whose choice and variety of language readily supplies him with just representations. To such a writer it is natural to change his measure with his subject, even without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgement. To revolve jollity and mirth necessarily tunes the voice of a poet to gay and sprightly notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection on gloomy situations and disastrous events, will sadden his numbers, as it will cloud his countenance. But in such passages there is only the similitude of pleasure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without any immediate application to particular images. The same flow of joyous versification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation of triumph; and the same languor of melody will suit the complaints of an absent lover, as of a conquered king.

It is scarcely to be doubted, that on many occasions we make the music which we imagine ourselves to hear; that we modulate the poem by our own disposition, and ascribe to the numbers the effects of the sense. We may observe in life, that it is not easy to deliver a pleasing message in an unpleasing manner, and that we readily associate beauty and deformity with those whom for any reason we love or hate. Yet it would be too daring to declare that all the celebrated adaptations of harmony are chimerical; that Homer had no extraordinary attention to the melody of his verse when he described a nuptial festivity:

Νυμφὰς δ ̓ ἐκ θαλάμων, δαίδων, ὑπολαμπομενάων,
Ηγίνεον ἀνὰ ἀστὸ πολὺς δ ̓ ὑμέναιος ὀρώρει;

Here sacred pomp, and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;

The youthful dancers in a circle bound

To the soft flute, and cittern's silver sound.

POPE.

that Vida was merely fanciful, when he supposed Virgil endeavouring to represent, by uncommon sweetness of numbers, the adventitious beauty of Æneas;

Os, humerosque Deo similis: namque ipse decoram
Cæsariem nato genitrix, lumenque juventa
Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflarat honores.

The Trojan chief appear'd in open sight,
August in visage, and serenely bright.
His mother goddess, with her hands divine,

ÆN. i. 593.

Had form'd his curling locks, and made his temples shine;
And given his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,

And breathed a youthful vigour on his face.

DRYDEN.

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.

P. L. v. 195.

That Milton understood the force of sounds well adjusted, and knew the compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted, since he was both a musician and a critic; but he seems to have considered these conformities of cadence, 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 assigned the same cast of numbers to the same subjects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelic beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be found, upon comparison, very

different.

And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to ev'ry limb
Suitable grace diffused, so 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, sprinkled with gold.

P. L. iii. 636.

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony, and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance and easy grace which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however, is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally delights the ear and imagination:

A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair

Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in Heaven: the third his feet
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
Sky-tinctured grain! like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide.-

ib. v. 277.

The adumbration of particular and distinct images by an exact and perceptible resemblance of sound, is sometimes studied, and sometimes casual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises which they signify. Such are Stridor, Balo, and Beatus, in Latin; and in English, to growl, to buzz, to hiss, and to jar. Words of this kind give to a verse the proper similitude of sound, without much labour of the writer, and such happiness is therefore rather to be attributed to fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great pro◄

priety, and undeniably contribute to enforce the impression of the idea. We hear the passing arrow in this line of Virgil:

Et fugit horrendum stridens elapsa sagitta ;

Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing.

EN. ix. 632.

POPE.

and the creaking of hell-gates, in the description by Milton:

-Open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

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

P. L. ii. 879.

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have observed, seem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionysius himself tells us, that the sound of Homer's verses sometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk: is not this a discovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after long inquiry into the nature of the scarlet colour, found that it represented nothing so much as the clangor of a trumpet? The representative power of poetic harmony consists of sound and measure; of the force of the syllables singly considered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound can resemble nothing but sound, and time can measure nothing but motion and duration.

The critics, however, have struck out other similitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which credulous 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 intereà cœlum, et ruit oceano nox.

VIRG. ÆN. ii. 250.

Meantime the rapid heavens roll'd down the light,
And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night.

DRYDEN.

Sternitur, exanimisque tremens procumbit humi bos.

N. v. 481.

Down drops the beast, nor needs a second wound;
But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.

Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.

DRYDEN,

ARS. POET, 139.

The mountains labour, and a mouse is born.

ROSCOMMON.

If all these observations are just, there must be some remarkable conformity between the sudden succession of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; since we are told of all these images, that they are very strongly impressed by the same form and termination of the

verse.

We may, however, without giving way to enthusiasm, admit that some beauties of this kind may be produced. A sudden stop at an unusual syllable may image the cessation of action, or the pause of discourse; and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

-I fled, and cried out Death:

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded Death,

P. L. ii. 787.

The measure or time in pronouncing may be varied so as very strongly to represent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or slow succession