4797.) 
poet muft drop many thoughts and ex- 
preflions, which he might have wifhed 
to introduce, he muft be often guided in 
the choice and arrangement of his ideas 
_ by the words which he finds it neceflary 
to place at the clofe of his verfes. It 
will feldom happen, that both lines of a 
couplet will be entirely di€tated by fancy 
or fentiment ; a regard to the rhyme 
will almoft neceffarily di€tate the one or 
the other. A fmall degree of attention 
to the train of ideas in many of our moft 
admired poems, will fhow, that thoughts 
and expreffions are often introduced for 
the fake of the rhyme, which would not 
otherwife have been admitted. This is 
fo manifeft in every page of our modern 
rhyming verfions of the ancient poets, 
that it is a perverfion of terms to call 
them tranflations. 
been fairly tried, by two poets of ac- 
Knowledged excellence, in rendering 
into Englifh verfe the firft poem of an- 
tiquity : and though fome may be dif- 
pofed to think Pope’s Iliad a better poem 
than Cowper’s, few perfons will, I be- 
lieve, doubt, that, asa tranflation, the 
former is inferior tothe latter, and chiefly 
becaufe it is burdened with rhyme. The 
fame effe€&t is apparent in every other 
kind of ferious poetry. Take an ex- 
ainple from Pope’s Eloifa to Abelard : 
< Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have 
worn ! - 
Ye grots and caverns, fhage*’d with horrid 
thorn ! 
Shrines, where their vigils pale-ey’d virgins 
keep, 
And pitying faints, whofe {tatues learn to weep ! 
Tho’ cold, like you, unmov’d and filent grown, 
I have not yet forgot myfelf to fione.” 
Here, probably, the word shorn, hap- 
pening to rhyme with worn, fuggefted 
the image of the fecond line ; the fourth 
line was conceived before the third, and 
led the poet into the trivial expreffion, 
*¢ keep their vigils ;” and the laft line, 
alfo formed before its fellow, requiring 
a rhyme to the word /fone, prompted the 
flat and inelegant phrafe, “grown un- 
moyd and filent.’—When Pope had 
framed the ftrong line, 
- 66 An honeft man’s the nobleft work of God.’’ 
he was, doubtlefs, refolved, at all events, 
to make another line for its fake, and 
wrote, to precede it, the quaint verfe, 
«s A wit'sa feather, and a chief’s a rod.” 
Even writers of the firft order have 
fometimes been betrayed, by the feduc- 
tion of rhyme, into inharmonious and 
The Enquirer. No. XII. 
The experiment has 
277° 
‘unpoetical compofition, which could not 
have efcaped them in blank verfe. Pope 
has hazarded the following couplets : 
66 Unfinifh’d things one knows not what to 
call, 
Their generation's fo equivocal.” 
« Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, 
For there’s a hifipinefsy as well as-care.”’ 
And Dryden. in his rhyming tragedy 
of Aurengzebe has written : 

<* Are you fo loft to fhame ? 
Morat, Morat, Morat, you love the name 
So well, your every queftionends in shat, 
You force me fiill to aniwer you, Morar.” | 
Such miferable jingle as this, is little 
better than Sternhold’s eke alfo, and al- 
moft deferves a place with the following 
notable ftanza: 
«© And Og the giant large, 
And Bafan king alfa, 
Wohofe land, for heritage, 
He gave his people—rho”.” 
Another argument againft the ufe of 
rhyme, of too much weight to be omit- 
ted, is, that it produces a tirefome fimi- 
larity of expreffion in different poems. 
The rhyming vocabulary being, in every 
language, exceedingly imall, in compa- 
rifon with that of words proper for verfe, 
every verfifier mneceffarily turns his 
thoughts to the fame ftrings of rhyming 
words which have been hacknied by for- 
mer poets; and it js fcarcely poflible, ef- 
pecially on fimilar fubjeéts, that the fame 
rhymes fhould not frequently fuggeft to 
different writers fimilar ideas and expref- 
fions. Perhaps this circumftance, more 
than any other, has contributed to pro- 
duce the appearance of imitation in the 
writings of modern Englith poets, and 
to encourage an idea, by no means juft, 
that the falietts of poetry are almoft ex- 
haufted, and that genius will, in this 
late age, in vain attempt any thing 
new. 
Rhyme, then, inftead of being an or- 
nament, may be pronounced, in general, 
an incongruous appendage, and a trou- 
blefome encumbrance of verfe. In works 
of wit and humour, indeed, fuch as thofe 
of Butler and Swift, rhyme poffeffes its 
proper province, and may be advanta- 
geoufly retained, as a fource of unex- 
pected and whimfical combinations :— 
but from every other kind of poetical 
compofition, however bold the innova- 
tion, it might, perhaps, be a real im- 
provement to difmifs it altogether. The 
good fenfe, and correét tafte, of modern 
times, has deteéted the abfurdity of deck- — 
ON ni 2 ing 
