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, where the substan

tive 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 sub

ject 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 first 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 subtilising to such a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets, however, take 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 glit'ring forsex 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 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 VOL. II.

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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 :

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 the pause, leads to a general observation, That the natural order of placing the active substantive and its verb, is more friendly to a pause than the inverted order; but that in all the other connexions, inversion affords a far better opportunity for a pause. And hence one great advantage of blank verse over rhyme; its privilege of inversion giving it a much greater choice of pauses than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.

We now proceed to the slighter connexions, which shall be discussed in one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepositions admit freely a pause between 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 substances, signifying things occasionally united in the thought, but which have no natural union and between two things not only separable in idea, but really distinct, the mind, for the sake of melody, cheerfully 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
To ages o'er | his native realm he reign'd
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade.

Or the separation of the conjunction from the word that is connected by it with the antecedent word;

Talthybius and Eurybates the good

It will be obvious at the first glance, that the foregoing reasoning upon objects naturally connected, is not applicable to words which of themselves are mere cyphers: 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; and the necessity of this junction, together with custom, forms an artificial connexion that 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 dis