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I fit, with fad civility, I read

Back to my native || moderation flide

Or fhall we ev'ry || decency confound

Time was, a fober || Englifhman would knock
And place, on good || fecurity, his gold

Tafte, that eternal || wanderer, which flies

But ere the tenth || revolving day was run

Firft let the juft | equivalent be paid

Go, threat thy earth-born | Myrmidons; but here
Hafte to the fierce || Achilles' tent (he cries)

All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove

Your own refiftlefs eloquence employ

Ì have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a cafe where I have the misfortune to dislike what paffes current in practice, every man upon the fpot may judge by his own tafte. And to tafte I appeal; for though the foregoing reafoning appears to me juft, it is however too fubtile, to afford conviction in oppofition to taste.

Confidering this matter fuperficially, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the fame, whether the adjective go first, which is the natural order, or the fubftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon difcover this to be a mistake: colour, for example, cannot be conceived independent of the furface co

loured;

loured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain spot, as of a certain kind, and as fpreading its extended branches all around, without ever thinking of its colour. In a word, a fubject may be confidered with fome of its qualities independent of others; though we cannot form an image of any fingle quality independent of the fubject. Thus then, though an adjective named first, be infeparable from the fubftantive, the propofition does not reciprocate: an image can be formed of the fubftantive independent of the adjective; and for that reafon, they may be separated by a pause, when the substantive takes the lead.

For thee, the fates || feverely kind ordain

And curs'd with hearts | unknowing how to yield

The verb and adverb are precisely in the fame condition with the fubftantive and adjective. An adverb, which expreffes a certain modification of the action expreffed by the verb, is not feparable from the verb even in imagination; and therefore I must also give up the following lines.

And which it much || becomes you to forget 'Tis one thing madly || to difperfe my store

But an action may be conceived leaving out a particular modification, precifely as a fubject may be conceived leaving out a particular quality; and therefore

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therefore, when by inverfion the verb is firft introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause between it and the adverb which follows: this may be done at the clofe of a line, where the pause is at least as full as that is which divides the

line:

While yet he spoke, the Prince advancing drew
Nigh to the lodge, &c.

The agent and its action come next, expressed in grammar by the active fubftantive and its verb. Between thefe, placed in their natural order, there is no difficulty of interjecting a paufe: an active being is not always in motion, and therefore it is eafily feparable in idea from its action: when in a sentence the fubftantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow; and as reft muft precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportunity for a pause.

But when by inverfion the verb is placed first, is it lawful to feparate it by a pause from the active fubftantive? I anfwer, Not; because an action is not in idea feparable from the agent, more than a quality from the fubject to which it belongs. Two lines of the first rate for beauty, have always appeared to me exceptionable, upon account of the paufe thus interjected between the verb and the confequent fubftantive; and I have now discovered a reafon to fupport my taste :

In these deep folitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive || Contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing || Melancholy reigns.

The point of the greatest delicacy regards the active verb and the paffive fubftantive placed in their natural order. On the one hand, it will be observed, that these words fignify things which are not feparable in idea: killing cannot be conceived without a being that is put to death, nor painting without a furface upon which the colours are fpread. On the other hand, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like fubject and quality, united in one individual object: the active substantive is perfectly diftinct from that which is paffive; and they are connected by one circumftance only, that the action exerted by the former, is exerted upon the latter. This makes it poffible to take the action to pieces, and to confider it firft with relation to the agent, and next with relation to the patient. But after all, fo intimately connected are the parts of the thought, that it requires an effort to make a feparation even for a moment: the fubtilifing to fuch a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets however, taking advantage of this fubtilty, fcruple not to separate by a pause an active verb from the thing upon which it is exerted: fuch paufes in a long work may be indulged; but taken fingly, they cer

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tainly are not agreeable; and I appeal to the following examples.

The peer now fpreads || the glitt'ring forfex wide

As ever fully'd the fair face of light

Repair'd to fearch || the gloomy cave of Spleen
Nothing, to make || philofophy thy friend

Shou'd chance to make || the well-drefs'd rabble ftare
Or cross, to plunder || provinces, the main

These madmen ever hurt || the church or state

How fhall we fill || a library with wit

What better teach a foreigner the tongue ?

Sure, if I fpare the minifter, no rules
Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools.

On the other hand, when the passive substantive is by inverfion firft named, there is no difficulty of interjecting a paufe between it and the verb, more than when the active fubftantive is first named. The fame reafon holds in both, that though a verb cannot be feparated in idea from the fubftantive which governs it, and fcarcely from the fubftantive it governs; yet a fubftantive may always be conceived independent of the verb: when the paffive fubftantive is introduced before the verb, we know not that an action is to be exerted upon it; therefore we may rest till

the

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