this balance is governed by the equal divifion of the line in point of time. Thus, if you repeat the two firft examples given, you will find no difference, as to the time, whether the paufe falls on the fourth or fifth fyllable; and this, I think, will extend even to the last example: or, if there should be any difference, it is fo trifling, that it will generally escape the ear. But this is not fo in blank verfe; for, the lines being made often to run one into the other, the fecond pause is funk; the balance, from the equal divifion of each line, is removed; and by changing the paufes at pleasure, an open is given into an unlimited variety.

OBSERVE the effects in the first lines of Paradife Loft.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whofe mortal tafte

Brought

Brought death into the world, and all our

woe,

U

With lofs of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly Mufe.

8

In these, and the lines which immediately follow, the paufes are fhifted thro' all the ten fyllables.

Hor. BUT this variety is not infeparable from the nature of blank verfe. In Addi fon's Cato, there is, I think, the very fame monotony which you have condemned in Mr. Pope: Thus,

The dawn is overcaft, || the morning low'rs, And heavily in clouds || brings on the day; The great, th' important day ||

Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome. Again,

Again,

Who knows not this? [] but what can Cato do
Against a world, I a base degenerate world,
That courts the yoke, and bows the neck.
to Cæfar?

Pent up in Utica, || he vainly forms
A poor epitome of Roman greatness.

Afp. THIS is the very echo of the couplet' measure.

Eug NOTHING could be more to my purpofe; it confirms all that I have advanced and proves further, that the monotony of the couplet does not proceed, as has been imagined, from the repetition of the rhymes, but from a fameness in the movement of the verfe. No doubt, the use of rhymes was the firft caufe of confining poetic harmony to

fuch

fuch narrow limits [c]. Mr. Addison, accustomed to the fecure Monotony of the couplet, had neither the genius to bear him thro', nor courage to attempt the unbounded variety of the Miltonic measures. Birds of a weak flight move always in a line; *but, the Eagle, wonderful in his foarings, thews in his very ftoops the power of his wing. A poet, of a fuperior fpirit, muft have refources in the variety of his numbers. The flight of Satan, in Paradife Loft, is not to be pent up in a couplet.

Then from pole to pole

He views in breadth; and without longer

pause,

[c] Αλλα καιπερ ηδεως και μεγαλοπρεπως πολλα συνθείες οι άνδρες ετοι, περι τας μεταβολας και την ποικιλίαν 8 παιν suluxo. Dion. Hal. De Struct. Orat.

Down

Down right into the world's first region
throws

His flight precipitant; and winds with eafe
Through the pure marble air his oblique

way,

Amongst innumerable ftars.

Hor. In comparing, as you have done, the gradations in poetie harmony to the flight of birds, by the foarings and stoops of the Eagle, 1 prefume, you mean fomething equivalent to thofe enforcements and lowering of founds, which give fuch a pleafing variety, and have fo powerful an effect in mufic.

Eug. Or this we have a fine example in the following paffage; in which you'll obferve, that the Poet fets out with almost a profaic weakness of verfe; thence rifing