It doth extremely well when employ’d to close a period with a certain pomp and solemnity suitable to the subject. With regard to the second article, it is unnecessary to mention a second time, that the quantities employ’d in verse are but two, the one double of the other; that every syllable is reducible to one or other of these standards; and that a syllable of the larger quantity is termed _long_, and of the lesser quantity _short_. It belongs more to the present article, to examine what peculiarities there may be in the English language as to long and short syllables. In every language, there are syllables that may be pronounced long or short at pleasure; but the English above all abounds in syllables of that kind. In words of three or more syllables, the quantity for the most part is invariable. The exceptions are more frequent in dissyllables; but as to monosyllables, they may without many exceptions be pronounced either long or short. Nor is the ear hurt by this liberty; being accustomed to the variation of quantity in the same word. This shows that the melody of English verse must depend less upon quantity, than upon other circumstances. In that particular it differs widely from Latin verse. There, every syllable having but one sound, strikes the ear constantly with its accustomed impression; and a reader must be delighted to find a number of such syllables, disposed so artfully as to raise a lively sense of melody. Syllables variable in quantity cannot possess this power. Custom may render familiar, both a long and short pronunciation of the same word; but the mind constantly wavering betwixt the two sounds, cannot be so much affected with a syllable of this kind as with one which bears always the same sound. What I have further to say upon quantity, will come in more properly under the following head, of arrangement. And with respect to arrangement, which may be brought within a narrow compass, the English heroic line is commonly Iambic, the first syllable short, the second long, and so on alternately through the whole line. One exception there is, pretty frequent. Many lines commence with a Trochæus, _viz._ a long and a short syllable. But this affects not the order of the following syllables. These go on alternately as usual, one short and one long. The following couplet affords an example of each kind: Sōme ĭn thĕ fīelds ŏf pūrĕst ǣthĕr plāy, Ănd bāsk ănd whītĕn īn thĕ blāze ŏf dāy.