ear: as long live Lewis, come conqueror, convenient contrivance.

The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill.

Equally unpleasing are iterations within words or at the end of words: indulgent parent, uniform formality, instead of a steady: he is tempted to attempt.

Even a short interval is not enough to allow the repetition of very marked sounds: as I confess with humility, the sterility of my fancy, and the debility of my judgment'. What is of more importance, the principles being propounded with reverence, had an influence on the subsequent jurisprudence.' 'The art of politics consists, or would consist if it existed;' taking such directions as to awaken pleasing recollections.'

6

One legitimate use of alliteration is to lend emphasis and to impress the meaning: as, good government; sense and sensibility; cribb'd, cabin'd and confined; sad and slow; a heart to resolve, a head to combine, and a hand to execute; resolved to ruin or to rule the state; waste not, want not.

Rhymes and other similarities of sound are used for the same purpose; as, the fame of your name; mend it or end it; Trinity in Unity.

It is also an effect in poetry, as in Shelley's 'Cloud'. When expected, it falls under a mode of pleasure, the pleasure of regularity.* (See ALLITERATION.)

In English, the endings ion, ing, ity, ly, nce, and ed, are unavoidably frequent; and it is desirable to obviate the consequent repetition and monotony. The verb ending ed painfully recurs; hence the value of our small number of old verbs as a relief: 'given and received'; 'I came, I saw, I conquered'.

The following are additional examples including various kinds of disagreeable iteration of sound :-'That is also altered'. It was Peel that repealed the Corn Laws.' 'He imitated it at once.' 'An ignorant impatience of the relaxation of taxation.' To permanently impair the power of the

Peers:

Keats has the phrase the winowing wind'--a threefold

*The rationale of this use of Alliteration is that it aids in pointing some contrast or accentuating some balance; whereas, in the absence of any such occasion for it, its presence is disagreeable, as giving the ear the form of pointing and accentuation, while disappointing the mind of the contrast or balance in meaning usually associated with form.

ALTERNATION IN EMPHASIS AND LENGTH.

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iteration of syllables nearly the same. In Johnson's line-To buried merit raise the tardy bust

there is monotony of vowels and similarity of consonants.

6. As regards both the succession of Syllables in the same word, and the succession of words in the sentence, an additional circumstance comes into play; namely, the due alternation of emphatic and unemphatic, and of long and short.

As our language usually admits of but one primary accent in a word, words of many syllables are usually hard to pronounce; hence we avoid lengthening words by numerous prefixes or endings: unsuccessfulness, peremptoriness, wrongheadedness, err in this respect.

Words containing a string of unaccented short vowels are a trial to the voice: as primarily, cursorily, summarily, derisorily. Still worse is the repetition of the same letter or syllable: as farriery, lowlily, holily, semblable. The difficulty is in many cases relieved by the introduction of a secondary accent. For example, pronunciation, crystallization, secondarily, have such a secondary accent on the syllables nun, crys, ar, and the result is to render the utterance of the words much easier. Valuelessness is a disagreeable word: it has many unaccented syllables, alliteration of syllables, and similarity of sounds.

This circumstance has important bearings on the melody of composition, both prose and verse; in English verse, indeed, it is the greatest part of the science, as will be seen presently. This is so, because the alternate stress and remission of the voice is essential to easy and agreeable pronunciation. It is the effect that is referred to by the term rhythm, whether in verse or in prose. The four modes of accented and unaccented, long and short, give both alternation and variation. In the line-The pomp and circumstance of glorious war'—there is an alternation of the accented and unaccented syllables, and a further contrast in the long vowels of the two last words; while the succession of vowels and consonants, and the variety of both, enhance the melody.

In the following sentences the disagreeable effect of alliteration is increased by the closeness of the accented syllables: 'It stood on a rocky peninsula, round which the waves of

the bay broke' (Macaulay). The party will advocate large local liberties.' So with other iterations of sound; for instance, Here it is impossible even to suggest justifying illustrations.

It is from the want of this due alternation that a series of monosyllables is usually objectionable: as, 'Good Lord, give us bread now': where, except us,' every word is under emphasis, rendering the pronunciation heavy. If, however, there be an even distribution of unemphatic words, the bad effect does not arise. Bless the Lord of hosts, for He is good to us,' is not unmelodious; every second word is unaccented. So in Macbeth':

Stars, hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and deep desires,
The eye wink at the hand. Yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

In ordinary cases, melody arises through the alternation. of long and short words. A string of long words is seldom melodious.

7. The Close of a Sentence should allow the voice to fall by degrees.

This happens when the concluding syllable is long, and when it ends with a continuing consonant, as decree, appear. With a short vowel, there is still more necessity for continuing consonants to follow: as mankind, forth, world. 'The age of chivalry is gone' has an emphatic and sonorous close; 'got' would be intolerable.

Another admissible close is by one or more unemphatic syllables as liberty. A mockery, a delusion, and a snare,' gives a triplet of words all suited to close a sentence.

Very long words do not make a melodious close as intimidation, irresistible.

The worst kind of ending is an emphatic syllable with a short vowel and an abrupt consonant: as he came up'. A monosyllable is not necessarily a bad close. It may be unemphatic, as often happens with the pronoun 'it,' and with the prepositions, 'of,' 'to,' 'for,' &c.; or it may have liquid or other consonants that protract the sound: as ease, same, shine. *

*The biographer of Robert Hall gives the following anecdote in connexion with the printing of his famous sermon on Modern Infidelity. After writing down the striking apostrophe-Eternal God! on what are Thine enemies intent! what are those enterprises of guilt and horror, that, for the safety of their performers,

REGULAR RECURRENCE OF PAUSES.

287

8. With the view to a good melodious effect, the pauses of the voice must recur with some measure of regularity in the sentences.

This is of great importance in verse; but it has also a place in the melody of prose, though impossible to be reduced to rule.

A certain measure of balance is required in the length of the clauses, or other portions divided by the pauses of the voice. In particular, the last clause can seldom be notably short in comparison with the rest, except for special emphasis. For example :- The real blemishes will soon be detected and condemned by, we may hope, a tolerably unanimous consent of the best scholars; and enumerated'. The ear demands a longer final clause to balance the preceding; thus and, let us hope, they will be fully and carefully enumerated'.

'The effect will be, in great measure, if not entirely, lost' (Whately). A pause is required after entirely,' and hence the ear expects more to come after it than the one word 'lost'. Try a lengthening of it, and relief is obtained : lost for any important purpose'.

In the Balanced Sentence, there is a pleasure in the sound as well as in the meaning.*

EXAMPLES.

Johnson says,

'Tediousness is the most fatal of all

On

faults'. The stiffness of this sentence is felt at once. examination, we note, 1st, The want of melody in the word tediousness,' from the crowd of consonants, the vowel hiatus, and the iteration of s. 2nd, The additional hissing consonant in 'is'. 3rd, The occurrence of five un

require to be enveloped in a darkness which the eye of heaven must not penetrate!' -he asked, 'Did I say penetrate, Sir, when I preached it?' 'Yes.' 'Do you think, Sir, I may venture to alter it? for no man who considered the force of the English language would use a word of three syllables there, but from absolute necessity.' 'You are doubtless at liberty to alter it, if you think well.' "Then be so good, Sir, to take your pencil, and for penetrate put pierce; pierce is the word, Sir, and the only

word to be used there.'

* When the language of prose becomes more elevated, and so approaches to poetry, there is a tendency to make the accents follow in more regular succession. Take this sentence from Robert Hall :-' From myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms'. Here, while the number of syllables between the accents is not uniform, as in poetry, yet, if the unaccented intervals are measured by the time occupied in good reading, it will be found that the accents recur with almost perfect regularity.

emphatic syllables in succession-namely, the last three in 'tediousness,' and 'is the': it might also be said that 'most' is unemphatic. 4th, The additional s in most. 5th, The concurrence of consonants at the end of 'most' and the beginning of 'fatal': this cannot always be avoided. 6th, The alliterations fatal all,' 'fatal faults,' all faults,' make the last few words singularly unmelodious.

So loud the roar rose of that battle of gods.' The stiffness is at once felt, and is all the worse in a sentence of such rhetorical form, where musical language is specially desirable. The collocation, roar rose, is specially objectionable on the ground of alliteration and the iteration of the same vowel, the disagreeable effect being aggravated by the fact that both words have strong emphasis upon them, and no unaccented syllable.

'Why thrust'st thou me thee fro?' (Scotch Metrical Psalms). The consonantal combination in thrust'st thou’ is exceptionally harsh from the nature, similarity and number of the consonants. The vowel repetition in me thee' increases the disagreeable sound; and the awkwardly inverted and abbreviated form, 'thee fro,' though not a point of melody, completes the uncouthness.

Amyas stood still steering' (Kingsley). An alliteration of sibilants is the most disagreeable of all; but here the effect is brought into marked prominence by the strong emphasis on each word, and the absence of unaccented syllables between.

Compare Browning's alliteration, similarly aggravated:—

Weak points in the flower-fence facing.

Now morning from her orient chamber came
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill.

(Keats.)

In these lines there is both monotony of sounds and alliteration; morning from her orient (o the only accented vowel; consonants m, n, r repeated); chamber came'; 'first footsteps touched' (f in alliteration, st three times); her first. There is heaviness besides in the accented syllables following each other in the words 'first footsteps. touch'd'.

Thomson, speaking of the city, says :

And, stretching street on street, by thousands drew,
From twining woody haunts, or the tough yew
To bows strong-straining, her aspiring sons.