Both harp and voice; nor could the Mufe defend "Her fon. So fail not thou, who thee implores."

When the paufe falls upon the third fyllable or the seventh, the harmony is better preserved; but, as the third and seventh are weak fyllables, the period leaves the ear unfatisfied, and in expectation of the remaining part of the verse :

"He with his horrid crew

"Lay vanquifh'd, rolling in the fiery gulf
"Confounded, though immortal: But his doom
"Referv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
"Both of loft happiness, and lasting pain,

Torments him."

"God,

with frequent intercourse,

"Thither will fend his winged messengers "On errands of fupernal grace. So fung "The glorious train ascending."

It may be, I think, established as a rule, that a pause, which concludes a period, should be made for the most part upon a strong syllable, as the fourth, and fixth; but those pauses, which only fufpend the fenfe, may be placed upon the weaker. Thus the reft in the third line of the first paffage fatisfies the ear better than in the fourth; and the close of the fecond quotation better than of the third:

"The evil, foon

"Driven back, redounded as a flood on those "From whom it fprung; impoffible to mix

"With bleedness."

"What we by day

"Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
"One night or two with wanton growth derides

"Tending to wild."

"These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands "Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide "As we need walk, till younger hands ere long "Affift us."

The rest in the fifth place has the fame inconvenience as in the feventh, and third; that the fyllable is weak:

"Beast now with beaft 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, "And fish with fish, to graze the herb all leaving, "Devour'd each other: Nor ftood much in awe "Of man, but fled him, or, with countenance grim, "Glar'd on him passing."

The noblest and most majestick pauses, which our versification admits, are upon the fourth and fixth fyllables, which are both strongly founded in a pure and regular verfe, and at either of which the line is fo divided, that both members participate of harmony :

"But now at last the facred influence

"Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven "Shoots far into the bofom of dim Night

"A glimmering dawn: Here Nature first begins "Her fartheft verge, and Chaos to retire, &c."

But far above all others, if I can give any credit to my own car, is the reft upon the fixth fyllable; which, taking in a complete compafs

of found, fuch as is fufficient to conftitute one of our lyrick measures, makes a full and folemn clofe. Some paffages, which conclude at this ftop, I could never read without fome strong emotions of delight or admiration:

"Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,
"Thou with eternal Wisdom didft converfe,
"Wisdom thy fifter, and with her didst play
"In presence of the Almighty Father, pleas'd
"With thy celestial song."

"Or other worlds they feem'd, or happy ifles,
"Like those Hefperian gardens fam'd of old,
"Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,
"Thrice happy ifles; but who dwelt happy there
"He ftaid not to inquire."

"He blew

"His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps
"When God defcended, and perhaps once more
"To found at general doom."

1 To found at general doom.] Thefe beautiful paufes are indeed most frequent in Milton; and I cannot forbear adding to the examples, felected by Dr. Johnson, three paffages in the Comus fo exquifitely melodious, and at the fame time so highly poetical and defcriptive, that "the harp of Orpheus could not be more charming.” The firft is that, in which Milton compliments the skill of Henry Lawes :

"Who with his foft pipe, and fmooth-dittied fong,
"Well knows to ftill the wild winds when they roar,
"And hush the waving woods-"

The next is applied to the Lady's strains :

"How fweetly did they float upon the wings
"Of filence, through the empty-vaulted night,
"At every fall fmoothing the raven-down
"Of darkness, till it smil'd !—"

If the poetry of Milton be examined, with regard to the pauses and flow of his verses into

The laft, to the fongs of Circe and the Syrens:

"Who, as they fung, would take the prifon'd foul,

"And lap it in Elysium-"

The first line of the fecond of thefe paffages, it may be ob ferved, confifts of pæons, formed of the pyrrhick and iambick; which powerfully contribute to the beauty and expreffion :

"How fwéetly did they float upon the wings

"Of silence"

The paufe on the laft fyllable of filence has alfo much effect. The fineness of Milton's paufes and flow of his verfes into each other eminently appears in the very entrance of his Paradife Loft, in the first lines of which the fame numbers, in every refpect, are hardly once repeated; as Mr. Say has obferved in his Remarks on the Numbers of Paradife Loft, 1745, p. 126. And in the following lines the paufe will be found in every part of the verse :

"Yet not the more

"Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
"Clear Spring, or fhady grove, or funny hill,
"Smit with the love of facred song; but chief
"Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
"That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
"Nightly I vifit —

"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
"Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
"Sings darkling, and in fhadieft covert hid
"Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
"Seafons return; but not to me returns
"Day, or the fweet approach of even or morn.

"No fooner had the Almighty ceas'd, but all

"The multitude of Angels, with a shout
"Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
"As from bleft voices, uttering joy —”

"

Mr. Say obferves, that "the leaft agreeable paufes are those at the firft, or before the laft, fyllable. These therefore are feldom

each other, it will appear, that he has performed all that our language would admit; and the

found in Milton but when they have fome peculiar beauty, and when either the words or the ideas demand an emphasis to be laid on them." See his Remarks, &c. p. 145, and feq. Such is the beautiful picture, where Adam addresses Eve:

"Then with voice

"Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, &c.” The clofe of the paffage, already cited from the third book of Par. Loft; where the paufe at the firft fyllable, and before the laft, together with a final pause, cannot but incline the reader to believe that the poet ftudied thus to exprefs both the loudness and the fweetness of the angelick shout. See alfo B. vii. 322.

"The humble shrub,

And bush with frizzled hair implicit : Laft

"Rofe, as in dance, the ftately trees

The criticks have mentioned many other fine examples of the paufe on the first fyllable; as in Par. Loft, B. iv. 351, B. vi. 838, B. viii. 473, B. ix. 122, B. xi. 492, &c. And doctor Newton has alfo noticed the frequency of this beauty in Homer, as in Iliad i. 52, Iliad v. 147, 157, &c. The instances in Milton with how much sweetness and strength the trochee begins prove the verfe, and how unemphatick would have been an iambus in their places.

Milton has alfo introduced the trochee into the fecond, third, and fourth parts of the verse :

"Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before

"All these our notions vain fees and derides."

"Of Eve, whofe eye darted contagious fire."

Dr. Newton has cited the following verfe as an instance of this kind, Par. Loft, B. i. 49.

"Who durft defy the Omnipotent to arms.”

But, as Mr. Dunfter, the learned editor of Paradife Regained remarks, in a Note on B. i. 302 of that poem, Dr. Newton read the line with a claffical eye, and laid afide his English ear, when he thus marked Oipotent. For, according to the invariable.