ment. is apt to be cloyed with monotony. If we would keep alive the attention of the reader or hearer, if we would preserve vivacity and strength in our composition, we must be solicitous to vary our measures. This observation regards the distribution of the members, as well as the cadence of the period. Sentences constructed in a similar manner, with the pauses falling at equal intervals, should never follow each other. Short and long sentences ought to be properly intermixed, in order to render discourse sprightly, as well as magnifi Monotony is the great error into which those writers are apt to fall, who study harmonious arrange A very vulgar ear will enable an author to catch some kind of melody, and to form all his sentences according to it; but this oft-recurring modulation will soon produce satiety and disgust. A just and correct ear is requisite for diversifying the melody ; and hence we so seldom meet with authors remarkably happy in this respect. Though the music of sentences demands a very considerable degree of attention, yet this attention must be confined within moderate bounds. Every appearance of affectation of harmony is disagreeable ; especially if the love of it betray us so far as to sacrifice perspicuity, precision, or strength of sentiment, to sound. All unmeaning words, introduced merely to round the period, or complete the melody, are great blemishes in writing: they are childish ornaments, by which a sentence always loses more in point of significancy, than it can gain in point of melody. After all the labour bestowed by Quinctilian on regulating the measures of prose, he comes at last, with his usual a good sense, to this conclusion : “Upon the whole, I would rather chuse that composition should appear rough and harsh, if that be necessary, than that it should be enervated and effeminate, such as we find in the style of too many. Some sentences therefore which we have studiously formed into melody, should be thrown loose, that they may not seem too much laboured ; nor ought we ever to omit any proper or expressive word, for the sake of smoothing a period.”* Hitherto our attention has been directed to agreeable sound, or modulation in general. It yet remains to treat of a higher beauty, the sound adapted to the sense. This beauty may either be attained in prose or verse; but in illustrating its general principles, the writings of the poets will furnish us with the most copious and striking illustrations. The resemblance of poetical numbers to the subject which they mention or describe, may be considered as general or particular, as consisting in the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised in the sound of some emphatical and descriptive words, or in the cadence and harmony of single verses. A general analogy between the sound and the sense is to be found in every language which admits of poetry, in every author whose fancy enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice and variety of language readily supply him with just representations. To such a writer it is natural to change Quinctilian. de Institut. Orator. lib. ix. cap. iv. his measure with his subject, even without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgment. 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 reflections 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 of 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 complaint of an absent lover, and the lamentations of a conquered king. It is scarcely to be doubted that on many occasions we produce 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 real 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 we have reason to love or hate. Yet it would be too daring to declare that all the celebrated adaptations of harmony are chimerical ; that Homer, Virgil, and Milton, paid no extraordinary attention to their numbers in any of those passages where the sound is said to be an echo to the sense. There being frequently a strong resemblance of one a * Johnson's Rambler, No. 94. See likewise Dr. Whately's Elements of Rhetoric, p. 216. a sound to another, it will not be surprizing to find an articulate sound resembling one that is not articulate. Of this resemblance we meet with an exemplification in the following passages. On a sudden open fly, Milion. The string, let fly, The pilgrim oft : That there is any other natural resemblance of sound to signification, must not be taken for granted. There is evidently no similarity between sound and motion, or between sound and sentiment. We are apt to be deceived by an artful pronunciation : the same passage may be pronounced in many different tones, elevated or , humble, sweet or harsh, brisk or melancholy, so as to accord with the sentiment or thought. This concordance must be carefully distinguished from that between sound and sense; which may sometimes subsist without any dependence upon artful pronunciation. There is another circumstance which contributes still more to the deceit: sound and sense being intimately connected, the properties of the one are readily communicated to the other. Thus, for example, the quality of grandeur, of sweetness, or of melancholy, though solely belonging to the thought, is transferred to the word liy which that quality is expressed. In this manner, words bear an imaginary resemblance to those objects of which they are only the arbitrary signs. It is of the greatest importance to distinguish the natural resemblance of sound and signification, from those artificial resemblances which have now been described. From the instances lately adduced, it is evident that there may be a similarity between sounds articulate, and sounds inarticulate. But we may safely pronounce that this resemblance can be carried no further. The objects of the different senses have no similarity to each other : sound, whether articulate or inarticulate, bears no kind of analogy to taste or smell; and as little can it resemble internal sentiment, feeling, or emotion. Must we then admit that nothing but sound can be imitated by sound? Taking imitation in its proper sense, as importing a coincidence between different objects, the proposition must be admitted ; and yet in many passages which are not descriptive of sound, every one must be sensible of a peculiar concord between the sound of the words and their meaning. As there can be no doubt of the fact, what remains is to enquire into its cause. Resembling causes may produce effects which have no resemblance; and causes which have no resemblance may produce resembling effects. A magnificent building, for example, does not in any degree resemble an G |