MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 44$ well as by the rich variety of his cadences, which are most times just and graceful. here let it be observed, that where double rhymes are used, there indeed a trochee comes last ; but it is not designed there to be a foot of the verse, for it stands only in the place of the last syllable, which is always long, and the short syllable following is but a sort of superfluous turn or flourish added to the last long syllable, as in Dryden's Absalom, &c. " Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, " Besides ten thousand freaks that dy'd in thinking." Note, These trochees, instead of the last long syllable, ars very seldom admitted in grave poems in rhyme, but only for bur- lesque and ridicule, as in the lines now cited; por doth Milton much use them in his blank verse, though they are frequently used in blank verse by more modern writers, and especially in dramatic poesy. Mr. Pope, as well as Mr. Dryden, are more careful in their numbers, and never indulge such irregular licence, except where they design something comical ; yet there is one instance in Mr. Pope's translation of Homer, wherein he has introduced a tro- chee for the fourth foot, but it is with a beautiful intent, and with equal success, when he represents a chariot's uneven motion in a rugged way, by the abrupt cadences and rugged sound of his verse Jumping high o'er the routs of the rough ground, " Rattled the clatt'ring cars, and the shock'd axles bound." In the first of these lines there is but one iambic, namely, ' the routs ;' the rest are spondees and trochees : and particularly the two trochees, namely, ' jumping,' and of the' are inserted in the first and fourth places, to make the verse the rougher. The transposition of the ' clattering cars,' which is the nominative case after the verb' rattled' adds something farther to the grace- ful confusion which arises in the verse from the jumbling idea which the poet describes. Thus much for the cadence of verse, as it depends upon long and short syllables. " Thus much indeed (says Censorio, who read these five or six pages) and a great deal too much for any man to write upon these trifles, whose profession calls him to sacred studies." Uranio, who delighted to read divine poems, took up the cause, and forbid the reprover. Are all verses, said he, pro- fane things ? If so, bow will the royal Psalmist escape ? But if verse may lawfully be written, there must be some knowledge of the rules of it, and some acquaintance with the elegance of sound as well as sense. The cheerful and pious half -hours which have been spent in the closet as well as in the church, by the Ff3
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