the action commences.

For the fake of illuftra

tion take the following examples.

Shrines! where their vigils || pale-ey'd virgins keep

Soon as thy letters || trembling I unclose

No happier task | these faded eyes purfue

What is faid about the paufe, leads to a gene-, ral observation, That the natural order of placing the active fubftantive and its verb, is more friendly to a paufe than the inverted order; but that in all the other connections, inverfion af. fords by far a better opportunity for a paufe. And hence one great advantage of blank verfe over rhyme; its privilege of inverfion giving it a much greater choice of pauses, than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.

We now proceed to the flighter connections, which fhall be difcuffed in one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepofitions admit freely a paufe between them, which will be clear from the following instances:

Affume what fexes || and what shape they please
The light militia | of the lower fky

Connecting particles were invented to unite in a period two fubftantives fignifying things occafionally united in the thought, but which have

1

no natural union: and between two things not only feparable in idea, but really distinct, the mind, for the fake of melody, chearfully admits by a pause a momentary disjunction of their occafional union.

One capital branch of the fubject is still upon hand, to which I am directed by what is just now faid. It concerns those parts of speech which fingly reprefent no idea, and which become not fignificant till they be joined to other words: I mean conjunctions, prepofitions, articles, and fuch like acceffories, paffing under the name of particles. Upon these the question occurs, Whether they can be separated by a paufe from the words that make them fignificant? whether, for example, in the following lines, the separation of the acceffory prepofition from the principal substantive, be according to rule?

The goddess with a difcontented air

And heighten'd by | the diamond's circling rays
When victims at || your altar's foot we lay

So take it in the very words of Creech

An enfign of the delegates of Jove

Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd

While angels, with their filver wings o'erfhade

Or the feparation of the conjunction from the

word

word that is connected by it with the antecedent word?

Talthybius and || Eurybates the good

It will be obvious at the first glance, that the foregoing reafoning upon objects naturally connected, are not applicable to words which of themselves are mere ciphers: we must therefore have recourse to fome other principle for folving the prefent queftion. These particles out of their place are totally infignificant: to give them a meaning, they must be joined to certain words; and the neceffity of this junction, together with custom, forms an artificial connection, which has a ftrong influence upon the mind: it cannot bear even a momentary feparation, which deftroys the fense, and is at the fame time contradictory to practice. Another circumstance tends ftill more to make this feparation difagreeable in lines of the first and third order, that it bars the accent, which will be explained afterward, in treating of the accent.

Hitherto we have difcourfed upon that paufe only which divides the line. We proceed to the pause that concludes the line; and the queftion is, Whether the fame rules be applicable to both? This must be answered by making a diftinction. In the first line of a couplet, the concluding paufe differs little, if at all, from the paufe which divides the line; and for that rea

3

fon,

fon, the rules are applicable to both equally. The concluding paufe of the couplet, is in a different condition; it refembles greatly the concluding pause in an Hexameter line both of them indeed are fo remarkable, that they never can be graceful, unless when they accompany a pause in the fenfe. Hence it follows, that a couplet ought always to be finifhed with fome clofe in the fenfe; if not a point, at least a comma. The truth is, that this rule is feldom tranfgreffed : in Pope's works I find very few deviations from the rule take the following instances.

Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all preferving foul
Connects each being-

Another :

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs,
To fteal from rainbows ere they drop in show'rs
A brighter wash

I add with refpect to paufes in general, that fuppofing the connection to be fo flender as to admit a pause, it follows not that a paufe may in every fuch case be admitted. There is one rule to which every other ought to bend, That the fense must never be wounded or obfcured by the mufic; and upon that account I condemn the following lines:

Ulyffes, firft in public cares, fhe found,

And,

And,

Who rifing, high || th' imperial fceptre rais❜d.

With respect to inversion, it appears, both from reafon and experiments, that many words which cannot bear a feparation in their natural order, admit a pause when inverted. And it may be added, that when two words, or two members of á fentence, in their natural order, can be feparated by a paufe, fuch feparation can never be amiss in an inverted order. An inverted period, which deviates from the natural train of ideas, requires to be marked in fome meafure even by pauses in the sense, that the parts may be diftinctly known. Take the following examples.

As with cold lips || I kifs'd the facred veil.
With other beauties || charm my partial eyes.
Full in my view || fet all the bright abode.
With words like thefe || the troops Ulyffes rul'd.

Back to th' affembly roll || the thronging train.]

Not for their grief || the Grecian host I blame.

The fame where the feparation is made at the close of the first line of the couplet :

For fpirits, freed from mortal laws, with eafe
Affume what fexes and what fhapes they please.

The