The third rule is, not to make use of several words in a verse that begin with the same letter; as,
"The Court he knew to Steer in Storms of State,
He in these Miracles Design discern'd."
Yet we find an instance of such a verse in Dryden's translation of the first pastoral of Virgil:
"Till then a helpless, hopeless, homely swain."
Which I am persuaded he left not thus through negligence or inadvertency, but with design to paint in the number and sound of the words the thing he described—a shepherd in whom
"Nec spes libertatis erat, nec cura peculi."
Now how far the sound of the h aspirate, with which three feet of that verse begin, expresses the despair of the swain, let the judicious judge. I have taken notice of it only to say, that it is a great beauty in poetry, when the words and numbers are so disposed, as by their order and sound to represent the things described.
The fourth is, to avoid ending a verse by an adjective whose substantive begins the following; as,
"Some lost their quiet Rivals, some their kind