mining what words may be separated by a pause, and what are incapable of fuch feparation. I shall endeavour to ascertain these rules; not chiefly for their utility, but in order to unfold fome latent principles, that tend to regulate our taste even where we are scarce fenfible of them: and to that end, the method that appears the most promifing, is to run over the verbal relations, beginning with the most intimate. The first that presents itself is that of adjective and fubftantive, being the relation of fubject and quality, the most intimate of all and with refpect to fuch intimate companions, the question is, Whether they can bear to be separated by a paufe. What occurs is, that a quality cannot exist independent of a subject; nor are they feparable even in imagination, because they make parts of the fame idea and for that reason, with refpect to melody as well as fenfe, it must be disagreeable, to beftow upon the adjective a fort of independent existence, by interjecting a paufe between it and its fubftantive. I cannot therefore approve the following lines, nor any of the fort; for to my tafte they are harsh and unpleasant.

Of thousand bright || inhabitants of air
The sprites of fiery || termagants inflame
The reft, his many-colour'd || robe conceal'd
The fame, his ancient || perfonage to deçk

Ev'n

Ev'n here, where frozen || Chastity retires

I fit, with fad || civility, I read

Back to my native || moderation flide
Or fhall we ev'ry || decency confound
Time was, a fober || Englishman would knock
And place, on good || fecurity, 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)

All but the ever-wakeful || eyes of Jove

Your own refiftlefs || eloquence employ

I have upon this article multiplied examples, that in a cafe where I have the misfortune to dislike what paffes current in practice, every man upon the spot may judge by his own taste. And to taste I appeal; for tho' the foregoing reasoning appears to me juft, it is however too fubtile to afford conviction in oppofition to taste.

Confidering this matter fuperficially, one might be apt to imagine, that it must be the fame, whether the adjective go first, which is the natural order, or the fubftantive, which is indulged by the laws of inverfion. But we foon discover this to be a mistake: colour, for example, cannot be conceived

ceived independent of the surface coloured; but a tree may be conceived, as growing in a certain fpot, as of a certain kind, and as spreading its extended branches all around, without ever thinking of its colour. In a word, a fubject may be confidered with fome of its qualities independent of others; though we cannot form an image of any fingle quality independent of the fubject. Thus then, though an adjective named first be infeparable from the substantive, the propofition does not reciprocate an image can be formed of the subftantive independent of the adjective; and for that reason, they may be separated by a pause, when the fubftantive takes the lead.

For thee the fates || feverely kind ordain

And curs'd with hearts || unknowing how to yield,

The verb and adverb are precisely in the fame condition with the substantive and adjective. An adverb, which modifies the action expreffed by the verb, is not feparable 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 difperfe my store.

But an action may be conceived with fome of its
modifications, leaving out others; precisely as a
fubject

fubject may be conceived with fome of its qualities, leaving out others: and therefore, when by inverfion 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, expreffed in grammar by the active fubftantive and its verb. Between thefe, 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 eafily feparable in idea from its action: when in a fentence the fubftantive takes the lead, we know not that action is to follow ; and as reft must precede the commencement of motion, this interval is a proper opportunity for a pause.

But when by inverfion the verb is placed firft, is it lawful to separate it by a pause from the active substantive? I answer, No; because an action is not an idea feparable 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 confequent fubftantive; and I have now difcovered a reason to support my tafte:

In these deep folitudes and awful cells,

Where heav'nly-penfive || Contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing || Melancholy reigns.

The point of the greateft delicacy regards the active verb and the paffive fubftantive placed in their natural order. On the one hand, it will be obferved, thatthefe words fignify things which are not feparable in idea. Killing cannot be conceived without a being that is put to death, nor painting without a surface upon which the colours are fpread. 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 diftinct from that which is paffive; and they are connected by one circumftance only, that the action of the former is exerted upon the latter. This makes it poffible to take the action to pieces, and to confider it first with relation to the agent, and next with relation to the patient. But after all, fo intimately connected are the parts of the thought, that it requires an effort to make a feparation even for a moment: the fubtilifing to fuch a degree is not agreeable, especially in works of imagination. The best poets, however, taking advantage of this fubtilty, fcruple not to feparate 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 fingly, they certainly are not agreeable; and I appeal to the following examples:

The