the verse glitters with a moderate harmony of expression; whereas the next, as ending with a letter which is remarkably flat, is unmusical,
Frugifera et ferta arva Alfiae tenet,
Let us, therefore, rather content ourselves with the agreeable mediocrity of our own language, than emulate the splendor of the Greeks; unless we are so bigotted to the latter as to hesitate to say with the poet,
Quà tempestate Paris Helenam, &c.
we might even imitate what follows, and avoid, as far as possible, the smallest asperity of sound,
habeo istam ego PERTERRICREPAM;
or say, with the same author, in another passage,
versutiloquas MALITIAS.
But our words must have a proper compass, as well as be connected together in an agreeable manner; for this, we have observed, is another circumstance which falls under the notice of the ear. They are confined to a proper compass, either by certain rules of composition, as by a kind of natural pause, or by the use of particular forms of expression, which have a peculiar concinnity in their very texture; such as a succession of several words which have the same termination, or the comparing similar, and contrasting opposite circumstances, which will always terminate in a measured cadence, though no immediate pains should be taken for that purpose. Gorgias, it is said, was the first Orator who practised this species of concinnity. The following passage in my Defence of Milo is an example.
"Est enim, Judices, haec non scripta, fed nata Lex; quam non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, verum ex Naturâ ipsâ arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus; ad quam non docti, sed facti; non instituti, sed imbuti simus."