3* 



As the ancient poetry of every language undergoes feme change in 

 its progrefs towards refinement, this mode of verfe has been difufed 

 for a longer and more varied meafure, but never to the exclufion of 

 the rhime, the monofyllabic nature, perhaps, demanding it.* Their poetry 

 has now become highly cultivated, for which ftate the various tones 

 or vocal inflexions of which the fame word is capable, together with 

 its numerous and mufical dipthongs, peculiarly fit it. In one refpeft 

 it excels any European verfe I have feen : while that is content with 

 the correfponding found, they take care of the fentiment, which muft 

 accord in the flated verfe of the ftanza, and no other. When this 

 mode is followed, they inviolably obferve it, executing the poem after 

 the raoft claflical manner, not furpafled by any ancient or modern ex- 

 amples. Could one thing more than another dignify the rhime, this 

 furely gives it preeminence, the rhime and the fentiment, and the 

 fentiment and the rhime, harmonizing together, each in its proper and 

 allotted place. At other times, not Mr. Pope himfelf, that grand maf- 

 ter of antithcfis, could fet off a rhime with an oppofition in the thought 

 to more advantage : on fuch occasions, the lints form a rhiming anti- 

 pofition, fometimes of the paffions, fometimes of the elements, fometimes 

 of the feafons, the hours, &c. as love is oppofed to hatred, fire to wa- 

 ter, fummer to winter, morning to night &c. This, undoubtedly, while 

 it enriches their poetry, gives infinite variety to their verfe, and if they 

 do not afcend to the boldefl; flights of Pindar, for which the very na- 

 ture of their verfe, regulated by the ftrifteft laws, unqualifies them, 

 yet, in the ode they principally excel, and in that are not tranfcended 

 by any Grecian mailer, for a noble and dignified fimplicity.f In their 



anacreontics 



* " Tutte !e parole pero fon' monofiUabe ; ma accoppiandofi I'una coll' altra, con 

 cert' ordlne fiflb, e determinate ; vi li richiede, per apprender la lingua, uno ftudiio 

 faticofiflimo." {Fiaggio fcff. dal Signor jiureliano degl't Anft. Printed at Parma, 169Z ) 



f Diogenes Laertes and Atbenseus have, each preferved to us a hymn to Virtue, the 

 eompofition of Ariflotle, and very improperly, I think, called by thera a See/ion. Sca- 



lifiW, 



