ii5 
in the Exercife of its Faculties. 
pleafures of the eye and the ear, as Lord Kahns 
ingeniously obferves, in his Elements of Critici/m, 
holding the middle way between thefe two, are 
particulaily fitted to occupy the mind without 
exhauffing it. They relax it after intenle ftudy, 
and reftoie it to its proper tone, after the fatiety 
and difguft, caufed by the mere pleafures of the 
fenfes: they tend, therefore, mod effentially 
to prove the principle I mean to illuftrate. 
We fhall find, accordingly, that the agreeable 
fenfations we receive from the produ&ions of the 
fine arts, are, in a great meafure, owing to the 
order and fymmetry, which enable the mind 
to take in, without labour, ail the different 
parts of them. It is by this, that rhyme becomes 
agreeable in poetry. Some have contended in¬ 
deed, that this return of the fame founds, invented 
in the Gothic ages, ought to be clafied among 
the Acroftics, Anagrams, and fuch other frivo¬ 
lous productions, whofe only merit lies in their 
difficulty. They inftance the Greeks and the 
Romans, whofe poetry, far more harmonious 
than ours, charms the fenfe, and delights the 
ear, without the help of rhyme. Eut they do not 
feem to have attended fulficiently to the ufe of 
poetry, and the nature of the ancient languages. 
Verfcs are made to be fung, or to be rehearfed. 
From the mouth of the aCtor, the mufician, or the 
reader, whoever he may be, they are fuppofed 
to pais into the minds of a whole people ; and 
I 2 their 
