L

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 founds well adjusted, and knew the compafs and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; fince he was both a musician and a critic: but he feems to have confidered these conformities of measure, 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 affigned the fame caft of numbers to the fame fubjects. He has given in two paffages very minute descriptions of angelic beauty; but though the images are nearly the fame, the numbers will be found upon comparison very different.

And now a ftripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet fuch as in his face
Youth fmil'd celeftial, and to ev'ry limb
Suitable grace diffus'd, fo well he feign'd;
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume, fprinkled with gold.

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony, and therefore by no means correfpondent with that fymmetrical elegance and eafy grace which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however, is fully compenfated by the reprefentation of Raphael, which equally delights the ear and imagination.

Q 2

A

A feraph wing'd: fix wings he wore, to fhade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each fhoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breaft
With regal ornament; the middle pair

Girt like a ftarry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in heaven; the third his feet
Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
Sky-tinctur'd grain! Like Maia's fon he stood,
And fhook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide.

The adumbration of particular and distinct images by an exact and perceptible refemblance of found, is fometimes ftudied, and fometimes cafual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises which they fignify. Such are ftridor, balo, and beatus, in Latin; and in Englifh, to growl, to buzz, to hifs, and to jarr. Words of this kind give to a verse the proper fimilitude of found without much labour of the writer, and its happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to fortune than fkill; yet they are fometimes combined with great propriety, and contribute to enforce the impreffion of the idea. We hear the paffing arrow in this line of Virgil; Et fugit horrendum ftridens elapfa fagitta;

and the creaking of hell-gates in the description by Milton;

Open fly

With impetuous recoil, and jarring found

Th

Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harfh thunder.

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have obferved, feem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionyfius himself tells us, that the found of Homer's verfes fometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk. Is not this a discovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after a long inquiry into the nature of the fcarlet colour, found that it reprefented nothing fo much as the clangor of a trumpet? The reprefentative power of poetic harmony confifts of found and measure; of the force of the fyllables fingly confidered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound can refemble nothing but found, and time can measure nothing but motion and duration.

The critics, however, have ftruck out other fimilitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which 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 cælum, et ruit oceano nox.Sternitur, exanimifque tremens procumbit humi bos.Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.—

If all these criticisms are juft, there must be some remarkable conformity between the fudden fucceffion of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; fince we are

told

told of all these images, that they are very strongly impreffed by the fame form and termination of the verfe.

We may, however, without giving way to enthufiafm, admit, that fome beauties of this kind may be produced. A fudden ftop at an unusual fyllable may image the ceffation of action, or the pause of difcourfe. And Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

I fled, and cry'd out Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and figh'd From all her caves, and back refounded Death!

be

va

The measure or time of pronouncing may ried, fo as very strongly to reprefent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or flow fucceffion of ideas, and confequently the paffions of the mind. This at least was the power of the fpondaic and dactylic harmony; but our language can reach no eminent diversities of found. We can indeed fometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, fhew the difficulty of a progrefs made by ftrong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or mark a flow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan ftruggling through chaos:

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Mov'd on with difficulty and labour he

Thus he has defcribed the leviathans or whales :

Wallowing, unweildy, enormous in their gait.

But

But he has at other times neglected fuch reprefentations; as may be obferved in the volubility and levity of thefe lines, which express an action. tardy and reluctant.

Defcent and fall

To us is adverfe. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Infulting, and purfu'd us through the deep,
With what confufion and laborious flight
We funk thus low! Th' afcent is eafy then.

In another place he defcribes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line remarkably rough and halting.

Tripping ebb; that stole

With foft foot tow'rds the deep; who now had stopp'd His fluices.

It is not indeed to be expected, that the found fhould always affift the meaning; but it ought never to counteract it: and therefore Milton has here certainly committed a fault like that of the player, who looked on the earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addreffed the earth.

Those who are determined to find in Milton an affemblage of all the excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be offended, that I do not celebrate his verfification in higher terms; for there are readers who difcover, in this paffage,

So