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be made on the measure of the verfe. When in its greatest perfection, it does not appear to be the refult of labor, but to be dictated by nature, or prompted by infpiration. In Pope's beft verfes, the idea is expreffed with as little inverfion of style, and with as much concifenefs, precifion, and propriety, as the author could have attained, had he been writing profe without any apparent exertion on his part, the words feem fpontaneously to arrange themfelves in the most musical numbers.

"While still a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
"I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came."

This facility of verfification, it is true, may be, and
probably is, in moft cafes, only apparent and it
is reasonable to think, that in the most perfect poet-
ical productions, not only the choice of words, but
the choice of ideas, is influenced by the rhymes.--
In a profe compofition, the author holds on in a di-
rect courfe, according to the plan he has previously
formed; but in a poem, the rhymes which occur
to him are perpetually diverting him to the right
hand or to the left, by fuggefting ideas which do
not naturally rife out of his fubject. This, I pre-
fume, is Butler's meaning in the following coupiet:

Rhymes the rudder are of verses

With which, like ships, they steer their courses."

But although this may be the cafe in fact, the Poet muft employ all his art to conceal it: infomuch that, if he finds himself under the neceffity to introduce,on account of the rhymes, a fuperfluous idea, or an awkward expreffion, he muft place it in the firft line of the couplet, and not in the fecond; for the reader, naturally prefuming that the lines were compofed in the order in which the author arranges LL

them, is more apt to fufpect the fecond line to be ac commodated to the firft, than the first to the fecond. And this flight artifice is, in general, fufficient to impofe on that degree of attention with which poetry is read. Who can doubt that, in the following lines, Pope wrote the first for the fake of the fecond?

"A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

"An honest man's the noblest work of God.”

Were the first of these lines, or a line equally unmeaning, placed laft, the couplet would have appeared execrable to a perfon of the most moderate tafte.

It affords a ftrong confirmation of the foregoing obfervations, that the Poets of fome nations have delighted in the practice of alliteration, as well as of rhyme, and have even confidered it as an effential circumstance in verfification. Dr. Beattie obferves, that fome antient English poems are more diftin"guifhed by alliteration, than by any other poetical " contrivance. In the works of Langland, even "when no regard is had to rhyme, and but little to "a rude fort of anapeftic measure, it seems to have ❝ been a rule, that three words, at leaft, of each line "fhould begin with the fame letter." A late author informs us, that, in the Icelandic poetry, alliteration is confidered as a circumftance no lefs effential than rhyme.* He mentions also feveral other restraints, which must add wonderfully to the difficulty of verfification; and which appear to us to be perfectly

*The Icelandic poetry requires two things; viz. words with "the same initial letters, and words of the same sound. It was "divided into stanzas, each of which consisted of four couplets; "and each of these couplets was again composed of two hemis"ticks, of which every one contained six syllables; and it was "not allowed to augment this number, except in cases of the "greatest necessity," See VAN TROIL's Letters en Iceland, p. 208.

arbitrary and capricious. If that really be the cafe, the whole pleasure of the reader or hearer arises from his furprise at the facility of the Poet's compofition under these complicated reftraints; that is, from his furprise at the command which the Poet has acquired over his thoughts and expreffions. In our rhyme, I acknowledge, that the coincidence of found is agreeable in itself; and only affirm, that the pleafure which the ear receives from it, is heightened by the other confideration.

III. Of Poetical Fancy.

THERE is another habit of association, which, in fome men, is very remarkable; that which is the foundation of Poetical Fancy: a talent which agrees with Wit in fome circumftances, but which differs from it effentially in others.

The pleasure we receive from Wit, agrees in one particular with the pleasure which arifes from poetical allufions; that in both cafes we are pleased with contemplating an analogy between two different subjects. But they differ in this, that the man of Wit has no other aim than to combine analogous ideas;* whereas no allufion can, with propriety, have a place in ferious poetry, unless it either illuf. trate or adorn the principal fubject. If it has both these recommendations, the allufion is perfect. If it has neither, as is often the cafe with the allufions of Cowley and of Young, the Fancy of the Poet degenerates into Wit.

If the observations be well-founded, they fuggeft a rule with refpect to poetical allufions, which has not always been fufficiently attended to. It frequently happens, that two fubjects bear an analogy to each

*I speak here of pure and unmixed wit, and not of wit, blended, as it is most commonly, with some degree of humor.

other in more refpects than one; and where fuch can be found, they undoubtedly furnish the most favorable of all occafions for the difplay of Wit.But in ferious poetry, I am inclined to think, that however ftriking these analogies may be; and although each of them might, with propriety, be made the foundation of a feparate allufion; it is improper, in the course of the fame allufion, to include more than one of them; as, by doing fo, an author discovers an affectation of Wit, or a defire of tracing analogies, instead of illuftrating or adorning the fubject of his compofition.

I formerly defined Fancy to be a power of affociating ideas according to relations of resemblance and analogy. This definition will probably be thought too general; and to approach too near to that given of Wit. In order to discover the neceffary limitations, we fhall confider what the circumftances are, which please us in poetical allufions. As these allu. fions are fuggefted by Fancy, and are the moft ftriking inftances in which it displays itself, the received rules of Critics with refpect to them, may throw fome light on the mental power which gives them birth.

1. An allusion pleafes, by illuftrating a fubject comparatively obfcure. Hence, I apprehend, it will be found, that allufions from the intellectual world to the material, are more pleafing, than from the material world to the intellectual. Mafon, in his Ode to Memory, compares the influence of that faculty over our ideas, to the authority of a general over his troops:

"thou, whose sway

"The throng'd ideal hosts obey;

"Who bidst their ranks now vanish, now appear,
"Flame in the van, or darken in the rear."

Would the allufion have been equally pleasing, from

a general marshalling his foldiers, to Memory and the fucceffion of ideas?

The effect of a literal and spiritless translation of a work of genius, has been compared to that of the figures which we fee, when we look at the wrong fide of a beautiful piece of tapestry. The allufion is ingenious and happy; but the pleasure which we receive from it arifes, not merely from the analogy which it prefents to us, but from the illuftration which it affords of the author's idea. No one, furely, in fpeaking of a piece of tapeftry, would think of comparing the difference between its fides, to that between an original compofition and a literal tranflation!

Cicero, and after him Mr. Locke, in illuftrating the difficulty of attending to the subjects of our confcioufnefs, have compared the mind to the Eye, which fees every object around it, but is invisible to itself. To have compared the Eye, in this refpect, to the Mind, would have been abfurd.

Mr. Pope's comparison of the progrefs of youthful curiofity, in the pursuits of science, to that of a traveller among the Alps, has been much, and justly, admired. How would the beauty of the allufion have been diminished, if the Alps had furnished the original fubject, and not the illuftration!

But although this rule holds, in general, I acknowledge, that inftances may be produced, from our most celebrated poetical performances, of allufions from material objects, both to the intellectual and the moral worlds. Thefe, however, are comparatively few in number, and are not to be found in defcriptive or in didactic works; but in compofitions written under the influence of fome particular paffion, or which are meant to exprefs fome peculiarity in the mind of the author. Thus, a melancholy man, who has met with many misfortunes in life, will be apt to moralize on every physical event,

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