immediate, or at intervals, supplies that detail of ornament which fills up the spaces left between the pauses (75). Of course the Greek and Latin poets have made great use of them, as also have the Italian, whose language is so favourable to them. Compare Virgil's

Gramina. Nonne vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores.

Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum,

and Petrarch's

Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi

E l'onda, che Cariddi assorbe e mesce.

See the strong effect of the consonantal syllables in the latter of each of these.

The effect is of course greatest when the syllable is marked by the close neighbourhood of a Thus in that line

cæsura.

Fortunam Priami cantābo | et nobile bellum,

the opening of the mouth for the broad a just before a principal pause, gives the tantus hiatus ridiculed by the poet.

Again, see the quietness produced by the thin and close sounds in

Dic mihi, Musa, virum captæ post tempore Troja,

especially at the cæsura.

Ancient poetry is so rich in well-known examples of this application, that it would be superfluous to quote them.

81. Deficient as the English is in richness and variety of sound, such as it has is set forth in the stronger contrast, and the others have more difficulty in finding the close and rugged than we the full and soft. It must indeed be confessed, that if we drew from all the compass of our language, we could never express the two or three short blasts followed by the full outpouring burst of the trumpet, which is suggested in such liveliness by that line

Tum tuba terribilem sonitum procul ære canoro;

and that ineffective indeed is the struggle of Fairfax, the only master of our language among all the translators of Tasso, to convey the imitative expression of his original in the celebrated lines, Jerus. Lib. iv. 3:

Chiama l'abitator dell' ombre eterne
Il rauco suon della Tartarea tromba.
Treman le spaziose atre caverne,

E l'aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba.

The dreary trumpet blew a dreadful blast,
And rumbled thro' the lands and kingdoms under :
Through wasteness wide it roar'd, and hollows vast,
And fill'd the deep with horror, fear, and wonder.

Although he has contrived, in some degree, to express the distinction between the sharp blast conveyed by the sound a, and the hollow echo from the deep, signified by the sounds o and u, and their accompanying consonants.

Still none can be insensible to Milton's skill in contrasting the proper sounds in the following descriptions of the opening of the gates of heaven and hell, from the sixth and second books,

Heav'n opened wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,

On golden hinges moving.

On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,

The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

Where the preference of ever-during to everlasting seems owing not only to more poetical form, but sweeter sound. The contrast of the vocal sounds in the first, with the consonantal in the second, is very effective.

The same poet supplies innumerable examples, as again in

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva winds her wizard stream.

And contrast the pomp of

Looks toward Namancos, and Bayona's hold,

with the simplicity of

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken lies;

and

Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.

Gray, who was among the revivers of attention to our old school, comes next perhaps to Milton in the skilful arrangement of his sounds. The art had become quite forgotten by his time, if we may judge from the gross ignorance shown by Johnson in his criticism on Pope's famous imitative lines.

82. So much for the irregular, though designed mixture of syllabic sounds. But they occur also at regulated intervals, the same articulation or sound being repeated, and forming thus a secondary ornament in detail, answering to the primary and necessary parts of the structure of verse.

107

CHAPTER XII.

ON ALLITERATION.

83. ALLITERATION means the agreement of syllables in their component letters. According to this definition of it, Rhyme is included in it. It is however commonly restricted to the agreement of the consonants of the syllable, and more commonly still to the agreement of merely the initial consonant. But we are obliged to recur to the full and original sense when we speak of it, when adopted as an essential part of versification, as it has been by the modern Welsh, for their most ancient poetry has no such base. The language may have led to it by its singular structure, abounding as it does in similar clusters of letters; and their later bards riveted its dominion through the usual desire of substituting difficulty of mechanical execution from poverty of design and scantiness of thought. The following is an example of