[99] After some attention given to this subject, and weighing deliberately every circumstance, I have been forc’d to rest upon the foregoing conclusion, That the Dactyle and Spondee are no other than artificial measures invented for trying the accuracy of composition. Repeated experiments convince me, that though the sense should be altogether neglected, an Hexameter line read by Dactyles and Spondees, will not be melodious. And the composition of an Hexameter line demonstrates this to be true, without necessity of an experiment. It will appear afterward, that in an Hexameter line, there must always be a capital pause at the end of the fifth long syllable, reckoning, as above, two short for one long. And when we measure this line by Dactyles and Spondees, the pause now mentioned divides always a Dactyle or a Spondee: it never falls in at the end of either of these feet. Hence it is evident, that if a line be pronounced, as it is scanned, by Dactyles and Spondees, the pause must be utterly neglected; which consequently must destroy the melody, because a pause is essential to the melody of an Hexameter verse. If, on the other hand, the melody be preserved by making this pause, the pronouncing by Dactyles and Spondees must be abandoned. What has led grammarians into the use of Dactyles and Spondees, seems not beyond the reach of conjecture. To produce melody, the latter part of a Hexameter line consisting of a Dactyle and a Spondee, must be read according to these feet: in this part of the line, the Dactyle and Spondee are distinctly expressed in the pronunciation. This discovery, joined with another, that the foregoing part of the verse could be measured by the same feet, has led grammarians to adopt these artificial measures, and perhaps rashly to conclude, that the pronunciation is directed by these feet as well as the composition. The Dactyle and Spondee at the close, serve indeed the double purpose of regulating the pronunciation as well as the composition: but in the foregoing part of the line, they regulate the composition only, not the pronunciation. If we must have feet in verse to regulate the pronunciation, and consequently the melody, these feet must be determined by the pauses. The whole syllables interjected betwixt two pauses ought to be deemed one musical foot; because, to preserve the melody, they must all be pronounced together, without any stop. And therefore, whatever number there are of pauses in a Hexameter line, the parts into which it is divided by these pauses, make just so many musical feet.