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it; yet, when learnt, it is totally neglected in PART I. reading; every word of three syllables being CHAP, IV. pronounced either as a dactyle or amphibrachys, Of Hearing. according to the accentual prosody of our own language. As the ancients, however, did not extend the syllable, upon which they raised the voice, in the manner that we do; and as this mode of pronunciation is peculiar to ourselves, and unintelligible to all the rest of Europe, we may safely conclude it to be wrong; and concur with the general opinion of mankind that metrical quantity is an essential to poetry, as necessary to be preserved in reading, as in scanning a verse; and that much of the pleasure, which poetry affords, arises from a just observance of it.

14. It is, nevertheless, evident that this pleasure is not a pleasure of organic sense; though communicated through the organs of hearing: for not only the verse of one language ceases to be verse, and loses all the character of poetry in another, but the same metre, regulated by the same accentutation, and constituted in every respect upon the same principle, is in one language appropriated to serious and tragic, and in another, to ludicrous and frivolous subjects; and the propriety of its use in each is equally felt by those who are equally familiar with both.

PART I.

CHAP. IV.

Of Hearing.

"Thus said to my lady the knight full of care,'
And

Je chante le heros qui regna sur la France,”

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flow exactly in the same time and tune, and are equally supported by corresponding rhymes in the lines, that respectively follow; and yet to the same cars, and independent of the sense, there is something, in the flow of the one, light and ludicrous, and in that of the other, grave and solemn ; though the English language is certainly much less prone to the light and ludicrous, and better adapted to the grave and solemn than the French. There is something, however, in the respective idioms of each, that, in this instance, causes the same modifications of sound to appear ludicrous in the former, and solemn in the latwherefore it is in the nature of idiom, that we must seek for the principle of this difference, as well as for that, which gives its character and effect to all metrical language: but as idiom in language is not a subject of organic sensation, nor any thing immediately pertaining to it, the investigation of it does not belong to the present stage of my inquiry.

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15. If the principles of poetical and musical melody were the same, as, I believe, all theoretical writers upon the subject have supposed them to

be, similar differences must necessarily arise in PART I. the character and effect of the same tune, ac- CHAP. IV. cording as it was played upon instruments re- Of Hearing. spectively differing in the style and character of their tone and modulation: but this is in no instance the case; every composition in music retaining its own original character, upon whatever instrument it be performed, provided the instrument be really musical or in tune, and · touched with competent skill and ability. A cracked fiddle may make any composition in music appear ridiculous; as a cracked voice may any composition in poetry*; but that is upon another principle, which will be hereafter examined.

16. It has been already observed that all sensation is really produced by contact; the effluvia, that we smell, and the vibrations that we hear, being locally and essentially in the nose and the ears, just as the food, which we taste, is in the mouth, or the implements that we hold, are in the hands. The mere sense of hearing, therefore, can afford us no information concerning the distance or direction of a sonorous object, which can only be perceived by a faculty acquired en

* Nihil intrare potest in affectum, quod in aure, velut quodam vestibulo, statim offendit. Quintil. Inst. 1. ix. c. iv.

CHAP. IV.

PART I. tirely by habit; though, by being habitual, the exercise of it has become as spontaneous and inOf Hearing, stantaneous, as that of any natural or organic faculty belonging to our constitutions. If this needed any proof, and was not clearly demonstrated by the formation of the organs, the common trick of a ventriloquist, who can make the sound of his voice appear to come in any direction, or from any distance within the reach of its being heard, would be fully sufficient: for this effect is produced merely by modifying it, as it would be modified to the ear, if it had really come in that direction, or from that distance. We, therefore, judge of the directions of sounds, and the distances of their causes, solely by certain modes of the vibrations affecting the organ, which usually distinguish each respectively, and which are accordingly associated with them in the mind; but which may, nevertheless, be produced by other means so perfectly as to work an entire deception even in the most acute observers.

17. This is an extremely important consideration in enabling us to estimate properly the grandeur or sublimity of sound; which can no otherwise arise from its loudness, than as that loudness excites an idea of power in the sonorous object, or in some other associated with it in the mind:

CHAP. IV.

Of Hearing.

for a child's drum close to the ear fills it with PART I. more real noise, than the discharge of a cannon a mile off; and the rattling of a carriage in the street, when faintly and indistinctly heard, has often been mistaken for thunder at a distance. Yet no one ever imagined the beating of a child's drum, or the rattling of a carriage over stones, to be grand or sublime; which, nevertheless, they must be, if grandeur or sublimity belong at all to the sensation of loudness. But artillery and lightning are powerful engines of destruction; and with their power we sympathize, whenever the sound of them excites any sentiments of sublimity; which is only when we apprehend no danger from them; or at least no degree of danger sufficient to impress fear: for so far is terror from being a source of the sublime, that the smallest degree of fear instantly annihilates it, as far as relates to the person frightened; and to that person only is the object terrible. To all others it is merely powerful, or capable of inspiring terror to those who are more susceptible, of it. But of this more shall be said in the proper place.

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