nance between the subject and the melody is very sensibly felt. Rhyme is not less unfit for anguish or deep distress, than for subjects elevated and lofty; and for that reason has been long disused in the English and Italian tragedy. In a work where the subject is serious, though not elevated, rhyme has not a good effect, as in the Essay on Man. Sportive love, mirth, gaiety, humor, and ridicule, are the province of rhyme. The bound aries assigned it by Nature, were extended in barbarous and illiterate ages; and in its usurpations it has long been protected by custom: but taste in the fine arts, as well as in morals, improves daily, and makes a progress toward perfection, slow indeed, but uniform; and there is no reason to doubt that rhyme, in Britain, will in time be forced to abandon its unjust conquest, and to confine itself within its natural limits. REVIEW. From what does the distinction between prose and verse arise? What does the difference between them resemble? What five things are important to verse? Which are essential to it? For what three things are pauses important? What is meant by the key-note? What by accenting a syllable? What is cadence? How are syllables classified? What is their relative length? Upon what word does the voice rest longer than usual? What sort of word sinks below the key-note in pronunciation? What are the two kinds of English heroic verse? How is the former distinguished? What is a couplet? How is the latter distinguished? What does every line consist of? What are the exceptions? Give examples of the first exception of the other. What is an Alexandrine line?-its use? May most monosyllables be pronounced long or short? What is the arrangement of English heroic verse? What is the exception? Give an example. What imperfection in English verse is mentioned? What is the effect of making a short syllable long in verse? From what does the great variety and melody of English verse arise? Where may the capital pause in a line fall? With what should it coincide? Give an example of its falling after the 4th syllable-after the 5th -after the 6th-after the 7th. What other pauses are there? What rule is given concerning the full pause? Does it apply to the semi-pause? May there be a pause in the melody where the sense requires none? May a musical pause come after any word indifferently? What is the effect of placing an accent on a low word? Can a word be accented on more than one syllable? What words may be accented? What accent makes the greatest figure? Give examples of the first-of the second. From what lines should the capital pause be excluded? Are accents confined to a certain number? What words exclude the full pause? How does blank verse differ from rhyme with respect to form? What is its peculiar advantage? How does rhyme prevent this? What rules of melody apply to blank verse? What pause is required, and what is not? What is observed of the melody of blank verse? What is necessary to the melody of English hexameter? What sort of rhyme rouses the mind, and produces a gay emo tion? Is rhyme suited to grand and lofty subjects?-why not? To what subjects is rhyme perfectly adapted? To what subjects is it not adapted? CHAPTER XIX. Comparisons. COMPARISONS serve two purposes: when addressed to the understanding, their purpose is to instruct; when to the heart, to please. The means which contribute to the latter, are, suggesting some unusual resemblance or contrast, setting an object in the strongest light, associating an object with others that are agreeable, elevating or depressing an object. Objects of different senses cannot be compared together; for being separated from each other, they have no circumstance in common to admit resemblance or contrast. Objects of hearing, of taste, of smell, and of touch, may be compared; but the chief fund of comparison are objects of sight; because, in writing or speaking, things can only be compared in idea, and ideas of sight are more distinct than those of any other sense, When a nation, emerging out of barbarity, begins to think of the fine arts, the beauties of language cannot long lie concealed; and when discovered, they are, by the force of novelty, carried beyond moderation. In the early poems of every nation, we find metaphors and similies founded on slight and distant resemblances, which, losing their grace and their novelty, wear gradually out of repute; by the improvement of taste, none but correct metaphors and similies are admitted in polite composition. With respect to similies, take the following specimen : Thou art like snow on the heath; thy hair like the mist of Cromla, when it curls on the rocks, and shines to the beam of the west: thy arms are like two white pillars in the hall of the mighty Fingal. FINGAL. It has no good effect to compare things by way of simile that are of the same kind; nor to compare by contrast things of different kinds The reason is given in the chapter quoted above; and the reason shall be illustrated by examples. The first is a comparison built upon a resemblance so obvious as to make little or no impression. This just rebuke inflam'd the Lycian crew, They join, they thicken, and th' assault renew. Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds; Thus obstinate to death, they fight, they fall; Nor these can keep, nor those can win the wall. ILIAD, Xii. 505. Another, from Milton, lies open to the same objection. Speaking of the fallen angels searching for mines of gold: A numerous brigade hasten'd: as when bands Of pioneers with spade and pick-ax arm'd, Or cast a rampart. The next shall be of things contrasted that are of different kinds : Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage And fawn on rage with base humility? RICHARD II.-ACT V. Sc. 1. A man and a lion are of different species, and therefore are proper subjects for a simile; but there is no such resemblance between them in general, as to produce any strong effect by contrasting particular attributes or circumstances. Comparisons must be distinguished into two kinds; one common and familiar, as where a man is compared to a lion in courage, or to a horse in speed; the other more distant and refined, where two things that have in themselves no resemblance or opposition, are compared with respect to their effects. There is no sort of resemblance between a flower-pot and a cheerful song; and yet they may be compared with respect to their effects, the emotions they produce being similar. There is as little resemblance between fraternal concord and precious ointment; and yet observe how successfully they are compared with respect to the impressions they make. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon Aaron's beard, and descended to the skirts of his garment. PSALM 133. For illustrating this sort of comparison, I add some more examples: Delightful is thy presence, O Fingal! it is like the sun on Cromla, when the hunter mourns his absence for a season and sees him between the clouds. Did not Ossian hear a voice? or is it the sound of days that are no more? Often, like the evening sun, comes the memory of former times on my soul. His countenance is settled from war; and is calm as the eveningbeam, that from the cloud of the west looks on Cona's silent vale. Sorrow, like a cloud on the sun, shades the soul of Clessammor. The music was like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul. Pleasant are the words of the song, said Cuchullin, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the calm dew of the morning on the hill of roes, when the sun is faint on its side, and the lake is settled and blue in the vale. These quotations are from the poems of Ossian, who abounds with comparisons of this delicate kind, and appears singularly happy in them.* I proceed to illustrate, by particular instances, the different means by which comparisons, whether of the one sort or the other, can afford pleasure; and, in the order above established, I begin with such instances as * The nature and merit of Ossian's comparisons is fully illustrated in a dissertation on the poems of that author, by Dr. Blair professor of rhetoric in the college of Edinburgh;-a delicious morsel of criticism. |