in which they appear," is a good example of prose melody from the alternation of accented and unaccented syllables; it departs from the strict regularity of verse, and yet secures an easy movement. There is also great variety in the sounds, and an unusual avoidance of the clash of consonant with consonant, or of vowel with vowel, in the succession of the words.

The following sentence violates nearly all the rules:—"Proud and vain-glorious, swelled with lofty anticipations of his destiny, no danger could appal and no toil could tire him."

There are many admired passages, in which almost the whole beauty lies in the melody of the words. This we may see in Campbell's opening stanza of the Battle of Copenhagen:—

"Of Nelson and the North,

Sing the glorious day's renown,
When to battle fierce came forth

All the might of Denmark's crown."

Such passages, with nothing strikingly original either in thought or in language, are sometimes spoken of as admirable in their simplicity; the fact being that the poet has been able to bring out a richly melodious effect by his mode of putting together a few familiar expressions. Milton's phrase, "the old man eloquent," is a happy stroke of mere arrangement, and is both melodious and original.

HARMONY OF SOUND AND SENSE.

126. This is a special instance of the effect that more than any other pervades compositions of Fine Art—the harmony of the different parts.

In language, it is occasionally possible to make the sound an echo to the sense, thereby assisting the meaning and heightening the pleasure.

127. The effect is most obvious and easy, when sounds are the subject-matter.

Words, being themselves sounds, can imitate sounds. Our

language (as well as others) contains many examples of imitative names; as, whizz, buzz, burr, hiss, crash, racket, whistle.

The imitation can be extended in a succession of words. Homer's line, in the beginning of the Iliad, describing the sea, is celebrated as an instance. The "hoarse Trinacrian shore" is a similar attempt, one of many in Milton. The grating noise of the opening of hell's gates is described thus:—

"On a sudden, open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder."

Contrast the opening of heaven's doors :—

Discordant sounds are effectively described in the line from Lycidas, "Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw." The sounds of a battle in former times are represented by the language thus:—

"Arms on armor clashing, bray'd Horrible discord; and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots raged."

The following is from Byron :—

"I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables that breathe of the sweet south,
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,

That not a single accent seems uncouth,

Like our harsh, northern, whistling, grunting, guttural,
Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all."

128. Motion, also, can be imitated. Here there is a much wider scope for the adaptation of the sound to the

sense.

A series of long syllables, or of words under accent, with the frequent occurrence of the voice-prolonging consonants, being necessarily slow to pronounce, is appropriate to the description of slow and labored movements. As in Pope's couplet on the Iliad :

"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow."

Of the ten syllables in the first line, only two, when, to, can be rapidly pronounced; all the rest, for some reason or other, detain the voice. In the second, the two the's are the only short syllables.

The opposite arrangement, that is to say, an abundance of short and unaccented syllables, and the more abrupt consonants alternated with vowels, by making the pronunciation rapid, light, and easy, corresponds to quickness of motion in the subject; as in the lines,

"Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main."

These lines by no means illustrate the most rapid combinations of letters; there being a preponderance of liquids and sibilants, which detain the voice more than the mute consonants.

The lines in the Odyssey describing Sisyphus are an admired example in the Greek, and the effect is aimed at by the English translators :—

"With many a weary step, and many a groan,

Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,

Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground."

Up to the middle of the third line, we have the slow laborious motion; then the change to the rapid and impetuous descent.

Besides marking the difference of quick and slow, the language may indicate various modes of motion, as in the expression "Troy's turrets tottered," where there is a sort of resemblance to the vibratory action of a building about to tumble. In many passages, the effect combines sound and motion; as, "Tumbling all precipitate down dash'd."

So in Pope's famous lines:—

"If nature thundered in our opening ears,

And stunned us with the music of the spheres."

The word stunned, by its short emphasis, well expresses the effect of a stunning blow.

SOUND AND SENSE.

119

Obstructed movement is readily imitated by the march of the language, as in the second of the lines on Sisyphus.

It is to be remarked, however, that the representation of pain and difficulty, by uncouth and hard combinations of letters and words, is an attempt that is exceptional, and ought to be rarely made. Pain, as such, must be avoided in art; even in a painful subject, the handling must supply a redeeming amount of pleasure.

129. Huge unwieldy bulk implies slowness of movement, and may be expressed by similar language:— "O'er all the dreary coasts

So stretched out, huge in length, the arch-fiend lay."

แ "But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast."
""

130. In the natural expression of the feelings or passions, there are characteristic sounds and movements, to which articulate language can adapt itself.

This suitability is one of the effects brought out in Milton's counterpart odes, L'Allegro and II Penseroso. The cheerful emotions have a lively movement, while melancholy is slow and drawling.

In poetry, different measures are adapted to different passions. This power of numbers is fully shown in the Ode on Alexander's Feast.

The Iambic strain in blank verse, and in the ten line couplet, is suited to dignity and grandeur, as in the Epic. The Trochaic measure is frolicsome and gay. The Anapæst expresses, says Campbell, on the one hand, ease and familiarity, and, on the other, hurry, confusion, and precipitation.

The tender and pathetic emotion is represented by a slow, gentle melody. The languishing reluctance of the spirit to quit the earth is finely expressed in the march of Gray's stanza beginning, "For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey," &c.

It is thought by many that, in the origin of words, we may largely trace the process of imitation, or the suiting of the sound

to the sense. See, in particular, Wedgwood on the Origin of Language, and Farrar on Language.

The name Onomatopaia was anciently applied to the imitative process.

TASTE—ELEGANCE--POLISH—REFINEMENT.

131. The word Taste, employed with reference to Fine Art, means, in the first instance, the susceptibility to pleasure from works of art. A person devoid of this enjoyment is said to have no taste.

There is a further use of the word, to denote the kind of artistic excellence that gives the greatest amount of pleasure to cultivated minds. Such minds are said to have taste, and others to want it. The words "elegance," "polish," "refinement," designate nearly the same thing. The distinction is sometimes expressed by the epithet "good taste," implying that taste may be bad, or enjoyment misplaced, in the judgment of those that claim to arbitrate between the two.

It being the end of Rhetoric, as a whole, to consider the various points of excellence in composition, the attention to these must be synonymous with good taste.

In regard to Taste, there is a permanent element and a variable element.

I. The permanent element comprises all the rules of composition, grounded on the admitted laws of our sensibility, and generally followed by the best speakers and writers. To avoid discords, to use bold figures sparingly, to set bounds to exaggeration, to admit painful effects only so far as they can be redeemed, are rules of Taste, as being rules of Rhetoric.

Refinement in Taste consists partly in enhancing the pleasure of works of art, by the removal of what pains, and the addition of what pleases, the proper artistic sensibility; and partly in avoiding the tendencies of art compositions to infringe on truth, usefulness, humane sentiment, and morality.