Part 17

The great variety of modulation conspicuous in English verse, will be found upon trial to arise chiefly from the pauses and accents; and therefore these circumstances are of greater importance than is commonly thought. There is a degree of intricacy in this branch of our subject, and it will require some pains to give a distinct view of it. But we must not be discouraged by difficulties. The pause, which paves the way to the accent, offers itself first to our examination. From a very short trial, the following facts will be verified. 1st, A line admits but one capital pause. 2d, In different lines, we find this pause after the fourth syllable, after the fifth, after the sixth, and after the seventh. These particulars lay a solid foundation for dividing English heroic lines into four sorts, distinguished by the different places of the pause. Nor is this an idle distinction. On the contrary, unless it be kept in view, we cannot have any just notion of the richness and variety of English versification. Each sort or order hath a melody peculiar to itself, readily distinguishable by a good ear; and, in the sequel, I am not without hopes to make the cause of this peculiarity sufficiently evident. It must be observed, at the same time, that the pause cannot be made indifferently at any of the places mentioned. It is the sense that regulates the pause, as will be seen more fully afterward; and consequently, it is the sense that determines of what order every line must be. There can be but one capital musical pause in a line; and this pause ought to coincide, if possible, with a pause in the sense; in order that the sound may accord with the sense.

What is said must be illustrated by examples of each sort or order. And first of the pause after the fourth syllable:

Back through the paths || of pleasing sense I ran

Again,

Profuse of bliss || and pregnant with delight

After the 5th:

So when an angel || by divine command, With rising tempests || shakes a guilty land,

After the 6th:

Speed the soft intercourse || from soul to soul

Again,

Then from his closing eyes || thy form shall part

After the 7th:

And taught the doubtful battle || where to rage

Again,

And in the smooth description || murmur still

Beside the capital pause now mentioned, other inferior or semipauses will be discovered by a nice ear. Of these there are commonly two in each line; one before the capital pause, and one after it. The former is invariably placed after the first long syllable, whether the line begin with a long syllable or a short. The other in its variety imitates the capital pause. In some lines it follows the 6th syllable, in some the 7th, and in some the 8th. Of these semipauses take the following examples.

* * * * *

1st and 8th:

Led | through a sad || variety | of wo.

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 semipause, 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 Iambus distinctly pronounced, which, by a long syllable after a short, is a preparation for rest. If this hold, the placing this semipause after the 6th or after the 7th syllable, must be directed by the sense, in order to avoid a pause in the middle of a word, or betwixt two words intimately connected; and so far melody is justly sacrificed to sense.

In discoursing of the full pause in a Hexameter line, it is laid down as a rule, That it ought never to divide a word. Such licence deviates too far from the connection that ought to be betwixt the pauses of sense and of melody. And in an English line, it is for the same reason equally wrong to divide a word by a full pause. Let us justify this reason by experiments.

A noble super||fluity it craves

Abhor, a perpe||tuity should stand

Are these lines distinguishable from prose? Scarcely, I think.

The same rule is not applicable to a semipause, which being short and faint, is not sensibly disagreeable when it divides a word.

Relent|less walls || whose darksome round | contains

For her | white virgins || hyme|neals sing

In these | deep solitudes || and aw|ful cells

It must however be acknowledged, that the melody here suffers in some degree. A word ought to be pronounced without any rest betwixt its component syllables. The semipause must bend to this rule, and thereby vanisheth almost altogether.

With regard to the capital pause, it is so essential to the melody, that a poet cannot be too nice in the choice of its place, in order to have it full, clear, and distinct. It cannot be placed more happily than with a pause in the sense; and if the sense require but a comma after the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh syllable, there can be no difficulty about this 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 be placed at the end of 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. No good poet ever attempted to separate a substantive from its article: the dividing such intimate companions, would be harsh and unpleasant. The following line, for example, 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 manner.

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

If then it be not a matter of indifferency 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 unfold these rules; not chiefly for their utility, but in order to exemplify some latent principles that tend to regulate our taste even where we are scarce sensible of them. And to that end, it seems the eligible method 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 substance and quality, the most intimate of all. A quality cannot exist independent of a substance, nor is it separable from it even in imagination, because they make parts of the same idea; and for that reason, it must, with regard to melody, be disagreeable, to bestow upon the adjective a sort of independent existence, by interjecting a pause betwixt 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 wou’d 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. The foregoing reasoning, it is true, appears to me just: it is however too subtile, to afford conviction in opposition to taste.

Considering this matter in a superficial view, 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 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 the colour. In a word, qualities, though related all to one subject, may be considered separately, and the 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 this reason, they may be separated by a pause, when the former is introduced before the latter:

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 expresses a certain modification of the action expressed by the verb, is not separable from it 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 leaving out a particular modification, precisely as a subject may be conceived leaving out a particular quality; and therefore when by inversion the verb is first introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause betwixt it and the adverb which 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. Betwixt 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.

On the other hand, when by inversion the verb is placed first, is it lawful to separate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer not, because an action is not in idea separable from the agent, more than a quality from the substance 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 betwixt the verb and the consequent substantive; and I have now discovered 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 side it will be observed, that these words signify things which are not separable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived without some being that is put to death, nor painting without a surface upon which the colours are spread. On the other side, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like substance and quality, united in one individual subject. The active subject is perfectly distinct from that which is passive; and they are connected by one circumstance only, that the action exerted by the former, is exerted upon the latter. This makes it possible to take the action to pieces, and to consider it first with relation to the agent, and next with relation to the patient. But after all, so intimately connected are the parts of the thought, that it requires an effort to make a separation even for a moment. The subtilising to such a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets however, taking advantage of this subtilty, scruple not to separate by a pause an active verb from its passive subject. Such pauses in a long work may be indulged; but taken singly, they certainly are not agreeable. I appeal to the following examples.

The peer now spreads || the glitt’ring forfex wide

As ever sully’d || the fair face of light

Repair’d to search || the gloomy cave of Spleen

Nothing, to make || philosophy thy friend

Shou’d chance to make || the well-dress’d rabble stare

Or cross, to plunder || provinces, the main

These madmen never hurt || the church or state

How shall we fill || a library with wit

What better teach || a foreigner the tongue?

Sure, if I spare || the minister, no rules Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools.

On the other hand, when the passive subject by inversion is first named, there is no difficulty of interjecting a pause betwixt it and the verb, more than when the active subject is first named. The same reason holds in both, that though a verb cannot be separated in idea from the substantive which governs it, and scarcely from the substantive it governs; yet a substantive may always be conceived independent of the verb. When the passive subject is introduced before the verb, we know not that an action is to be exerted upon it; therefore we may rest till the action commences. For the sake of illustration take the following examples.

Shrines! where their vigils || pale-ey’d virgins keep

Soon as thy letters || trembling I unclose

No happier task || these faded eyes pursue

What is said about placing the pause, leads to a general observation, which I shall have occasion for afterwards. The natural order of placing the active substantive and its verb, is more friendly to a pause than the inverted order. But in all the other connections, inversion affords by far a better opportunity for a pause. Upon this depends one of the great advantages that blank verse hath over rhyme. The privilege of inversion, in which it far excels rhyme, gives it a much greater choice of pauses, than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.

We now proceed to the slighter connections, which shall be discussed in one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepositions freely admit a pause betwixt them, which will be clear from the following instances.

Assume what sexes || and what shape they please

The light militia || of the lower sky

Connecting particles were invented to unite in a period two substantives signifying things occasionally united in the thought, but which have no natural union. And betwixt two things not only separable in idea, but really distinct, the mind, for the sake of melody, chearfully admits by a pause a momentary disjunction of their occasional union.

* * * * *

One capital branch of the subject is still upon hand, to which I am directed by what is just now said. It concerns those parts of speech which singly represent no idea, and which become not significant till they be joined to other words. I mean conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and such like accessories, passing under the name of _particles_. Upon these the question occurs, Whether they can be separated by a pause from the words that make them significant? Whether, for example, in the following lines, the separation of the accessory preposition from the principal substantive, be according to rule?

The goddess with || a discontented air

And heighten’d by || the diamond’s circling rays

When victims at || yon altar’s foot we lay

So take it in || the very words of Creech

An ensign of || the delegates of Jove

Two ages o’er || his native realm he reign’d

While angels, with || their silver wings o’ershade

Or separating the conjunction from the word it connects with what goes before:

Talthybius and || Eurybates the good

It will be obvious at the first glance, that the foregoing reasoning upon objects naturally connected, are not applicable to words which of themselves are mere ciphers. We must therefore have recourse to some other principle for solving the present question. These particles out of their place are totally insignificant. To give them a meaning, they must be joined to certain words. The necessity of this junction, together with custom, forms an artificial connection, which has a strong influence upon the mind. It cannot bear even a momentary separation, which destroys the sense, and is at the same time contradictory to practice. Another circumstance tends still more to make this separation disagreeable. The long syllable immediately preceding the full pause, must be accented; for this is required by the melody, as will afterward appear. But it is ridiculous to accent or put an emphasis upon a low word that raises no idea, and is confined to the humble province of connecting words that raise ideas. And for that reason, a line must be disagreeable where a particle immediately precedes the full pause; for such construction of a line makes the melody discord with the sense.

* * * * *

Hitherto we have discoursed upon that pause only which divides the line. Are the same rules applicable to the concluding pause? This must be answered by making a distinction. In the first line of a couplet, the concluding pause differs little, if at all, from the pause which divides the line; and for that reason, the rules are applicable to both equally. The concluding pause of the couplet, is in a different condition: it resembles greatly the concluding pause in a Hexameter line. Both of them indeed are so remarkable, that they never can be graceful, unless when they accompany a pause in the sense. Hence it follows, that a couplet ought always to be finished with some close in the sense; if not a point, at least a comma. The truth is, that this rule is seldom transgressed. In Pope’s works, upon a cursory search indeed, I found but the following deviations from the rule.

Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole; One all extending, all-preserving soul Connects each being----

Another:

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow’rs, To steal from rainbows ere they drop in show’rs A brighter wash----

But now, supposing the connection to be so slender as to admit a pause, it follows not that a pause may always be put. There is one rule to which every other ought to bend, That the sense must never be wounded or obscured by the music; and upon that account, I condemn the following lines:

Ulysses, first || in public cares, she found.

And,

Who rising, high || th’ imperial sceptre rais’d.

With respect to inversion, it appears both from reason and experiments, that many words which cannot bear a separation in their natural order, admit a pause when inverted. And it may be added, that when two words, or two members of a sentence, in their natural order, can be separated by a pause, such separation can never be amiss in an inverted order. An inverted period, which runs cross to the natural train of ideas, requires to be marked in some measure even by pauses in the sense, that the parts may be distinctly known. Take the following examples.

As with cold lips || I kiss’d the sacred veil.

With other beauties || charm my partial eyes.

Full in my view || set all the bright abode.

With words like these || the troops Ulysses rul’d.

Back to th’ assembly roll || the thronging train.

Not for their grief || the Grecian host I blame.

The same where the separation is made at the close of the first line of the couplet:

For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.

The pause is tolerable even at the close of the couplet, for the reason just now suggested, that inverted members require some slight pause in the sense:

’Twas where the plane-tree spread its shades around: The altars heav’d; and from the crumbling ground A mighty dragon shot.

Thus a train of reasoning hath insensibly led us to conclusions with regard to the musical pause, very different from those in the first section, concerning the separating by an interjected circumstance words intimately connected. One would conjecture, that where-ever words are separable by interjecting a circumstance, they should be equally separable by interjecting a pause. But, upon a more narrow inspection, the appearance of analogy vanisheth. To make this evident, I need only premise, that a pause in the sense distinguishes the different members of a period from each other; that two words of the same member may be separated by a circumstance, all the three making still but one member; and therefore that a pause in the sense has no connection with the separation of words by interjected circumstances. This sets the matter in a clear light. It is observed above, that the musical pause is intimately connected with the pause in the sense; so intimately indeed, that regularly they ought to coincide. As this would be too great a restraint, a licence is indulged, to place pauses for the sake of the music where they are not necessary for the sense. But this licence must be kept within bounds. And a musical pause ought never to be placed where a pause is excluded by the sense; as, for example, betwixt the adjective and following substantive which make parts of the same idea, and still less betwixt a particle and the word which makes it significant.

Abstracting at present from the peculiarity of modulation arising from the different pauses, it cannot fail to be observed in general, that they introduce into our verse no slight degree of variety. Nothing more fatigues the ear, than a number of uniform lines having all the same pause, which is extremely remarkable in the French versification. This imperfection will be discerned by a fine ear even in the shortest succession, and becomes intolerable in a long poem. Pope excels all the world in the variety of his modulation, which indeed is not less perfect of its kind than that of Virgil.

From what is now said, there ought to be one exception. Uniformity in the members of a thought, demands equal uniformity in the members of the period which expresses that thought. When therefore resembling objects or things are expressed in a plurality of verse-lines, these lines in their structure ought to be as uniform as possible, and the pauses in particular ought all of them to have the same place. Take the following examples.

By foreign hands || thy dying eyes were clos’d, By foreign hands || thy decent limbs compos’d, By foreign hands || thy humble grave adorn’d.

Again,

Bright as the sun, || her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, || they shine on all alike.

Speaking of Nature, or the God of Nature:

Warms in the sun || refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars || and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life || extends through all extent, Spreads undivided || operates unspent.