must confine rhyme within very narrow bounds. A thought of any extent, cannot be reduced within its compass. The sense must be curtailed and broken into pieces, to make it square with the curtness of melody: and it is obvious, that short periods afford no latitude for inversion. I have examined this point with the greater accuracy, in order to give a just notion of blank verse; and to show that a slight difference in form may produce a very great difference in substance. Blank verse has the same pauses and accents with rhyme; and a pause at the end of every line, like what concludes the first line of a couplet. In a word, the rules of melody in blank verse, are the same that obtain with respect to the first line of a couplet. But luckily, being disengaged from rhyme, or, in other words, from couplets, there is access to make every line run into another, precisely as the first line of a couplet may run into the second. There must be a musical pause at the end of every line; but it is not necessary that it be accompanied with a pause in the sense. The sense may be carried on through different lines; till a period of the utmost extent be completed, by a full close both in the sense and the sound. There is no restraint, other than that this full close be at the end of a line. This restraint is necessary in order to preserve a coincidence betwixt sense and sound; which ought to be aimed at in general, and is indispensable in the case of a full close, because it has a striking effect. Hence the aptitude of blank verse for inversion; and consequently the lustre of its pauses and accents; for which, as observed above, there is greater scope in inversion, than when words run in their natural order. In the second section of this chapter it is shown, that nothing contributes more than inversion to the force and elevation of language. The couplets of rhyme confine inversion within narrow limits. Nor would the elevation of inversion, were there access for it in rhyme, be extremely concordant with the humbler tone of that sort of verse. It is universally agreed, that the loftiness of Milton’s style supports admirably the sublimity of his subject; and it is not less certain, that the loftiness of his style arises chiefly from inversion. Shakespear deals little in inversion. But his blank verse, being a sort of measured prose, is perfectly well adapted to the stage. Laboured inversion is there extremely improper, because in dialogue it never can appear natural.