do, in order to perfect the harmony) a momentary pause must be made after each of them, and this paufe will be peculiarly eafy and natural, if fuch divifion, or foot, close with a long fyllable.

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