injuring the greatnefs of his own conception, is hur ried into excefs and extravagance. Quintilian allows the ufe of Hyperbole, when words are wanting to exprefs any thing in its juft ftrength or due energy: then, he fays, it is better to exceed in expreffion, than fall fhort of the conception but he likewife obferves, that there is no figure or form of fpeech fo apt to run into fuftian. Nec alia magis via in namo av itur. If the chafte Virgil has thus trefpaffed upon poetical probability, what can we expect from Lucan but Hyperboles even more ridiculously extravagant? He reprefents the winds in conteft, the fea in fufpence, doubting to which it fhall give way. He affirms that its motion would have been fo violent as to produce a fecond deluge, had not Jupiter kept it under by the clouds; and as to the fhip during this dreadful uproar the fails touch the clouds, while the keel ftrikes the ground. Nubila tanguntur velis, et terra carina. This image of dashing water at the stars, Sir Richard Blackmore has produced in colours truly ridiculous. Defcribing fpouting whales in his Prince Arthur, he makes the following comparison : Like fome prodigious water-engine made To play on heav'n, if fire thould heav'n invade. The great fault in all thefe inftances is a deviation from propriety, owing to the erroneous judgment of the writer, who, endeavouring to captivate the admiration with novelty, very often frocks the underftanding with extravagance. Of this nature is the whole defcription of the Cyclops, both in the Odyffey of Homer and in the Æneid of Virgil. It must be owned however that the Latin Poet with all his merit is more apt than his great original to dazzle upon the imagination us with falfe fire, and practile ar the critic's ex with gay conceits, that will not bear the critic's examination. There is not in any of Homer's works now fubfifting fuch an example of the false fublime, as Virgil's defcription of the thunder-bolts forging under the hammers of the Cyclops. Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquofe DRYDEN. This is altogether a fantastic piece of affectation, of which we can form no fenfible image, and ferves to chill the fancy, rather than warm the admiration of a judging reader. Extravagant Hyperbole is a weed that grows in great plenty through the works of our admired Shakfpeare. In the following defcription, which hath been much celebrated, one fees he has had an eye to Virgil's thunder-bolts. O, then I fee queen Mab hath been with you. On the fore-finger of an alderman, Athwart men's nofes as they lie afleep: Her waggon fpokes made of long fpinners legs; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams, &c. Even in defcribing fantaftic beings, there is a propriety to be observed; but furely nothing can be more revolting to common fenfe, than this numbering of the moon beams among the other implements of queen Mab's harnefs, which, though extremely flender and diminutive, are nevertheless objects of the touch, and may be conceived capable of use. FF 3 The The Ode and Satire admit of the boldeft Hyperboles: fuch exaggerations fuit the impetuous warmth of the one; and in the other have a good effect in expofing folly, and exciting horror against vice. They may be likewife fuccefsfully ufed in Comedy, for moving and managing the powers of ridicule. ESSAY XVIII. VERSE is an harmonious arrangement of long and fhort fyllables, adapted to different kinds of poetry, and owes its origin entirely to the measured cadence, or mufic, which was used when the firft fongs or hymns were recited. This mufic, divided into different parts, required a regular return of the fame measure, and thus every ftrophe, antifrophe, ftanza, contained the fame number of feet. To know what conftituted the different kinds of rythmical feet among the antients, with refpect to the number and quantity of their fyllables, we have nothing to do but to confult thofe who have written on grammar and profody: it is the bufinefs of a school-mafter, rather than the accomplishment of a Man of Tafte. Various effays have been made in different countries to compare the characters of antient and modern verfification, and to point out the difference beyond any poffibility of miftake. But they have made diftinctions, where in fact there was no difference, and left the criterion unobferved. They have transferred the name of rhyme to a regular repetition of the fame found at the end of the line, and fet up this vile monotony as the characteristic of modern verfe, in contradiftinction to the feet of the antients, antients, which they pretend the Poetry of modern languages will not admit. Rhyme, from the Greek word Puμos, is nothing: elfe but number, which was effential to the antient, as well as to the modern, verfification. As to the jingle of fimilar founds, though it was never used by the antients in any regular return in the middle, or at the end of the line, and was by no means deemed, effential to the verfification, yet they did not reject it as a blemish, where it occurred without the appearance of conftraint. We meet with it often in the epithets of Homer,-Apyupsolo Biolo - Ava Βιοιο-Αναξ Ανδρών Αγαμεμνων-almoft the whole firft Ode of Anacreon is what we call rhyme. The following line, of Virgil has been admired for the fimilitude of found in the first two words. Ore Arethufa tuo ficulis confunditur undis. Rythmus, or number, is certainly effential to verfe, whether in the dead or living languages; and the real difference between the two is this: the number in antient verse relates to the feet, and in modern Poetry to the fyllables; for to affert that. modern Poetry has no feet, is a ridiculous abfurdity. The feet, that principally enter into the compofition of Greek and Latin verfes, are either of two or three. fyllables: thofe of two fyllables are either both long, as the fpondee; or both fhort, as the pyrrhic; or one short and the other long, as the iambic; or one long, and the other fhort, as the trochee. Thofe of three fyllables are the dactyl, of one long and two fhort fyllables; the anapeft, of two short and one long; the tribrachium, of three short; and the moloffus, of three long. From the different combinations of these feet, reftricted to certain numbers, the antients formed. their different kinds of verfes, fuch as the hexameter or heroic, diftinguished by fix feet dactyls and fpondees, the fifth being always a dactyl, and the last a fpondee: e, g, I 2 3 4 5 6 Frincipi-is obf-ta, fe-ro medi-cina pa-ratur. The pentameter of five feet, dactyls and fpondees, or of fix, reckoning two cæfuras. 3. 4 5 6 Cum mala per lon-gas invalu-ere mo-ras. They had likewise the iambic of three forts, the dimeter, the trimeter, and the tetrameter, and all the different kinds of lyric verfe fpecified in the odes of Sappho, Alcæus, Anacreon, and Horace. Each of these was diftinguished by the number, as well as by the fpecies of their feet; fo that they were doubly reftricted. Now all the feet of the antient poetry are ftill found in the verfification of living languages; for as cadence was regulated by the ear, it was impoffible for a man to write melodious verfe without naturally falling into the use of ancient feet, though perhaps he neither knows their measure nor denomination. Thus Spenfer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, and all our Poets, abound with dactyls, fpondees, trochees, anapefts, &c. which they ufe indifcriminately in all kinds of compofition, whether Tragic, Epic, Paftoral, or Ode, having in this particular greatly the advantage of the antients, who were reftricted to particular kinds of feet in particular kinds of Verfe. If we then are confined with the fetters of what is called rhyme, they were restricted to particular fpecies of feet; fo that the advantages and disadvantages are pretty equally balanced: but in leed the English are more free in this particular, than any other modern nation. They not |