of found, is fometimes ftudied, and fometimes cafual. Such are ftridor, balo, and boatus, in Latin; and, in English, to growl, to buzz, to bifs, and to jar. Words of this kind give to a verfe the proper fimilitude of found, without much labour of the writer, and fuch happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to fortune than skill; yet they are fometimes combined with great propriety, and undeniably contribute to enforce the impreffion of the idea. m We hear the paffing arrow in this line of Virgil;

"Et fugit horrendùm ftridens elapfa fagitta ;"

and the creaking of Hell-gates, in the defcription of Milton;

We hear the passing arrow &c.] Do we not also hear the "bifs of ruling wings." Par. Loft, B. i. 768.—See also B. ii. 661, B. vi. 209, 210, B. vii. 431, and the Note there.

and the creaking of Hell-gates,] The imitation here turns on the force of the words jarring, grate, and harsh; on the refemblance between the fign and the idea. " In this, and in every other inftance," Mr. Webb obferves, " where the resemblance is determined by the found, the characters of poetry and mufick are directly oppofed; for, the nature of articulation strictly confidered, it will appear that, in poety, the imitations of harsh and rude founds must be most perfect; in mufick, it is juft the reverse. It was for this reason, that our incomparable Milton, in his imi. tations of mufical ideas, threw the force of the imitation, not on the found, but on the movement:

"fave where filence yields

"To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
"Tunes fweeteft his love-labour'd fong."

See Obfervations on Poetry and Mufick, 1769, p. 140. This dif

"On a fudden open fly

"With impetuous recoil and jarring found

"The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate "Harth thunder."

But many beauties of this kind, which the. moderns, and perhaps the ancients, have observed, feem to be the product of blind reverence acting upon fancy. Dionyfius himself tells us, that the found of Homer's verfes fometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk: Is not this a discovery nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after long inquiry into the nature of the fcarlet colour, found that it reprefented nothing fo much as the clangour of a trumpet? the representative power of poetick harmony confifts of found and measure; of the force of the fyllables fingly confidered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound can resemble nothing but found, and time can measure nothing

but motion and duration.

The criticks, however, have struck out other fimilitudes; nor is there any irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of thefe lines has been celebrated by

tinction, of an imitation by movement, and an imitation by found, he remarks in another place, must be carefully observed in the application of that general maxim,

"The found must seem an echo to the fenfe."

writers, whofe opinion the world has reason to regard;

"Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox -

"Sternitur, exanimifque tremens procumbit humi bos—” "Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus —”

If all these obfervations are juft, there must be fome remarkable conformity between the fudden fucceffion of night to day, the fall of an ox under a blow, and the birth of a moufe from a mountain; fince we are told of all these images, that they are very strongly impreffed by the fame form and termination of the verfe.

We may, however, without giving way to enthufiafm, admit that fome beauties of this kind may be produced. A fudden ftop at an unusual fyllable may image the ceffation of action, or the pause of discourse; and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

“I fled, and cried out Death! "Hell trembled at the hideous name, and figh'd "From all her caves, and back refounded Death!"

the fall of an ox &c.] Another excellent critick has alfo faid, "I am not at all ftruck with this imitation, procumbit humi bos; and the reafon must be, that there is nothing either pleafing or interefting in the object. But, let the idea be of a nature to engage our attention, and we are no longer indifferent to its accord :

"Scarce from his mould

"Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheav'd

"His vaftnefs."

See Webb's Obfervations on Poetry and Mufick, 1769, p. 146.

P The measure or time of pronouncing may be varied fo as very strongly to reprefent, not only

The measure or time of pronouncing &c.] This effect, derived principally from the fituation of the pause, has been illuftrated in the following paffages:

"All night the dreadless Angel,-unpursued,

"Through Heaven's wide champain held his way-till Morn, "Wak'd by the circling Hours, with rofy hand

"Unbarr'd the gates of light."

"God had bid the ground be dry,

"All but within those banks where rivers now

"Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train."

On the latter of which, Mr. Richardfon has remarked, that you cannot read the last line of it otherwise than flowly, and fo as to give your mind a picture of the thing defcribed."--On both, Mr. Mitford has obferved, that "the paufe, by affigning fo large a portion of the verfe to thofe members of the fentence where Heaven's wide champain and the perpetual flow of the rivers are mentioned, very much helps the idea of the vast tract of country through which these flow, and of the immense length of the Angel's course. But Milton has not left the expreffion to the pause alone: He has made the lines of a really unusual length :

Through Heaven's widé cham | pain held | his way till Morn." "Stream, and perpetual draw | their hūļmid traín.”

Allowing two times to a long fyllable, and one to a short one, these lines have at least twenty times each; a circumstance not common in the epick pentameter, and of itself fufficient to make the movement neceffarily flow." See the Effay &c., as before, p. 144. To thefe inftances of retarded pronunciation I may add the echoing of the found to the fenfe in a line, finely defcriptive of accelerated motion; where the heavenly Angels, after standing a while in trouble at having beheld the effects of Satan's artillery, thus inftantaneously recover themfelves:

"Their arms away they threw, and to the hills
"Light as the lightning glimpse they ran, they few!

the modes of external motion, but the quick or flow fucceffion of ideas, and confequently the paffions of the mind. This at least was the power of the fpondaick and dactylick harmony, but our language can reach no eminent diverfities of found. We can indeed sometimes, by incumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions; or mark a flow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan ftruggling through chaos;

"So he with difficulty and labour hard

"Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he-"

Thus he has defcribed the leviathans, or whales, " Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait."

Wallowing unwieldy &c.] The learned critick juft mentioned remarks, that this line has indeed been admired for its expreffive unwieldiness. "Its form," he adds, "is however of a kind perfectly mufical, and by no means peculiarly fuited to give the idea of unwieldinefs. The expreffion is in reality not numerical, but literal; a kind of expreffion of which our language has much more than the Latin or any of the defcendants of the Latin; perhaps more than the Greek itself. When ufed without affectation, it has an agreeable and powerful effect in defcriptive poetry; and there are many beautiful examples of it in Milton's account of the Creation.-In Paradife Loft, B. ii. 933, there is a beauti ful inftance of the union of literal and numerical expreffion :

"Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
"Ten thousand fathom deep -”

See the Effay upon the Harmony of Language, p. 132. The fame author objects, and justly I think, to the accentuation on the first fyllable of unwieldy, Par. Loft, B. iv. 345.