and it is chiefly in the artful management of these, that juft pronunciation confists. With refpect to the first circumftance, mufic has evidently the advantage; for all its notes are agreeable to the ear, which is not always the cafe of articulate found. With respect to the second, long and fhort fyllables variously combined, produce a great variety of feet; yet far inferior to the variety which is found in the multiplied combinations of mufical notes. With refpect to high and low notes, pronunciation is still more inferior to finging. For it it obferved by Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus *, that in pronouncing, i. e. without altering the aperture of the windpipe, the voice is confined within three notes and a half. Singing has a much greater compass. With respect to the two laft circumftances, pronunciation equals finging.

In this difcourfe, I have mentioned none of the beauties of language, but what arise

De ftructura orationis, fect. 2.

from

from words taken in their proper fenfes Those beauties that depend on the metaphorical and figurative power of words, are reserved to be treated in chap. 20.

SECT.

IV.

VERSIFICATION.

THE mufic of verse, though handled by every grammarian, merits more attention than has been given it. The fubject is intimately connected with human nature; and to explain it thoroughly, feveral nice and delicate feelings must be employ'd. Entering upon this fubject, it occurs as a preliminary point, By what mark is verse distinguished from profe? The dif cuffion of this point is neceffary, were it for no other purpose but to ascertain the nature and limits of our fubject. To produce this distinguishing mark, is a task not perhaps fo eafy as may at first be apprehended. Verse of every fort, has, it is true, rules for VOL. II. Y y

its

its conftruction. It is compofed of feet, the number and variety of which are ascertained. Profe, though alfo composed of feet, is more loose and scarce fubjected to any rules. But many are ignorant of these rules: Are fuch left without means to make the distinction? And even with respect to the learned, musft they apply the rule before they can with certainty pronounce whether the compofition be profe or verse? This will hardly be maintained; and therefore, instead of rules, the ear must be appealed to as the proper judge. But what gain we by being thus referred to another ftandard? It ftill recurs, by what mark does the ear diftinguish verfe from profe? The proper and fatisfactory answer is, That thefe make different impreffions, which are readily distinguishable by every one who hath an ear. This advances us one step in our inquiry.

Taking it then for granted, that verse makes upon the ear a different impreffion from that of profe; nothing remains but to explain this difference, and to affign its caufe. To thefe ends, I muft call to my

aid an obfervation made above in treating of the found of words, that they are more agreeable to the ear when compofed of long and short fyllables than when all the fyllables are of the fame fort. A continued found in the fame tone, makes an impreffion that comes not up to any idea we have of mufic. The fame note fucceffively renewed by intervals, is more agreeable; but ftill makes not a mufical impreffion. To produce this impreffion, variety is necessary as well as number. The fucceffive founds or fyllables, must be some of them long, some of them short; and if also high and low, the mufic is the more perfect. Now if this impreffion can be made by fingle words, much more by a plurality in an orderly fucceffion. The mufical impreffion made by a period confifting of long and fhort fyllables arranged in a certain order, is what the Greeks call rhythmus, the Latins, numerus, and we modulation or meafure. Cicero juftly obferves, that in one continued found there is no modulation: "Numerus in continuatione nullus eft." But in what follows he is wide of the truth,

if by numerus he means modulation or mufical measure. Diftinctio, et æqualium "et fæpe variorum intervallorum percuffio, numerum conficit; quem in cadentibus guttis, quod intervallis diftinguuntur, "notare poffumus." Falling drops, whether with equal or unequal intervals, are certainly not mufical. We begin then only to be sensible of a mufical expreffion, when the notes are varied. And this also was probably the opinion of the author cited, though his expreffion be a little unguarded *.

It will probably occur, that modulation, so far as connected with long and short fyllables combined in a fentence, may be found in profe as well as in verfe; confidering especially, that in both, particular words are accented or pronounced in a

From this paffage, however, we difcover the etymology of the Latin term for mufical expreffion. Every one being fenfible that there is no music in a continued found; the first inquiries were probably carried no farther, than that to produce a mufical expreffion, a number of founds is neceffary; and musical expreffion obtained the name of numerus, before it was clearly afcertained, that variety is neceffary as well as number.