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But, to preserve the series of sounds untrans- | posed 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

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Thus at their shady lodge arrived both stood,
Both turn'd, and under open sky adored
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,
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 uncropp'd falls to the ground;
But thou hast promised 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 arrived, both stood,
Both turn'd, and under open sky adored

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven.

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.

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 commit ted 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 Iambic, consisting of short and long syllables al ternately, from which our heroic measure is de rived, and the Trochaic, consisting in a like altera tion 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 suffisought auxiliaries on such an occasion against cient to detect dissonance, nor should I have any name but that of Milton.

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FRANCIS.

THAT few things are so liberally bestowed, or In the first pair of syllables the accent may devi- has been generally observed; and many sage posquandered with so little effect, as good advice, ate from the rigour of exactness, without any un-sitions have been advanced concerning the reapleasing diminution of harmony, as may be observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,

-Thou also mads't 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:

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sons 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 shown it.

This perverse neglect of the most salutary precepts, and stubborn resistance of the most pathetic persuasion, is usually imputed to him by whom the counsel is received, and we often hear it mentioned as a sign of hopeless depravi ty, 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 adminis- viate the rage with which the slothful, the impoter, and with what vehicles to disguise the cathar-tent, and the unsuccessful, vent their discontent tics of the soul. 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.

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 power increased, by any methods of preparing it.

The number of those whom the love of them. selves 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 in

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 zeal-structions with a visible sense of their own beneous 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.

ficence: and few to whom it is not unpleasing to receive documents, however tenderly and cautiously delivered, or who are not willing to raise theniselves from pupilage, by disputing the propos.ions of their teacher.

It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of It is not often that any man can have so much Arragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The knowledge of another, as is necessary to make grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the instruction useful. We are sometimes not our-information that we receive from books is pure selves 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.

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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 ob

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 ser vice 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 im partiality, 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 thei 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 ax ioms of justice, They purpose either to con sume 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 trea sures 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 pre cept 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 subtility, while the chief use of his volumes is unthought

of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unre- monosyllables is almost always harsh. This, formed. with regard to our language, is evidently true, not because monosyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monosyllables being of Teutonic original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and end with consonants, as, -Every lower faculty

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.

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But he that bath a curious piece design'd,
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 eare,
Shake off; though stubborn, they are loath to move,
And though we fancy, dearly though we love.-CREECH.

"THERE is no reputation for genius," says Quin-
tilian, "to be gained by writing on things, which,
however necessary, have little splendour or show.
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 can-
not 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

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 flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream;
With these that neverfade, 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 inlay

Broidered the ground, more coloured 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 heavenly choirs the hymenean sung.

Milton, whose ear bad been accustomed, not only to the music 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 lan guage 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 music 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 syi lables than to his accents, and does not often of fend 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

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Lost" have, without much deliberation, commended Milton for continuing it. 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.

Milton frequently uses in his poems the hy permetrical or redundant line of eleven syllables

-Thus it shall befall
Him whom to worth in woman over-trusting
Lets her will rule.-

I also err'd in over-much admiring.

Verses of this kind occur almost in every There is reason to believe that we have negli- page; but, though they are not unpleasing or gently lost part of our vowels, and that the silent dissonant, they ought to be admitted into heroic e, which our ancestors added to the most of our allow us no other distinction of epic and tragic poetry, since the narrow limits of our language monosyllables, was once vocal. By this detruncation of our syllables, our language is over-ing at will the terminations of the dramatic lines, measures, than is afforded by the liberty of changstocked with consonants, and it is more necessary, to add vowels to the beginning of words, than

to cut them off from the end.

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

No. 89.]

TUESDAY, JAN. 22, 1751.

Dulce est desipere in loco.
Wisdom at proper times is well forgotten.

HOR.

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 strong-LOCKE, whom there is no reason to suspect of ly 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, Inhospitably, and kills their infant males.

And vital Virtue infused, 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 music 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,
Abominable, inutterable; and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd-

-From the shore

They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss,
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire.
To none communicable in earth or heaven.

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 amuse

ment.

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 how, to distant tracts of thought, and returns to perceives himself transported, he knows not 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 out 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 In the original Rambler, in folio, our author's opinion miss the way, and many because they leave it by. appears different, and is thus expressed:-"This license, choice, and, instead of pressing onward with a though an innovation in English poetry, is yet allowed in any other languages ancient and modern, and therefore steady pace, delight themselves with momentary the critics on Paradise Lost' have, without much delibera- deviations, turn aside to pluck every flower, and

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.

tion, commended Milton for introducing it.”

repose in every shade.

beginning to seize him, should turn his whole attention against it, and check it at the first disco. very by proper counteraction.

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, re- The great resolution to be formed, when hapformed by admonition, or rejected by the convic-piness and virtue are thus formidably invaded, tion which the comparison of our conduct with is, that no part of life be spent in a state of neu that of others may in time produce. But this in- trality or indifference; but that some pleasurevisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of be found for every moment that is not devoted to being, is secure from detection, and fearless of labour; and that, whenever the necessary busi reproach. The dreamer retires to his apart-ness of life grows irksome or disgusting, an imments, shuts out the cares and interruptions of mediate transition be made to diversion and mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy; gayety. new worlds rise up before him, one image is After the exercises which the health of the followed by another, and a long succession of body requires, and which have themselves a nadelights dances round him. He is at last called tural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, back to life by nature, or by custom, and enters the most eligible amusement of a rational being peevish into society, because he cannot model it seems to be that interchange of thoughts which to his own will. He returns from his idle ex-is practised in free and easy conversation; where cursions 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 symptom 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 stoic precept, teach his desires to fix upon eternal 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 narcotic infection

suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to of fend, 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 topics, 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. Heroic 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 solitude, invite the mo dest to freedom, and exalt the timorous to confi dence. This easy gayety 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 dif ference between great and amiable characters; with protectors we are safe, with companions we are happy.

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