104 On RTTHMICAL MEASURES. 



fcribing. This perhaps cannot with ftn<5l propriety be called 

 verfe ; it wants one of the eflential characters of verfe, a di- 

 flincft return. The feet indeed mark times, which may be ex- 

 preffed as equal ; but there is no circumftance in the rythm to 

 lead the hearer to form thefe times into combinations of any 

 one number in preference to another, befides the mere artifice 

 of writing the intended combinations in feparate lines. It is 

 impoflible to read it, fo as to maintain in the hearer the impref- 

 fion of the combination, without often doing violence to the 

 fenfe, by feparating words which ought to be united. One 

 may be eafily fatisfied of this, by reciting the firft fentence of 

 MiLTOTSi's Paradife Loft, in which almoft every line terminates 

 in the middle of a clavife. In reading fuch paflages, the paufes 

 muft often be omitted, and the meafure facrificed to the fenfe. 

 This verfe, however, if it may be called fuch, has been thought 

 to be of all others the moft proper for poems of confiderable 

 extent, upon fubjecfls that are great and dignified: The ieeming 

 imperfedions, which have been ftated above, are perhaps the 

 circumftances which contribute to render it fo. The alternate 

 fucceflion of long and fliort, or of ftrong and feeble fyllables, 

 which generally takes place, gives a fmoothnefs and a regular 

 flow to the language, which fufficiently diftinguifhes it from 

 profe, while, at the fame time, it does not folicit the attention 

 fo ftrongly, as to render frequent repetition difguftful ; and the 

 deviations which are occafionally made from that arrangement, 

 give a variety to the cadence, and often a very happy expreffion 

 to particular paflages. The proper meafure of the verfe, or 

 that which feems intended by the poet, is often obfcured, and 

 even changed, by the different breaks or divifions which occur 

 in the lines, and by the continuation of grammatical claufes 

 from one line to another. The unequal combinations of the 

 feet, however, which are thus formed, like the obfcure and 

 unequal combinations of the bars in an extended piece of fe- 

 rious mufic, both give a variety, and add a dignity and folem- 



nity 



