style would naturally assume, made it easier to form the words into some sort of numbers that fell in with the music of the song. Very harsh and uncouth, we may easily believe, these numbers would be at first. But the pleasure was felt; it was studied; and versification, by degrees, passed into an art. (Art. 25. Illus.)

Corol. 1. It appears from what has been said, that the first compositions, which were either recorded by writing or transmitted by tradition, could be no other than poetical compositions. No other but these, could draw the attention of men in their rude, uncivilized state. Indeed they knew no other.

2. Cool reasoning and plain discourse had no power to attract savage tribes, addicted only to hunting and war. There was nothing that could either rouse the speaker to pour himself forth, or draw the crowd to listen, but the high powers of passion, of music, and of song. This vehicle, poetry, therefore, and no other, could be employed by chiefs and legislators, when they meant to instruct or animate their tribes.

3. There is, likewise, a farther reason why such compositions only could be transmitted to posterity; because, before writing was invented, songs only could last, and be remembered. The ear gave assistance to the memory, by the help of numbers; fathers repeated and sung them to their children; and by this oral tradition of national ballads, were conveyed all the historical knowledge, and all the instruction, of the first ages.

547. The earliest accounts which history gives us concerning all nations, bear testimony to these facts. In the first ages of Greece, priests, philosophers, and statesmen, all delivered their instructions in poetry.

Illus. Apollo, Orpheus, and Amphion, their most ancient bards, are represented as the first tamers of mankind, the first founders of law and civilization. Minos and Thales sung to the lyre the laws which they composed ;* and till the age immediately preceding that of Herodotus, history had appeared in no other form than that of poetical tales.

548. In the same manner, among all other nations, poets are the first literary characters, and songs are the first compositions that make their appearance. (Illus. 2. Art. 544. and Art. 21.)

Illus. Among the Scythian or Gothic nations, many of their kings and leaders were scalders, or poets; and it is from their runic songs, that the most early writers of their history, among whom we may reckon Saxo-Grammaticus, acknowledged, that they had derived their chief information. Among the Celtic tribes, in Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, we know, in what admiration their bards were held, and what great influence they possessed over the people. They were both poets and musicians, in each of these countries. They were always near the person of the chief or sovereign; they recorded all his great exploits; they were employed as the ambassadors between contending tribes, and their persons were held sacred.

549. Diversity of climate and of manner of living, hath occasioned some diversity in the strain of the first poetry of

* Strabo, I. 10.

nations; chiefly, according as those nations are of a more ferocious, or of a more gentle spirit; and according as they advance faster or slower in the arts of civilization. (Art. 31.)

Illus. 1. Thus we find all the remains of the ancient Gothic poetry remarkably fierce, and breathing nothing but slaughter and blood; while the Peruvian and the Chinese songs turned, from the earliest times, upon milder subjects. The Celtic poetry, in the days of Ossian, though chiefly of the martial kind, yet had attained a considerable mixture of tenderness and refinement; in consequence of the long cultivation of poetry among the Celta, by means of a series and succession of bards which had been established for ages. So Lucan informs us: Vos quoque qui fortes animos, belloque peremptos Laudibus in longum vates diffundit is ævum

Plurima securi fudistis carmina bardi.* (L. 44.)

2. Among the Grecian states, the early poetry appears to have received a philosophical cast, from what we are informed concerning the subjects of Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus, who treated of creation and of chaos, of the generation of the world, and of the rise of things; and we know that the Greeks advanced sooner to philosophy, and proceeded with a quicker pace in all the arts of refinement, than most other nations.

3. The Arabians and the Persians have always been the greatest poets of the East; and among them, as among other people, poetry was the earliest vehicle of all their learning and instruction.f

550. During the infancy of poetry, all the different kinds of it lay confused, and were mingled in the same composition, according as inclination, enthusiasm, or casual incidents, directed the poet's strain.

Illus. 1. Odes and hymns of every sort, would naturally be among the first compositions; according as the bards were moved by religious feelings, by exultation, resentment, love, or any other warm sentiment, to pour themselves forth in song.

2. Plaintive or elegiac poetry, would as naturally arise from lamentations over their deceased friends.

3. The recital of the achievements of their heroes, and their ancestors, gave birth to what we now call epic poetry; and as, not content with simply reciting these, they would infallibly be led, at some of their public meetings, to represent them, by introducing different bards speaking in the character of their heroes, and answering each other, we find in this the first outlines of tragedy, or dramatic writing.

551. None of these kinds of poetry, however, were, in the first ages of society, properly distinguished, or separated, as they are now, from each other. Indeed, not only were the

*You too, ye bards, whom sacred raptures fire,
To chaunt your heroes to your country's lyre,
Who consecrate, in immortal strain,

your

Brave patriot souls in righteous battle slain;
Securely now the useful task renew,

And noblest themes in deathless songs pursue. Rowe.

Vid. Voyages de Chardin, chap. de la Poesie des Persans.

different kinds of poetry then mixed together, but all that we now call letters, or composition of any kind, was then blended in one mass.

Obs. 1. When the progress of society brought on a separation of the different arts and professions of civil life, it led also by degrees to a separation of the different literary provinces from each other.

2. The art of writing was in process of time invented; (Chap. V. Book I.) records of past transactions began to be kept; men, occupied with the subjects of policy and useful arts, wished now to be instructed and informed, as well as moved. They reasoned and reflected upon the affairs of life; and were interested by what was real, not fabulous, in past transactions.

3. The historian, therefore, now laid aside the buskins of poetry; he wrote in prose, and attempted to give a faithful and judicious relation of former events. The philosopher addressed himself chiefly to the understanding, The orator studied to persuade by reasoning, and retained more or less of the ancient passionate and glowing style, according as it was conducive to his purpose. (Art. 41. and 42.)

Corol. Poetry hence became a separate art, calculated chiefly to please, and confined generally to such subjects as related to the imagination and passions. Even its earliest companion, music, was in a great measure divided from it.

CHAPTER II.

VERSIFICATION.

552. NATIONS, whose language and pronunciation were of a musical kind, rested their versification chiefly upon the quantities, that is, the length or shortness of their syllables. Others, who did not make the quantities of their syllables be so distinctly perceived in pronouncing them, rested the melody of their verse upon the number of syllables which it contained, upon the proper disposition of accents and pauses in reciting it, and frequently upon that return of corresponding sounds, which we call rhyme.

Illus. 1. The former was the case with the Greeks and Romans; the latter is the case with us, and with most modern nations.

2. Among the Greeks and Romans, every syllable, or, at least, by far the greatest number of syllables, was known to have a fixed and determined quantity; and their manner of pronouncing rendered this so sensible to the ear, that a long syllable was counted precisely equal in time to two short ones.

3. Upon this principle, the number of syllables contained in their hexameter verse, was allowed to vary. It may extend to 17; it can contain, when regular, no fewer than 13; but the musical time was,

notwithstanding, precisely the same in every hexameter verse, and was always equal to that of 12 long syllables.

4. In order to ascertain the regular time of every verse, and the proper mixture and succession of long and short syllables which . ought to compose it, what the grammarians call metrical feet, dactyles, spondees, iambuses, &c. were invented. By these measures was tried the accuracy of composition in every line, and whether it was so constructed as to complete its proper melody.

5. It was requisite, for instance, that the hexameter verse should have the quantity of its syllables so disposed, that it could be scanned or measured by six metrical feet, which might be either dactyles or spondees (as the musical time of both of these is the same,) with this restriction only, that the fifth foot was regularly to be a dactyle, and the last a spondee.

Obs. The genius of our language corresponds not, in this respect, to the Greek or Latin; yet, in the sequel, it is shewn, that English poetry has its feet, though differently formed from the ancient. We rest the melody of our verse upon the number of syllables which it contains, &c. (Art. 552.)

}

Feet and Pauses are the constituent Parts of Verse.

We shall consider these separately.

OF POETICAL FEET.

553. A certain number of connected syllables forms a foot. These syllables, thus connected, are called feet, because it is by their aid that the voice, as it were, steps along through the verse, in a measured pace; and it is necessary that the syllables which mark this regular movement of the voice, should, in some manner, be distinguished from the others.

Illus. 1. This distinction, we have shewn, (Illus. 1. Art. 552.) was made among the ancient Romans, by dividing their syllables into long and short, and ascertaining their quantity, by an exact proportion of time in sounding them; the long being to the short, as two to one; and the long syllables, being thus the more important, marked the

movement.

2. In English, syllables are divided into accented and unaccented; (Illus. 1. Art. 552.); and the accented syllables, being as strongly distinguished from the unaccented, by the peculiar stress of the voice upon them, are equally capable of marking the movement, and pointing out the regular paces of the voice, as the long syllables were by their quantity, among the Romans.

554. English feet, formed by an accent on vowels, are exactly of the same nature as the ancient feet, and have the same just quantity in their syllables. So that, in this respect, we have all that the ancients had, and something which they had not. We have in fact duplicates of each foot, yet with

such a difference, as to fit them for different purposes, to be applied at our pleasure.

Obs. From its nature, every foot has powers peculiar to itself; and it is upon the knowledge and right application of these powers, that the pleasure and effect of numbers chiefly depend.

555. All the feet used in poetry consist either of two, or of three syllables; and are reducible to eight kinds; namely, four of two syllables, and four of three, as follows:

556. A Trochee has the first syllable accented, and the last unaccented: as, "Hateful, péttish.”

557. An Iambus has the first syllable unaccented, and the last accented: as, "Betray, consist."

558. A Spondee has both the words or syllables accented: as, "The pale mōōn.”

559. A Pyrrhic has both the words or syllables unaccent ed: as, "On the tall tree."

560. A Dactyle has the first syllable accented, and the two latter unaccented: as, "Labourer, possible."

561. An Amphibrach has the first and last syllables unaccented, and the middle one accented: as, "Dělightful, doméstic."

562. An Anapæst has the two first syllables unaccented, and the last accented: as, "Contrăvēne, acquiésce."

563. A Tribrach has all its syllables unaccented: as, “ Núměrăblẽ, cónquerable.”

Scholium. Some of these feet may be denominated principal feet, as pieces of poetry may be wholly, or chiefly formed of any of them. Such are the Iambus, Trochee, Dactyle, and Anapast. The others may be termed secondary feet; because their chief use is to diversify the numbers, and to improve the verse.

We shall first explain the Nature of the principal Feet.

564. Iambic verses may be divided into several species, according to the number of feet or syllables of which they are composed.

Example 1. The shortest form of the English Iambic consists of an Iambus, with an additional short syllable: as,

Disdaining,

Complaining,

Consenting,

Repenting