1st and 7th :

Still on that breast || enamour'd let me lie.

2d and 8th:

From storms a shelter || and from heat | a shade. 2d and 6th:

Let wealth | let honour || wait | the wedded dame. 2d and 7th :

Above all pain || all passion | and all pride.

Even from these few examples it appears, that the place of the last semi pause, like that of the full pause, is directed in a good measure by the sense. Its proper place with respect to the melody is after the eighth syllable, so as to finish the line with an lambus distinctly pronounced, which, by a long syllable after a short, is a preparation for rest: but sometimes it comes after the 6th, and sometimes after the 7th syllable, in order to avoid a pause in the middle of a word, or between two words intimately connected; and so far melody is justly sacrificed to sense.

In discoursing of Hexameter verse, it was laid down as a rule, That a full pause ought never to divide a word: such license deviates too far from the coincidence that ought to be between the pauses of sense and of melody. The same rule must obtain in an English line; and we shall support reason by experiments:

A noble superfluity it craves

Abhor, a perpetuity should stand

Are these lines distinguishable from prose? Scarce ly, I think.

The same rule is not applicable to a semi-pause, which being short and faint, is not sensibly disagreeable when it divides a word:

Relentless walls | whose darksome round | contains
For her white virgins || hyme neals sing

In these deep solitudes || and awful cells.

It must however be acknowledged, that the melody here suffers in some degree; a word ought to be pronounced without any rest between its component syllables: a semi-pause that bends to this rule, is scarce perceived.

The capital pause is so essential to the melody, that one cannot be too nice in the choice of its place, in order to have it clear and distinct. It cannot be in better company than with a pause in the sense; and if the sense require but a comma after the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh syllable, it is sufficient for the musical pause. But to make such coincidence essential, would cramp versification too much; and we have experience for our authority, that there may be a pause in the melody where the sense requires none. We must not however imagine, that a musical pause may come after any word indifferently: some words, like syllables of the same word, are so intimately connected, as not to bear a separation even by a pause. The separating, for example, a substantive from its article would be harsh and unpleasant: witness the following line, which cannot be pronounced with a pause as marked,

If Delia smile, the || flow'rs begin to spring.

But ought to be pronounced in the following man

ner,

If Delia smile, the flow'rs begin to spring.

If then it be not a matter of indifference where to make the pause, there ought to be rules for determining what words may be separated by a pause, and what are incapable of such separation. I shall endeavour to ascertain these rules; not chiefly

for their utility, but in order to unfold some latent principles, that tend to regulate our taste even where we are scarce sensible of them: and to that end, the method that appears the most promising, is to run over the verbal relations, beginning with the most intimate. The first that presents itself is that of adjective and substantive, being the relation of subject and quality, the most intimate of all: and with respect to such intimate companions, the question is, Whether they can bear to be separated by a pause. What occurs is, that a quality cannot exist independent of a subject; nor are they separate even in imagination, because they make parts of the same idea and for that reason, with respect to melody as well as sense, it must be disagreeable, to bestow upon the adjective a sort of independent existence, by interjecting a pause between it and its substantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines, nor any of the sort; for to my taste they are harsh and unpleasant.

Of thousand bright inhabitants of air
The sprites of fiery | termagants inflame
The rest, his many-colour'd ||robe conceal'd
The same, his ancient || personage to deck
Ev'n here, where frozen || Chastity retires
I sit, with sad || civility, I read

Back to my native || moderation slide
Or shall we ev'ry || decency confound

Time was, a sober || Englishman would knock
And place, on good || security, his gold
Taste, that eternal | wanderer, which flies
But ere the tenth || revolving day was run

First let the just || equivalent be paid.

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

All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove

Your own resistless | eloquence employ

I have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a case where I have the misfortune to dislike

what passes current in practice, every man upon the spot may judge by his own taste. And to taste 1 appeal; for though the foregoing reasoning appears to me just, it is however too subtile to affordconviction in opposition to taste.

Considering this matter superficially, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the same, whether the adjective go first, which is the natural order, or the substantive, which is indulged by the laws of inversion. But we soon discover this to be a mistake: colour, for example, cannot be conceived independent of the surface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain spot, as of a certain kind, and as spreading its extended branches all around, without ever thinking of its colour. In a word, a subject may be considered with some of its qualities independent of others; though we cannot form an image of any single quality independent of the subject. Thus then though an adjective named first be inseparable from the ' substantive, the proposition does not reciprocate: an image can be formed of the substantive independent of the adjective; and for that reason, they may be separated by a pause, where the substantive takes the lead.

For thee the fates || severely kind ordain

And curs'd with hearts | unknowing how to yield.

The verb and adverb are precisely in the same condition with the substantive and adjective. An adverb, which modifies the action expressed by the verb, is not separable 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 disperse my store.

But an action may be conceived with some of its modifications, leaving out others; precisely as a sub

ject may be conceived with some of its qualities, leaving out others: and therefore, when by inversion the verb is first introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause between it and the adverb that follows. This may be done at the close 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 substantive and its verb. Between these, placed in their natural order, there is no difficulty of interjecting a pause: an active being is not always in motion, and therefore it is easily separable in idea from its action: when in a sentence the substantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow; and as rest must precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportunity for a pause.

But when by inversion the verb is placed first, is it lawful to separate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer, No; because an action is not an idea separable from the agent, more than a quality from the subject to which it belongs. Two lines of the first rate for beauty, have always appeared to me exceptionable, upon account of the pause thus interjected between the verb and the consequent substantive; and I have now discover. ed a reason to support my taste :

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heav'nly pensive | Contemplation dwells,
And ever musing || Melancholy reigns.

The point of the greatest delicacy regards the active verb and the passive substantive placed in their natural order. On the one hand, it will be observed, that these words signify things which are not separable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived