of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to express the rapidity of his combatants; but when he comes to describe the velocity of the immortal horses that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the subject, and, as Longinus observes, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon.

For, as a watchman, from some rock on high,
O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye;

Through such a space of air, with thund'ring sound,

At ev'ry leap th' immortal coursers bound.

The celerity of this goddess seems to be a favourite idea with the poet; for, in another place, he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had seen, and passing through them, in imagination, more swift than the lightning flies from east to west.

Homer's best similes have been copied by Virgil, and almost every succeeding poet, howsoever they may have varied in the manner of expression. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat⚫ So joys the lion, if a branching deer

Or mountain goat his bulky prize appear;
In vain the youths oppose, the mastiffs bay-
The lordly savage rends the panting prey.
Thus, fond of vengeance, with a furious bound,

In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground.

The Mantuan bard, in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle: Then, as a hungry lion, who beholds

A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds,
Or beamy stag that grazes on the plain;
He runs, he roars, he shakes his rising mane:
He grins, and opens wide his greedy jaws,
The prey lies panting underneath his paws;
He fills his famish'd maw, his mouth runs o'er
With unchew'd morsels, while he churns the gore.

DRYDEN.

The reader will perceive, that Virgil has improved the simile in one particular, and in another fallen short of his original. The description of the lion shaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws distained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturesque but, on the other hand, he has omitted the circumstance of devouring it without being intimidated, or restrained by the dogs and youths that surround him-a circumstance that adds greatly to our idea of his strength, intrepidity, and importance.

either of two or three syllables: those of two syllables are either both long, as the spondee; or both short, as the pyrrhic; or one short and the other long, as the iambic; or one long and the other short, as the trochee. Those of three syllables are the dactyl, of one long and two short syllables; the anapest, of two short and one long; the tribrachium, of three short; and the molossus, of three long.

From the different combinations of these feet, restricted to certain numbers, the ancients formed their different kinds of verses, such as the hexameter, or heroic, distinguished by six feet dactyls and spondees, the fifth being always a dactyl, and the last a spondee: exempli gratiâ,

Principi-is obs-ta, se-ro medi-cina pa-ratur.

The pentameter of five feet, dactyls and spondees, or of six, reck. oning two cæsuras.

ear,

Cum mala per lon-gas invalu-ere mo-ras.

They had likewise the iambic of three sorts, the diameter, the trimeter, and the tetrameter, and all the different kinds of lyric verse specified in the odes of Sappho, Alcæus, Anacreon, and Horace. Each of these was distinguished by the number, as well as by the species of their feet; so that they were doubly restricted. Now all the feet of the ancient poetry are still found in the versification of living languages: for as cadence was regulated by tne it was impossible for a man to write melodious verse without naturally falling into the use of ancient feet, though perhaps he neither knows their measure nor denomination. Thus Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, and all our poets, abound with dactyls, spondees, trochees, anapests, &c., which they use indiscriminately in all kinds of composition, whether tragic, epic, pas toral, or ode; having in this particular greatly the advantage of the ancients, who were restricted to particular kinds of feet in particular kinds of verse. If we, then, are confined with the fetters of what is called rhyme, they were restricted to particular species of feet; so that the advantages and disadvantages are pretty equally balanced: but indeed the English are more free, in this particular, than any other modern nation. They not only use blank verse in tragedy and the epic, but even in lyric poetry' Milton's translation of Horace's ode to Pyrrha is universally known and generally admired, in our opinion much above its merit. There is an ode extant without rhyme addressed to Evening, by the late Mr Collins, much more beautiful; and Mr Warton, with some others, has happily succeeded in divers occasional pieces.

that are free of this restraint; but the number in all of these depends upon the syllables, and not upon the feet, which are unlimited.

It is generally supposed that the genius of the English language will not admit of Greek or Latin measure; but this, we apprehend, is a mistake, owing to the prejudice of education. It is impossible that the same measure, composed of the same times, should have a good effect upon the ear in one language, and a bad effect in another. The truth is, we have been accustomed from our infancy to the numbers of English poetry, and the very sound and signification of the words dispose the ear to receive them in a certain manner; so that its disappointment must be attended with a disagreeable sensation. In imbibing the first rudiments of education, we acquire, as it were, another ear for the numbers of Greek and Latin poetry, and this being reserved entirely for the sounds and significations of the words that constitute those dead languages, will not easily accommodate itself to the sounds of our vernacular tongue, though conveyed in the same time and measure. In a word, Latin and Greek have annexed to them the ideas of the ancient measure, from which they are not easily disjoined. But we will venture to say, this difficulty might be surmounted by an effort of attention and a little practice; and in that case we should in time be as well pleased with English as with Latin hexameters.

Sir Philip Sidney is said to have miscarried in his essays; but his miscarriage was no more than that of failing in an attempt to introduce a new fashion. The failure was not owing to any defect or imperfection in the scheme, but to the want of taste, to the irresolution and ignorance of the public. Without all doubt, the ancient measure, so different from that of modern poetry, must have appeared remarkably uncouth to people in general, who were ignorant of the classics; and nothing but the countenance and perseverance of the learned could reconcile them to the alteration. We have seen several late specimens of English hexameters and sapphics, so happily composed, that by attaching them to the idea of ancient measure, we found them in all respects as melodious and agreeable to the ear, as the works of Virgil and Anacreon or Horace.

Though the number of syllables distinguishes the nature of the English verse from that of the Greek and Latin, it constitutes neither harmony, grace, nor expression. These must depend upon the choice of words, the seat of the accent, the pause and the cadence. The accent or tone is understood to be an elevation or sinking of the voice in reciting: the pause is a rest, that divides the verse into two parts, each of them called an hemistich. The pause