tion is, Whether they can bear to be separated by a pause. What occurs is, that a quality cannot exist independent of a subject; nor are they separable even in imagination, because they make parts of the same idea and for that reason, with respect to melody as well as sense, it must be disagreeable to bestow upon the adjective a sort of independent existence, by interjecting a pause between it and its substantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines, nor any of the sort; for to my taste they are harsh and unplea

sant.

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 would 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)
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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. And to taste I appeal; for though the foregoing reasoning appears to me just, it is however too subtile to afford conviction in opposition to taste.

Considering this matter superficially, 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, for example, 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 its colour. In a word, a 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 that reason, they may be separated by a pause, when the substantive takes the lead.

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 modifies the action expressed by the verb, is not separable from the verb 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 with, some of its modifications, leaving out others; precisely as a subject may be conceived with some of its qualities, leaving out others; and therefore, when by inversion the verb is first introduced, it has no bad effect to interject a pause between it and the adverb that 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. Between 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.

But when by inversion the verb is placed first, is it lawful to separate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer, No; because an action is

not an idea separable from the agent, more than a quality from the subject to which it belongs. Two lines of the rst rate for beauty, have always appeared to me exceptionable, upon account of the pause thus interjected between 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 hand, it will be observed, that these words signify things which are not separable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived without a being that is put to death, nor painting without a surface upon which the colours are spread. On the other hand, an action and the thing on which it is exerted, are not, like subject and quality, united in one individual object: the active substantive is perfectly distinct from that which is passive; and they are connected by one circumstance only, that the action of 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 subtilizing 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 the thing upon which it is exerted. Such pauses in a long work may be indulged; but taken singly, they certainly are not agreeable; and 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

Should chance to make || the well-dress'd rabble stare Or cross, to plunder || provinces, the main

These madmen ever 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 substantive is by inversion first named, there is no difficulty of interjecting a pause between it and the verb, more than when the active substantive 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 substantive 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: