thing could exist in speech, would be agreeable, though less so than one composed entirely of quantity. A versification made. up of both these functions, might give no offence to a person uninformed of the nature of quantity; for, since syllables which are constructed on the basis of quantity, may exhibit likewise the effect of accentual stress, the system might pass for one of entire accent. He who is skilled in the art of measuring the time of syllables, will, over this compounded rythmus, be shocked by the irregular and unexpected variation of its dissimilar impressions. An ear of delicate prosodial organization, which yet makes no analysis of its perceptions, often experiences this rythmic violence from English verse, but is ignorant of its cause. He whom nature has made a poet, by refinement of ear and by copiousness of words, instinctively avoids, in composition, much of the evil of these conflicting systems. But writers who have only a poor unfurnished ambition, who know nothing of sound, and who promiscuously mingle in their lines, the weight and the measure of syllables, commit distressing offence against those who, from some necessity, may have patience to go through their works. One of the charms of a good reader of verse, consists in his changing our metrical accents into conspicuous quantities, by protracting the voice on all those syllables which have a stress in the measure, and will bear prolongation.

From all that has been said on the comparative natures of quantity and accent, and from the slow progress of modern nations in distinguishing the relations of the former, it would seem, that, of these two metrical impressions, accent is more easily recognised. Nor is it unwarrantable to infer, from the greater facility in arranging the accentual measure, that the first rythmic essays of all nations were made in this mode of versification; and that the Greeks themselves passed through this rattling amusement of poetical childhood. We owe no obligation to authority or fact, in opposition to this assumption; and I could as soon be persuaded that the first instrumental music of Otaheite was not the clattering of shells, as that the earliest songs of Greece were measured by the nice relationships of time. Our language is not indeed young in duration, but it is still in its infancy on this point and many of those who have worked with good wishes, but ineffectual

means, towards its improvement; and who, by taste and authority, have been qualified to listen to living voices, with progressively meliorating influence upon them, have only wandered off with an unavailing ear, among the silent graves of language in the remote realms of antiquity. We all feel an august delight over the works of the distant dead: There is scarcely a page of the poetic rythmus of the Greeks and the Romans, or a remaining trace of their plummet and chisel, that might not make me forget, through intense contemplation, the mere seclusion of a prison. But I could as soon admit, that the modern zeal in freighting our homeward ships with the fragments of their temples; and the covetousness of nations for the very purloined possession of their statuary, ought to preclude the future use of the marble of our mountains, for the accomplishment of equal or transcending works of art, as that a just admiration of classic measure should prevent the endeavour to transfer to our own language, the admissible principles of Greek and Roman poetry.

I have offered the last few pages of this section, as no more than digressive and desultory remarks on a subject intimately connected with the time of the voice, and with the cultivation of an important but neglected accident of speech.

The English language has an unbounded prospect before it. The unequalled millions of a great continent must hold a wide community, in the pleasures and interests of its advancement. I can not so far undervalue the emulative efforts of that great population which must hereafter form its literary class, as to suppose they will all merely vaunt in retrospective vanity, over what has been done, and not extend their views to other and deeper resources of their art. But, in thus looking forward to the establishment of English versification, on the basis of quantity, I see the limitation of the poet's abundance, by the substituted excellence of his few but finished lines. Our measure is now drawn from the two different sources of accent and quantity. To construct a rythmus by quantity alone, will require more rejections, and a wider search in composition; more copiousness in the command of words; more accuracy of ear, and longer labour for a shorter work. I am here speaking of the great products of the pen. Of these, as of all perdurable human excellence, labour must be the means; and the

calculation of its extent will therefore always form one of the duties of judgment, in decreeing reward. Let him who could patiently devote a life to laying up store of 'goodly thoughts' for Paradise Lost, unravel the idler's fable about the inspiration of the immortal works of man. Let them, who to the soul of genius have joined the strong body of laborious care, say, in what consists the true life and the embalming of fame : let them touch the sleeve of early and voluminous authorship, and whisper one of the useful secrets for accomplishing more to instruct and please, and less to perish.

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SECTION X.

Of the Expression of Melody.

A comprehensive account of melody, would properly represent it as produced by a variation in the time, pauses, and pitch of the voice; since the well appointed uses and disposition of these accidents, make up the agreeable impression of speech. In two previous sections I have discussed separately the subjects of time and pitch. I propose to consider here, how far merely the progressive steps of melody are instrumental in the work of expression.

The various successions of radical pitch were, on a former occasion, traced to their ultimate forms, and designated by the definite terms of their phrases. I have now to show that some of these phrases may be employed as the appropriate signs of certain sentiments. The design of this section does not embrace the consideration of the triad of the cadence which properly expresses no more than a feeling of repose and it has been already shown in its proper place, that a varied succession of all the phrases, produces the plain and unobtrusive effect of the Diatonic melody.

The Monotone and the Alternate phrase, are the only modes of melodial progression which attract the ear by a peculiarity of character, and thereby fulfil any remarkable purpose of expression.

A predominance of the monotone in melody, is suited to feelings of dignity, grief, tenderness, solemnity, and serious admonition.

The phrase of alternation is expressive of the more active sentiments of anger, joy and facetiousness, and to the earnest strife of argument. It is, however, to be taken into view, that the current melody must not consist altogether of either of these phrases. This would produce a disagreeable uniformity. The monotone should be occasionally broken by the rising or falling ditone; and the alternation as frequently varied by a limited monotone.

An illustration of the dignified expression of the monotone may be given, on that magnificent picture of Satan's imperial presence in Pandemonium, at the opening of the Second Book of Paradise Lost.

High on

a throne of roy-al state, which far

Outshone

the wealth of Or-mus and of Ind,

Or where the gor-geous

East with rich-est hand

Show-ers on her kings bar-ba-ric pearl and gold,

The greater part of this melody is in monotone. I do not say the passage requires, exclusively, the order here given to the variations from the predominant phrase, since an accomplished reader might alter the arrangement with equal or superior effect. But I venture to claim that reader's accordance with the confident assertion, that if an equal amount of monotone, however disposed, be not allotted to these lines, the utterance will be, according to the degree of deviation, more or less at variance with the sentiment of the poet, and the rapt dignity of the reader's contemplation.*

* With due apology for the digression, I beg leave to return for a moment to the subject of the last section, by remarking, that the poet, with a rich instinct of versification, has thickly set the lines above quoted, with long quantities, in happy adaptation to the stately sentiment of the description.

I use here, rather remarkably, the term instinct of versification, not in oversight of the bright intelligence with which this extraordinary man executed every high design and every tittle of his work; but because it is clearly seen, he did not intend to construct the measure of his poem by the rules of quantity alone. The development of the resources of the accentual measure by Milton, was a new and absorbing labour. Had this advance-step preceded him, the originality and restless enterprise of his genius would most probably have joined with the many principles of Greek and Roman composition, so happily transferred to his own language, the accomplishment of the supposed impossibility of adopting the mode of their rythmus. In the above example, where the majesty of his thought secured so much homage from his ear, some of the quantities suddenly arrest that perception of continued movement and deliberate dignity, which the protracted time of the generality of the measure produces. The syllables' state,' 'rich,' and 'sat,' are too short, for the otherwise good iambic temporal rythmus of these lines: and the word barbaric occasions some irregular contrariety in the impressions of quantity and accent. In the abstract pronunciation of this word, the first syllable, 'bar,' is somewhat longer than the second, which, by its nature will not, in this case, bear unusual extension. But the longer syllable is here in the place of the weak syllable of iambic accent; and the impressiveness of exceeding length thus reverses the succession of the prevailing rythmus. Nor does the simple meaning of the epithet 'barbaric,' allow a sufficient degree of accentual stress on the second syllable, to over-rule the impressiveness of the greater length of the first. If the reader will substitute the adjective 'orient' for 'barbaric,' and overlook the deterioration of style produced by the change, he will perceive, by comparison, the difference between the accentual and the temporal rythmus, which I have just endeavoured to explain.

Showers on her kings | her ōr | iënt pear! | ănd gold.

Now, whether the first and the fourth foot be considered respectively in their order, a trochee and an iambus, as I have marked them, or as a dactyl and an

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