modation of the sound to the sense, or the representation of particular images by the flow of the verse in which they are expressed. Every student has innumerable passages in which he, and perhaps he alone, discovers such resemblances; and since the attention of the present race of poetical readers seems particularly turned upon this species of elegance, I shall endeavour to examine how much these conformities have been observed by the poets, or directed by the critics, how far they can be established upon nature and reason, and on what occasions they have been practised by Milton.

Homer, the father of all poetical beauty, has been particularly celebrated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as he that, of all the poets, exhibited the greatest variety of sound; for there are, says he, innumerable passages, in which length of time, bulk of body, extremity of passion, and stillness of repose; or in which, on the contrary, brevity, speed, and eagerness, are evidently marked out by the sound of the syllables. Thus the anguish and slow pace with which the blind Polypheme groped out with his hands the entrance of his cave, are perceived in the cadence of the verses which describe it.

Κύκλωψ δε σεναχων τε και ωδίνων οδύνησι,
Χεσρι ψηλοφρων

Meantime the cyclop raging with his wound,

Spreads his wide arms, and searches round and round.

POPE.

The critic then proceeds to show, that the efforts of Achilles struggling in his armour against the current of a river, sometimes resisting and sometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elisions of the syllables, the slow succession of the feet, and the strength of the consonants.

Δεινον δ' αμφ' Αχιλήα κυκώμενον ιτατο κύμα.
Ώθει δ' εν σάκει πιπτων ροος ουδε πόδεσσιν
Εσκε σηριξασθαι.

So oft the surge in watery mountains spread
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head,
Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash'd from beneath him slides the slimy soil.

POPE.

When Homer describes the crush of men dashed against a rock, he collects the most unpleasing and harsh sounds.

Συν δε δυω μαρψας, ωςε σκυλακας ποτι γαιη
Κοπτ' εκ δ' εγκεφαλος χαμαδις ρεε, δευε δε γαιαν.

His bloody hand

Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band,
And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor;
The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.

POPE.

And when he would place before the eyes something dreadful and astonishing, he makes choice of the strongest vowels, and the letters of most difficult utterance.

Τη δ' επι μεν Γογω βλοσυρωπις εσεφάνωτο
Δεινον δερκομηυη· περι δε Δειμος τε φοβος τε.

Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,
And circling terrors fill'd the' expressive shield.

POPE.

It

Many other examples Dionysius produces; but these will sufficiently show, that either he was fanciful, or we have lost the genuine pronunciation; for I know not whether, in any one of these instances, such similitude can be discovered. seems, indeed, probable, that the veneration with which Homer was read produced many supposititious beauties; for though it is certain that the sound of many of his verses very justly corresponds with the things expressed, yet when the force of his imagination, which gave him full possession of every object, is considered, together with the flexibility of

his language, of which the syllables might be often contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will seem unlikely that such conformity should happen less frequently even without design.

It is not, however, to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light of criticism, and who owed so much of his success to art and labour, endeavoured, among other excellences, to exhibit this similitude; nor has he been less happy in this than in the other graces of versification. This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival of learning, displayed with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.

Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum.—
Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
Atque sono quæcunque canunt imitantur, et apta
Verborum facie, et quæsito carminis ore.
Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,—
Hic melior motuque pedum, et pernicibus alis,
Molle viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:
Ille autem membris, ac mole, ignavius, ingens
Incedit, tardo molimine subsidendo.

Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,
Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.
Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit et artus,
Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,
Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso.-

Ergo ubi jam nautæ, spumas salis ære ruentes
Incubuere mari, videas spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus, æquor.
Tunc longè sala saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis
Incipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus
Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda
Ad scopulos, cumulo insequitur præruptus aquæ mons.—
Cum vero ex alto speculatus cærula Nereus
Leniit in morem stagni, placidæque paludis,
Labitur uncta vadis abies, natat uncta carina.—
Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
Ingentesque juvant ingentia: cuncta gigantem
Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa, lacertique.
Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,

Adde moram, et pariter tecumquoque verba laborent
Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
Eternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
At mora si fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor;
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum, perculsus graviter, procumbit humi bos,
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultro
Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis,

In medio interrupta: quiérunt cum freta ponti,
Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
Cernere erit, mediisque incæptis sistere versum.
Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?

Nam quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:
Sanguis hebet, frigent effœtæ in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces
Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
Ingentes, totaque, ferum, dare funera campo.

'Tis not enough his verses to complete, In measure, number, or determined feet. To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense, And make the sound a picture of the sense: The correspondent words exactly frame, The look, the features, and the mien the same. With rapid feet and wings, without delay, This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away: This blooms with youth and beauty in his face, And Venus breathes on every limb a grace; That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows, Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows; His monstrous tail in many a fold and wind, Voluminous and vast, curls up behind; At once the image and the lines appear Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear. Lo! when the sailors steer the ponderous ships, And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps, Incumbent on the main that roars around, Beneath the labouring oars the waves resound:

The prows wide echoing through the dark profound.
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Toss'd by the storm the towering surges rise;
While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore;
Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar.
Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rise and overhang the deep..
But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging seas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.
When things are small, the terms should still be so;
For low words please us, when the theme is low.
But when some giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait and vast in every limb,
Stalks towering on; the swelling words must rise
In just proportion to the monster's size.

If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce move.
When each stiff clod beneath the ponderous plough
Crumbles and breaks, the encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor less when pilots catch the friendly gales,

Unfurl their shrouds and hoist the wide stretch'd sails.
But if the poem suffers from delay,

Let the lines fly precipitate away,

And when the viper issues from the brake,

Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire attack
His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.

When night descends, or stunn'd by numerous strokes,
And groaning to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too sinks with correspondent sound,
Flat with the steer and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves subside and tempests cease,
And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;
So oft we see the interrupted strain

Stopp'd in the midst-and with the silent main
Pause for a space-at last it glides again.
When Priam strains his aged arms to throw
His unavailing javelin at the foe

(His blood congeal'd and every nerve unstrung),
Then with the theme complies the artful song:
Like him the solitary numbers flow,

Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow.
Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.