ple is, in general, very flowing and agreeable. Archbithop Tillotfon is too often carelefs and languid; and is much outdone by bifhop Atterbury in the mufic of his periods. Dean Swift defpifed mufical arrangement aitogether.

Hitherto I have difcourfed of agreeable found, or modulation, in general. It yet remains to treat of a higher beauty of this kind; the found adapted to the fenfe. The former was no more than a fimple accompaniment, to please the ear; the latter fuppofes a peculiar expreffion given to the music. We may remark two degrees of it: First, the current of found, adapted to the tenor of a difcourfe: next, a particular resemblance effected between fome object, and the founds that are employed in defcribing it.

Fift, I fay, the current of found may be adapted to the tenor of a difcourfe. Sounds have, in many respects, a correfpondence with our ideas ; partly natural, partly the effect of artificial affociations. Hence it happens, that any one modulation of found continued, imprints on our ftyle a certain character and expreffion. Sentences conftructed with the Ciceronian fulness and fwell, produce the impreffion of what is important, magnificent, fedate; for this is the natural tone which fuch a courfe of fentiment affumes. But they fuit no violent paffion, no eager reasoning, no familiar addrefs. Thefe always require meafures brifker, cafier, and often more abrupt. And, therefore, to fwell, or to let down the periods, as the fubject demands, is a very important rule in oratory. No one tenor whatever, fuppofing it to produce no bad effect from fatiety, will anfwer to all different compofitions; nor even to all the parts of the fame compofition. It were as abfurd to write a panegyric, and an invective, in a ftyle of the fame

cadence, as to fet the words of a tender love-song to the air of a warlike march.

. Obferve how finely the following fentence of Cicero is adapted, to represent the tranquillity and ease of a satisfied ftate: "Etfi homini nihil eft ma"gis optandum quam profpera, æquabilis, perpeic tuaque fortuna, fecundo vitæ fine ulla offenfione "curfu; tamen, fi mihi tranquilla et placata om"nia fuiffent, incredibili quadam et pene divina,

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qua nunc veftro beneficio, fruor, lætitiæ volup "tate caruiffem*." Nothing was ever more perfect in its kind: it paints, if we may fo fpeak, to the ear. But, who would not have laughed, if Cicero had employed fuch periods, or fuch a cadence as this, in inveighing against Mark Antony, or Catiline? What is requifite, therefore, is, that we previously fix, in our mind, a juft idea of the general tone of found which fuits our fubject; that is, i which the fentiments we are to exprefs, most naturally affume, and in which they moft commonly vent themselves; whether round and fmooth, or ftately and folemn, or brifk and quick, or interrupted and abrupt. This general idea muft direct the modulation of our periods: to fpeak in the ftyle of mufic, must give us the key note, muft form the ground of the melody; varied and diverfified in parts, according as either our fentiments are diverfified, or as is requifite for producing a fuitable variety to gratify the ear.

It may be proper to remark, that our tranflators of the bible have often been happy in fuiting their numbers to the fubject. Grave, folemn, and majestic fubjects undoubtedly require fuch an arrangement of words as runs much on long fyllables; and, particularly, they require the close to rest upon fuch. The very first verfes of the bible, are remarkable

* Orat. ad Quirites, poft reditum,

for this melody; " In the beginning, God created "the heavens and the earth; and the earth was "without form, and void; and darkness was up

on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God "moved upon the face of the waters." Several other paffages, particularly fome of the pfalms, afford Itriking examples of this fort of grave, melodious conftruction. Any compofition that rifes confiderably above the ordinary tone of profe, fuch as monumental infcriptions, and panegyrical characters, naturally runs into numbers of this kind

But, in the next place, befides the general correspondence of the current of found with thẻ curtent of thought, there may be a more particular expreflion attempted, of certain objects, by means of refembling founds. This can be, fometimes, accomplished in profe compofition; but there only in a more faint degree; nor is it fo much expected there. In poetry, chiefly, it is looked for ; where attention to found is more demanded, and where the inverfions and liberties of poetical ftyle give us a greater command of found; affifted, too, by the verfification, and that cantus obfcurior, to which we are naturally led in reading poetry. This requires a little more illuftration.

The founds of words may be employed for representing, chiefly, three claffes of objects; first, other founds; fecondly, motion; and, thirdly, the emotions and paffions of the mind.

First, I fay, by a proper choice of words, we may produce a refemblance of other founds which we mean to describe; fuch as, the noise of waters, the roaring of winds, or the murmuring of streams. This is the fimpleft inftance of this fort of beauty. For the medium through which we imitate, here, is a natural one; founds reprefented by other founds; and between ideas of the fame fenfe, it is easy to form a connexion. No very great art is required Vol. I. 2 I

a poet, when he is defcribing fweet and foft -founds, to make use of fuch words as have moft liquids and vowels, and glide the fofteft; or, when he is defcribing harsh founds, to throw together a 'number of harth fyllables which are of difficult pronunciation. Here the common ftructure of language affifts him; for, it will be found, that, in moft languages, the names of many particular founds are fo formed, as to carry fome affinity to the found which they fignify; as with us, the whifling of winds, the buz and hum of infects, the hijs of ferpents, the crash of falling timber; and many other inftances, where the word has been e plainly framed upon the found it reprefents. I fhall produce a remarkable example of this beauty from Milton, taken from two paffages in Paradife Lot, defcribing the found made, in the one, by the opening of the gates of hell; in the other, by the -opening of thofe of heaven. The contrast between the two, difplays, to great advantage, the poet's art. The first is the opening of hell's gates:

-On a fudden, open fly,

With impettious recoil, and jarring found,

Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate

Harth thunder..

Obferve, now, the fmoothness of the other:

-Heaven opened wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious found,
On golden hinges turning.

B. I.

B. II.

The following beautiful paffage from Taffo's
Gierufalemme, has been often admired, on account
of the imitation effected by found of the thing re-
presented:

Chiama gli habitator de l'ombre eterne
Il rauco fuon de la Tartarea tromba:
Treman le fpaciofe atre caverne,

Et l'aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba;
Ni ftridendo cofi da le fuperne
Regioni de le cielo, il folgor piomba;
Ne fi fcoffa giammai la terra,

Quand i vapori in fen gravida ferra.

CANT. IV. Stanz. 4.

The fecond clafs of objects, which the found of words is often employed to imitate, is, motion; as it is fwift or flow, violent or gentle, equable or interrupted, eafy or accompanied with effort. Though there be no natural affinity between found, of any kind, and motion, yet, in the imagination, there is a strong one; as appears from the connexion between mufic and dancing. And, therefore, here it is in the poet's power to give us a lively idea of the kind of motion he would defcribe, by means of founds which correspond, in our imagination, with that motion. Long fyllables naturally give the impreffion of flow motion; as in this line of Virgil:

Olli inter fefe magna vi brachia tollunt.

A fucceffion of fhort fyllables prefents quick motion to the mind; as,

Quadrupedante putrem fonitu quatit ungula campum.

Both Homer and Virgil are great mafters of this beauty, and their works abound with inftances of it; most of them, indeed, fo often quoted and fo well known, that it is needless to produce them. I fhall give one inftance, in English, which seems happy. It is the description of a fudden calm on the feas, in a poem, entitled, The Fleece.

With eafy courfe

The veffels glide; unless their speed be ftorp'd
By dead calms, that oft lie on thefe fimooth feas