95 



ner. So that on thefe two vowels only, we have a fwarm of teleutics 

 that buzz through one half of a blank-verfe poem ! As if the poet 

 had literally intended to hum us. Le Clerc, did not find better 

 rhimes in the fecond pfalm, where five out of his feven oiJ.mm-Kima. end in 

 this very vowel, having the fame unvaried return, Mo : yet the learned have 

 acknowledged their legitimacy. I admit that the Italians do not deno- 

 minate thefe vocal terminations rhimes; for that their rhimes have taken 

 a more artificial cad; : but this proves nothing, we are fpeaking of rhime 

 as it is in nature, not in nations. National echoes may be as remote 

 from truth, as the execution of the elbow is diftant from the fimplicity 

 of a Scotch air, or a fqueak from the rhime mafcuUne. And what is 

 rhime but the voice of nature and harmony of repetition ? The fame 

 which the ancients imperfonated and deified under the title Echo or 

 Imago, that imaged the poet's notes, whofe founds flie repeated in the 

 very voice and accents of the bard himfelf. Man, unpoliflied man, felt 

 himfelf a part of that univerfal harmony, and foon learned to imitate 

 what unerring nature had taught him ; for of all animals, man is the 

 moft imitative. Hence we find the lively and philofophic Greeks ap- 

 propriating the air of Tempe to the refidence of the Mufes, where 

 the refounding hills of Parnaflus and other mountains, colles colUbus ipfts, 

 returned the fame repeated notes the one to the other, as if nature 

 herfelf were reverberating her own harmonies. Hence too, we find 

 their writers of paftoral, who followed nature in all things, conftantly 

 obferving that Echo, in refponfive founds imitated the fliepherd's mufic, 

 or tliat harmony with which nature had infpired her bards. The Romans 

 likewife felt its truth ; it did not efcape the obfervation of their great 

 paftoral poet, when he fiiid refpondent omjiia fylvce, and caufed all the 

 groves to echo every fyllable, every letter, every rhime, for fuch it is 

 in all its elements, of the moft harmonious verfe that ever the hand of 

 a mafter compofed. 



" Formofara refonaie doces Amaryllida fylvas." 



Our 



