1797-] 
ainufement of the monks, tillthe reforma- 
tion. Harrington,in his Nuse Antique, 
has preferved a hymn, with the notes, 
which was fung in their cells, till, he 
fays, ‘‘ goodlie king Henry fpoiled their 
fynging’’ "The hymn* was called 
*¢ Black Sauntc,’ or, ‘Hymn to Saunte 
Satan.”” From the authors of fuch en- 
chariting firains, was it too much to ex- 
pect improvements upon the Pindar.c or 
Horatian lyre ? 
In order to eftimate, correétly, the va- 
lue of this improvement, let us endea- 
vour to analyfe the nature, and invef- 
tigate the operation of rhyme. Rhyme 
is the repetition of the fame found, or 
founds, at intervals, either regular, or 
irregular. Sometimes the rhyming fyl- 
lables: are fingle, fometimes double ; 
fometimes the rhymes occur uniformly in 
couplets ; fometimes they are placed al- 
ternately, or in forms ftill more complex. 
In all thefe varieties, it is very evident, 
that the pleafure which rhymes afford, 
does not altogether arife from the repe- 
tition of fimilar founds. No ear would 
be gratified with the recital of a column 
of rhyming words, from a fpelling-book, 
or a rhyming didtionary. In lines of 
unequal length, written without.any re- 
gard to numbers, the etfeét of the rhymes 
is loft; as will be eafily perceived, in 
the following lines, from Dean Swift’s 
Mrs. Harris’s Petition : 
6 T was never talcen for a cunjuror before, I’d 
have you to know ; 
Lord, faid I, don’t be angry, I’m fure, I never 
thought you fo: 
_ You know, I honour the cloth ; I defign to be 
a parion’s wife ; 
I never took one in your coat for a conjurer in 
all my life,” 
t 
As far, however, as the pleafure of, 
rhyme is to be referred fimply to the fre- 

PARRA Noh 
*-We give our learned Readers this 
mercel, in hopes that fome one of them will 
amufe himfelf with tranflating it ; 
HyMN To SAUNTE SATAN. 
O tu qui dans oratuls, feindis eriam novacula, 
Da noftra ut tabernacula, lingua canant vernacula, 
Ofima fff jentacula, hujufmodi mracula, 
Sit femper plenum poculum, habentes plenum lo- 
. culum, 
Ti ferva nos ut fpecula, fier longa et leta fecula, 
Ut clerus, ut plebecula, nec notte, nec diecula, 
Curent de uila recula, fed intuentes [pecula, 
Dura vitemus fpicula, yacentes cum amicula, 
Que garrit ut cornicula, feu triflia feu ridicula, 
Tum porrigamus efcula, tum colligampus flofculay 
Ornemus ut c@naculum, et totum habiiaculum, 
Zum culi poft fpiraculum, fpettemus hoc [peGan 
culum. af 
MonTHiy Mag. No XVI. 
The Enquirer. No. XU. 
quent recurrence of fimilar founds, it 
perhaps arifes chiefly, if not entirely, 
from the furprize excited by unexpected 
combinations, and is to be confidered as 
belonging to the lower fpecies of wit.— 
Tn converfation, fuch combinations of 
fimilar founds feldom occur; and there- 
fore, when they happen, we ufually no- 
tice them with fome degree of furprife. 
It is the continuation of the fame per- 
ception which we experience, when we 
hear the frequent return of rhymes in 
ftudied verfe: and hence it is, that in 
reading long works, written in rhyme, 
the pleafure, as far as depends upon the 
rhyming words alone, gradually decreafes, 
till, at length, the furprife ceafing, the 
repetition becomes tirefome. ‘ Rhyme 
(fays lord Kaims) rouzes the attention, 
and produces an emotion moderately 
gav, without dignity or elevation.”’ 
If this be the true explanation of the 
pleafure arifing from rhyming words, it 
is evident, that the ufe of this ornament, 
if it muft be called fuch, is a kind of 
Jow wit; and that the ear is gratified by 
it, for the fame reafom that the eye is 
amufed by anagrams and acroftics. Ir 
may then be fairly afked, what alliance 
is there between the puerile amufement 
of jingling fyliables, and the fublime and 
elegant pleafures of genuine poetry » 
We are difpleafed, when Shakfpeare 
intrudes a pun in the midft of his noble 
flights of fancy, or tender ftrokes of 
paihon : what, but cuftom, could enable 
us to endure, in the more elevated kinds 
of verfe, the perpetual intrufion of a 
ftill lower {pecies of wit, in the unufual 
combinations of fimilar founds? The 
noble exertions of creative genius are de- 
graded, and great things are confounded 
with fmall, when the poet clothes his 
grand conceptions in the fantaftic-drefs 
of rhyming couplets; and it is habit 
alone, which renders us infenfible of the 
incongruity. Could we diveft ourfelves 
of the prejudice arifing from habit, it 
would be impoffible to read two paflages 
of nearly equal pcetic merit, one in 
thyme, the other in blank verfe ;—fuch, 
for example, as Pope’s celebrated imita- 
tion of Homer's Night-Piece, at the 
end of the eighth book of the Iliad, 
and Miulton’s defcription of Night, in 
the fourth book of the Paradife Loft,— 
without feeling, that, while, in the latter, 
juft and beautiful imagery appears withe 
out alloy in all the dignity of poetical 
language, the former lofes fome portion 
of the effect of imagery equally juft and 
beautiful, by an Unfeaoaaule and incon- 
Na gruous 
275 
