Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garment with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

King John, Act II Sc. 4.

A thought that turns upon the expression instead of the subject commonly called a play of words, being low and childish, is un worthy of any composition, whether gay or serious, that pretends to any degree of elevation: thoughts of this kind make a fifth class. In the Amynta of Tasso, the lover falls into a mere play of words, demanding how he who had lost himself, could find a mistress. And for the same reason, the following passage in Corneille has been generally condemned:

*

Chimene. Mon père est mort, Elvire, et la premiéré è pée
Dont s'est armé Rodrigue a sa trame coupée.
Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez-vous en eau:
La moitié de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau,
Et m'oblige à venger, après ce coup funeste,
Celle que je n'ai plus, sur celle qui me reste.

To die is to be banish'd from myself:
And Sylvia is myself; banish'd from her,
Is self from self; a deadly banishment!

Cid, Act III. Sc. 3.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III. Sc. 1.

Countess. I pray thee, lady, have a better cheer:
If thou engrossest all the griefs as thine,
Thou robb'st me of a moiety.

All's well that ends well, Act III. Sc. 2

K. Henry. O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.

Second Part Henry IV. Act IV. Sc. 4.

Antony, speaking of Julius Cæsar:

O world! thou wast the forest of this hart
And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer, stricken by many princes,
Dost thou here lie!

Julius Casar, Act III. Sc. 1.

Playing thus with the sound of words, which is still worse than a pun, is the meanest of all conceits. But Shakspeare, when he descends to a play of words, is not always in the wrong for it is done sometimes to denote a peculiar character, as in the following passage:

K. Philip. What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face.
Lewis. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find

A wonder, or a wond'rous miracle;

The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;
Which being but the shadow of your son,
Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.
I do protest, I never lov'd myself

Till now infixed I beheld myself

*Act 1. Sc. 2.

Drawn in the flatt'ring table of her eye.

Faulconbridge. Drawn in the flatt'ring table of her eye!

- Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow

And quarter'd in her heart! he doth espy
Himself Love's traitor: this is pity now,

That hang'd, and drawn, and quarter'd, there should be,
In such a love so vile a lout as he.

King John, Act II. Sc. 2

A jingle of words is the lowest species of that low wit; which is scarcely sufferable in any case, and least of all in an heroic poem: and yet Milton, in some instances, has descended to that puerility

And brought into the world a world of wo.
--begirt th' Almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging-

Which tempted our attempt

At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound.
With a shout

Loud as from number without numbers.

One should think it unnecessary to enter a caveat against an expression that has no meaning, or no distinct meaning; and yet somewhat of that kind may be found even among good writers. Such make a sixth class.

Sebastian. I beg no pity for this mould'ring clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes

Possession of your earth:

If burnt and scatter'd in the air: the winds

That strew my dust, diffuse my royalty,

And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom

Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.

Dryden, Don Sebastian King of Portugal, Act I.
Cleopatra. Now, what news, my Charmion?
Will he be kind? and will he not forsake me?
Am I to live or die? nay, do I live?

Or am I dead? for when he gave his answer
Fate took the word, and then I liv'd or dy'd.

Dryden, All for Love, Act II.

If she be coy, and scorn my noble fire,
If her chill heart I cannot move;
Why, I'll enjoy the very love,

And make a mistress of my own desire.

Cowley, poem inscribed, The Request.

His whole poem, inscribed, My Picture, is a jargon of the same kind.

'Tis he, they cry, by whom

Not men, but war itself is overcome.

Indian Queen.

Such empiv expressions are finely ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

Was't not unjust to ravish hence her breath,
And in life's stead to leave us nought but death.

Act IV Sc. 1.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BEAUTY OF LANGUAGE.

Painting and sculpture alone of the fine arts, imitative-A beauty of language, distinct from the beauty of the thought it expresses-Of different words conveying the same thought, that which best answers the end is most beautiful-Beauties of language arising from sound-Beauty of sound-Beauty of significationThe resemblance between sound and signification-Beauty of verse.

Or all the fine arts, painting and sculpture only, are in their nature imitative. An ornamented field is not a copy or imitation of nature, but nature itself embellished. Architecture is productive of originals, and copies not from nature. Sound and motion may, in some measure, be imitated by music; but for the most part music, like architecture, is productive of originals. Language copies not from nature, more than music or architecture; unless, where, like music, it is imitative of sound or motion. Thus, in the description of particular sounds, language sometimes furnishes words, which, besides their customary power of exciting ideas, resemble, by their softness or harshness, the sounds described; and there are words which, by the celerity or slowness of pronunciation, have some resemblance to the motion they signify. The imitative power of words goes one step farther: the loftiness of some words makes them proper symbols of lofty ideas; a rough subject is imitated by harsh-sounding words; and words of many syllables pronounced slow and smooth, are expressive of grief and melancholy. Words have a separate effect on the mind abstracted from their signification and from their imitative power: they are more or less agreeable to the ear, by the fulness, sweetness, faintness, or roughness of their tones.

These are but faint beauties, being known to those only who have more than ordinary acuteness of perception. Language possesses a beauty superior greatly in degree, of which we are eminently sensible when a thought is communicated with perspicuity and sprightliness. This beauty of language, arising from its power of expressing thought, is apt to be confounded with the beauty of the thought itself: the beauty of thought, transferred to the expression, makes it appear more beautiful.* But these beauties, if we wish to think accurately, must be distinguished from each other. They are in reality so distinct, that we sometimes are conscious of the highest pleasure language can afford, when the subject expressed is disagreeable: a thing that is loathsome, or a scene of horror to make one's hair stand on end, may be described in a manner so lively, as that the disagreeableness of the subject shall not even obscure the agreeableness of the

*Chap. 2. Part 1. Sect. 5. Demetrius Phalereus (of Elocution, sect. 75.) makes the same observation. We are apt, says that author, to confound the language with the subject; and if the latter be nervous, we judge the same of the former. But they are clearly distinguishable; and it is not uncommon to find subjects of great dignity dressed in mean language. Theopompus is celebrated for the force of his diction; but erroneously: his subject indeed has great force, but his style very little.

description. The causes of the original beauty of language, considered as significant, which is a branch of the present subject, will be explained in their order. I shall only at present observe, that this beauty is the beauty of means fitted to an end, that of communicating thought and hence it evidently appears, that of several expressions all conveying the same thought, the most beautiful, in the sense now mentioned, is that which in the most perfect manner answers it end The several beauties of language above mentioned, being of dif ferent kinds, ought to be handled separately. I shall begin with those beauties of language that arise from sound; after which will follow the beauties of language considered as significant: this order appears natural; for the sound of a word is attended to, before we consider its signification. In a third section come those singular beauties of language that are derived from a resemblance between sound and signification. The beauties of verse are handled in the last section for though the foregoing beauties are found in verse as well as in prose, yet verse has many peculiar beauties, which, for the sake of connection, must be brought under one view; and versification, at any rate, is a subject of so great importance as to deserve a place by itself.

SECTION I.

Sounds of different letters-Syllables-Words--A period or sentence-Discourse -The manner in which the vowels are sounded-The vowels form a regular series of sounds from high to low-All agreeable-The medium vowels most so -A consonant has no sound-Syllables into which consonants enter, have more than one sound-The sounds of syllables as many as the letters- A double sound more agreeable than a single-Difference between pronunciation and music, with respect to sound-The source of the agreeableness or disagreeableness of words-The most agreeable successions formed, when the cavity of the mouth is alternately increased and diminished, within moderate limits, and where long and short syllables follow one another-A standard to all nations of the comparative merit of their languages-Not possible, however, to form a complete standard-A rough language preferable to a smooth one, when it has a sufficient number of smooth sounds-The English tongue originally harsh, but at present much softened-Remarks on the dropping in of words that end in ed -The effect of ascending and descending in a series varying by small differences-The effect where it varies by large differences, where contrast prevails— The effect of a strong impulse succeeding a weak one; and also of a weak impulse succeeding a strong one-The maxim founded on this-Direction for arranging the different members of a sentence.

THIS subject requires the following order: The sounds of the different letters come first: next, these sounds as united in syllables: third, syllables united in words: fourth, words united in a period : and, in the last place, periods united in a discourse.

With respect to the first article, every vowel is sounded with a single expiration of air from the wind-pipe, through the cavity of the mouth. By varying this cavity, the different vowels are sounded; for the air in passing through cavities differing in size, produces various sounds, some high or sharp, some low or flat: a small cavity occasions a high sound, a large cavity a low sound. The five vow

els accordingly, pronounced with the same extension of the wind pipe, but with different openings of the mouth, form a regular series

of sounds, descending from high to low, in the fo lowing order, i, e, a, o, u.* Each of these sounds is agreeable to the ear: and if it be required which of them is the most agreeable, it is, perhaps safest to hold, that those vowels which are the farthest removed from the extremes, will be the most relished. This is all I have to remark upon the first article: for consonants being letters that of themselves have no sound, serve only in conjunction with vowels to form articulate sounds; and as every articulate sound makes a syilable, consonants come naturally under the second article; to which we proceed. A consonant is pronounced with a less cavity than a vowel; and consequently every syllable into which a consonant enters, must have more than one sound, though pronounced with one expiration of air, or with one breath as commonly expressed: for however readily two sounds may unite, yet where they differ in tone, both of them must be heard if neither of them be suppressed. For the same reason, every syllable must be composed of as many sounds as there are letters, supposing every letter to be distinctly pronounced.

We next inquire, how far syllables are agreeable to the ear. Few tongues are so polished, as entirely to have rejected sounds that are pronounced with difficulty; and it is a noted observation, that such sounds are to the ear harsh and disagreeable. Bu. with respect to agreeable sounds, it appears, that a double sound is always more agreeable than a single sound: every one who has an ear must be sensible, that the diphthong oi or ai is more agreeable than any of these vowels pronounced singly: the same holds where a consonant enters into the double sound; the syllable le has a more agreeable sound than the vowel e, or than any vowel. And in support of experience, a satisfactory argument may be drawn from the wisdom of Providence: speech is bestowed on man, to qualify him for society; and his provision of articulate sounds is proportioned to the use he has for them; but if sounds that are agreeable singly, were not also agreeable in conjunction, the necessity of a painful selection would render language intricate and difficult to be attained in any perfection; and this selection, at the same time, would abridge the number of useful sounds, so as, perhaps, not to leave sufficient for answering the different ends of language.

In this view, the harmony of pronunciation differs widely from that of music properly so called. In the latter are discovered many sounds singly agreeable, which in conjunction are extremely disa greeable; none but what are called concordant sounds having a good effect in conjunction. In the former, all sounds, singly agreeable, are in conjunction concordant; and ought to be, in order to fulfil the purposes of language.

Having discussed syllables, we proceed to words; which make the third article. Monosyllables belong to the former head; polysyllables open a different scene. In a cursory view, one would imagine, that the agreeableness or disagreeableness of a word with

* In this scale of sounds, the letter i must be pronounced as in the word interest, and as in other words beginning with the syllable in; the letter e as in per suasion; the letter a as in bat; and the letter u as in number.