have experience for our authority, that there may be a pause in the melody where the fenfe requires none. We muft not however imagine, that a mufical paufe may come after any word indifferently: fome words, like fyllables of the fame word, are fo intimately connected, as not to bear a feparation even by a paufe: the feparating, for example, a fubftantive from its article would be hath and unpleasant: witnefs the following line, which cannot be pronounced with a pause as marked,

If Delia fimile, the flow'rs begin to fpring. But ought to be pronounced in the following manner, If Delia fuile, the flow'rs begin to spring.

and to

*If then it be not a matter of indifferency where to make
the paufe, there ought to be rules for determining what
words may be feparated by a paufe, and what are inca-
pable of fuch feparation. I fhall endeavour to afcertain
these rules; not chiefly for their utility, but in order to
unfold fome latent principles, that tend to regulate our
tafte even where we are scarce fenfible of them
that end, the method that appears the most promifing,
is to run over the verbal relations, beginning with the
moft intimate. The firft that presents itself, is that of
adjective and fubftantive, being the relation of fubject
and quality, the most intimate of all: and with refpect
to fuch intimate companions, the queftion is, Whether
they can bear to be feparated by a paufe. What occurs
is, that a quality cannot exist independent of a fubject;
nor are they feparable even in imagination, because they
make parts of the fame idea: and for that reason, with
refpect to melody as well as fenfe, it must be difagreea-
ble, to bestow upon the adjective a fort of independent
exiftence, by interjecting a paufe between it and its fub-
ftantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines,
nor any of the fort; for to iny taste they are harsh and
unpleasant.

Of thoufand bright || inhabitants of air.
The fprites of fiery | termagants inflame.
The reft, his many colour'd robe conceal'd
The fame, his antient || perfonage to deck.
Ev'n here, where fiozen Chattity retires.

I fit, with fad civility, I read.

Back to my native | moderation flide.

Or fhall we ev'ry | decency confound.

Time was, a fober || Englishman would knock.
And place, on good || fecurity, his gold.

Tafte, that eternal | wanderer, which flies.
But ere the tenth || revolving day was run.
First let the juft equivalent be paid.

Go, threat thy thy earth-born | Myrmidons; but here.
Hafte to the fierce || Achilles' tent (he cries).
All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove.
Your own refiftlefs | eloquence employ.

I have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a cafe where I have the misfortune to diflike what paffescurrent in practice, every man upon the spot may judge by his own tafte. And to tafte I appeal; for though the foregoing reafoning appears to me juft, it is however too fubtile to afford conviction in oppofition to taste.

Confidering this matter fuperficially, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the fame, whether the adjective go first, which is the natural order, or the fubftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon discover this to be a mistake: colour, for example, cannot be conceived independent of the furface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain fpot, as of a certain kind, and as spreading its extended branches all around, without ever thinking of its colour. In a word, a subject may be confidered with fome of its qualities independent of others; though we cannot form an image of any fingle quality independent of the fubject. Thus then, though an adjective named firft be infeparable from the fubftantive, the propofition does not reciprocate: an image can be formed of the fubftantive independent of the adjective; and for that reafon, they may be feparated by a pause, when the fubftantive takes the lead,

For thee the fates || feverely kind ordain.
And curs'd with hearts | unknowing how to yield.
The verb and adverb are precifely in the fame con-

dition with the fubftantive and adjective. An adverb, which modifies the action expreffed by the verb, is not feparable from the verb even in imagination; and therefore I muft alfo give up the following lines. And which it much becomes you to forget. 'Tis one thing madly || to difperfe my store.

But an action may be conceived with fome of its modifications, leaving out others, precifely as a fubject may be conceived with fome of its qualities, leaving out others; and therefore, when by inverfion the verb is first introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause between it and the adverb which follows: this may be done at the close of a line, where the paufe is at least, as full as that is which divides the line:

While yet he spoke, the Prince advancing drew.
Nigh to the lodge, &c.

The agent and its action come next, expreffed in grammar by the active fubftantive and its verb. Between thefe, placed in their natural order, there is no difficulty of interjecting a paufe: an active being is not always in motion, and therefore it is eafily feparable in idea from its action: when in a sentence the substantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow; and as reft must precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportunity for a paufe.

But when by inverfion the verb is placed first, is it lawful to feparate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer, Not; because an action is not in idea feparable from the agent, more than a quality from the fubject to which it belongs. Two lines of the first rate for beauty, have always appeared to me exceptionable, upon account of the paufe thus interjected between the verb and the confequent fubftantive; and I have now difcovered a reafon to fupport my taste :

In thefe deep folitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive | Contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing Melancholy reigns.

The point of the greatest delicacy regards the active verb and the paffive fubftantive placed in their natural order. On the one hand, it will be obferved, that these

words

words fignify things which are not feparable in. idea killing cannot be conceived without a being that is put to death, nor painting without a furface upon which the colours are spread. On the other hand, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like fubject and quality, united in one individual object: the active fubftantive is perfectly distinct from that which is pasfive; and they are connected by one circumftance only, that the action exerted by the former, is exerted upon the latter. This makes it poflible to take the action to pieces, and to confider it firft with relation to the agent, and next with relation to the patient. But after all, fo intimately connected are the parts of the thought, that it requires an effort to make a separation even for a moment: the fubtilifing to fuch a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets however, taking advantage of this fubtilty, fcruple not to feparate by a pause an active verb from the thing upon which it is exerted. Such paufes in a long work may be indulged; but taken fingly, they certainly are not agreeable; and I appeal to the following examples. The peer now fpreads | the glitt'ring forfex wide. the fair face of light.

As ever fully'd

Repair'd to fearch

Nothing, to make

the gloomy cave of Spleen.
philofophy thy friend.

Shou'd chance to make the well drefs'd rabble stare.

Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main.

These madmen ever hurt the church or state..

How fhall we fill | a library with wit..

What better teach || a foreigner the tongue.
Sure, if I fpare the minifter, no rules.
Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools.

On the other hand, when the paffive fubftantive is by inverfion first named, there is no difficulty of interjecting a paufe between it and the verb, more than when the active fubftantive is first named. The fame reafon holds in both, that tho' a verb cannot be feparated in idea from the fubftantive which governs it, and fcarcely from the substantive it governs; yet a fubftantive may always be conceived independent of the verb: when the paffive

paffive fubftantive is introduced before the verb, we know not that an action is to be exerted upon it; therefore we may reft till the action commences. For the fake of illuftration take the following examples.

Shrines! where their vigils | pale-ey'd virgins keep. Soon as thy letters || trembling I unclose.

No happier task | thefe faded eyes pursue.

What is faid about the pause, leads to a general obfervation: That the natural order of placing the active fubftantive and its verb, is more friendly to a pause than the inverted order; but that in all the other connections, inverfion affords by far a better opportunity for a pause. And hence one great advantage of blank verfe over rhyme; its privilege of inverfion giving it a much greater choice of pauses, than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.

We now proceed to the flighter connections, which fhall be difcuffed in one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepofitions admit freely a pause between them, which will be clear from the following inftances:

Affume what fexes || and what fhape they please.

The light militia || of the lower sky.

Connecting particles were invented to unite in a period two fubftantives fignifying things occafionally united in the thought, but which have no natural union: and between two things not only feparable in idea, but really diftinct, the mind, for the fake of melody, chearfully admits by a pause a momentary disjunction of their occafional union.

One capital branch of the fubject is ftill upon hand, to which I am directed by what is juft now faid. It concerns thofe parts of fpeech which fingly represent no idea, and which become not fignificant till they be joined to other words: I mean. conjunctions, prepofitions, articles, and fuch like acceffories, paffing under the name of particles. Upon thefe the question occurs, Whether they can be separated by a paufe from the words that make them fignificant? whether, for example, in the following lines, the feparation of the ac

ceffory