_Alicia_. For ever? Oh! For ever! Oh! who can bear to be a wretch for ever! My rival too! his last thoughts hung on her: And, as he parted, left a blessing for her. Shall she be bless’d, and I be curs’d, for ever! No; since her fatal beauty was the cause Of all my suff’rings, let her share my pains; Let her, like me, of ev’ry joy forlorn, Devote the hour when such a wretch was born: Like me to deserts and to darkness run, Abhor the day and curse the golden sun; Cast ev’ry good and ev’ry hope behind; Detest the works of nature, loathe mankind: Like me with cries distracted fill the air,} Tear her poor bosom, and her frantic hair,} And prove the torments of the last despair.} Having described, the best way I can, the impression that rhyme makes on the mind; I proceed to examine whether rhyme be proper for any subject, and to what subjects in particular it is best suited. Great and elevated subjects, which have a powerful influence, claim justly the precedence in this inquiry. In the chapter of grandeur and sublimity, it is established, that a grand or sublime object, inspires a warm enthusiastic emotion disdaining strict regularity and order. This observation is applicable to the present point. The moderately-enlivening music of rhyme, gives a tone to the mind very different from that of grandeur and sublimity. Supposing then an elevated subject to be expressed in rhyme, what must be the effect? The intimate union of the music with the subject, produces an intimate union of their emotions; one inspired by the subject, which tends to elevate and expand the mind; and one inspired by the music, which, confining the mind within the narrow limits of regular cadency and similar sound, tends to prevent all elevation above its own pitch. Emotions so little concordant, cannot in union have a happy effect. But it is scarce necessary to reason upon a case, that never did, and probably never will happen, _viz._ an important subject clothed in rhyme, and yet supported in its utmost elevation. A happy thought or warm expression, may at times give a sudden bound upward; but it requires a genius greater than has hitherto existed, to support a poem of any length in a tone much more elevated than that of the melody. Tasso and Ariosto ought not to be made exceptions, and still less Voltaire. And after all, where the poet has the dead weight of rhyme constantly to struggle with, how can we expect an uniform elevation in a high pitch; when such elevation, with all the support it can receive from language, requires the utmost effort of the human genius?