Prose is less restrained, and is bound by no such laws; though its constituent parts or phrases are modelled at the dictation of the ear, yet these are seldom strung together with much attention to a rhythmical order. It was an opinion of the Greeks,* that prose was amenable to a musical law, as well as poetry; and such was the nicety of their ear, that they would not allow the casual combination of elementary sounds; and if two letters came together with a disagreeable effect, they interposed a gratuitous letter, to render the words more euphonious. If we examine those writers who are celebrated for a clear and engaging style, we find their sentences to move with that ease and lightness which can only be achieved by an attention to rhythm. It is said of Dr. Johnson, that he weighed every word so nicely in his mathematical scales, that each member of a sentence poised exactly with the other. Perhaps no writer of the present day has surpassed the late Robert Hall, of Leicester, for the force and beauty of his style. The imagination of this wonderful orator was so quick and luminous, and his utterance so rapid, that few could follow him. In his vehement passages he would utter forty words in a breath, with a velocity that no short-hand writer • Dionysius.

could catch; and such was his power in amplification, that he would run on through ten or twelve expressions, each one rising above the other in force and grandeur to a climacteric pause. In these moments of inspiration, I have seen the shorthand writers close their books in despair. His voice was weak, but the distinctness of his utterance enabled him to perform these prodigies in language, with an effect never before attained.*

The following is a sentence extracted from his sermon on the death of the Princess Charlotte, that will convey an idea of the coruscations of his genius.

Common Time, the bar 24 inches.

The Deity himself

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3

adorn'd the victim with his Own

hands; ac-cu-mu-lat-ing up-on her all the de- co-ra- tions and

or - na-ments a-dapt-ed

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to render her the object of

Speaking of the force of language, the writer asked Mr. Hall whom he considered to be the greatest writer? He replied, Voltaire; he, sir, is the greatest master I know.' Mr. Hall was an exception to the generality of classical men, who seldom shine as writers of English. He declared that he had read infinitely more of Latin and Greek than of his own language.'

Mr. Pitt's* reply in parliament, on being sarcastically called a young man by Horatio Walpole.

8 Triple Time, the bar 45 inches.

Mr. Mitford, who wrote upon the harmony of language, must have felt the force of the principle we have been maintaining, when he asserts that 'Prose is adverse to a connexion with music;' meaning that poetry and music are measured, and that prose is unrestrained; similar to the difference of running and walking, compared with dancing. In reply, we might say that this is not strictly true, for in Handel's Messiah, we find that prose is connected with music. The Old Scripture, from which those quotations are chiefly taken,* though considered as prose compositions, are found to be in verse when the words are properly arranged; while the extracts from the New Testament claim no higher title than that of prose. To render the latter suitable to music, the composer occasionally repeats the words to acquire that measured order which melody demands.

The rhythm of language, then, may be described as a series of vocal accents, grounded upon musical

*These words were prepared by Mr. Jennings, of Leicestershire, the patron of Handel; and in Gopsal Hall, the seat of Earl Howe, they were set to music by this immortal composer.

laws; and the union of syllables, on the hitherto received opinion of poetic feet being the governing principle, is obviously not the fact, and is insufficient to account for the melodious effect of the poetic art.

ONE of the greatest excellencies of vocal composition is, that strict union which should ever subsist between the words and the music. The first object of a composer is, to choose such words as will ally themselves with his melody, both in sentiment and quantity. Much of the beauty of a composition depends upon this: but even in the finest works we discover innumerable mistakes of this kind; such as joining little words to long, and long words to short sounds. In the Italian, defects of this kind rarely occur, so admirably is that language adapted to the purposes of the composer; and in every attempt to render it into English we invariably find the beauty of its expression impaired.

Between the English and German there is more affinity, and the difficulty of translating is not so great. Every nation has its stock of untranslata'ble words, embodying the sentiments and pecu'liarities of thinking. It is to little purpose to say,