Now their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words. Therefore it is that I praise thee, and never can cease from rejoicing, I will not covet the full roll of the glorious Greek, French with its nasal lisp, nor German inverted and harsh ; Not while our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices, CHAPTER VI. RHYTHM. § 298. RHYTHM IN POETRY. TONE or sound in style, when referring to the arrangement of words, is called rhythmus or rhythm. Rhythm means a recurrence of sound at regular intervals, and was formerly applied to the movement of measured versification. The term has been extended in its meaning, so as to include more than metre; and it is frequently used to designate such things as the roll of the surf, the rise and fall of the wind, the reverberations of thunder, or the swell of tones from an Æolian harp. In poetry the word now signifies something very different from the formal divisions of lines into feet, and refers to that harmony and cadence which arise from the general flow of verses, and are marked by emphatic words and cæsural pauses. Thus Milton's Paradise Lost is written in the iambic metre, but the rhythm of that poem is something quite distinct from that metre, and is very different from the rhythm of any other iambic poem. The truth of this may be illustrated by the following passage: "If thou be'st he-but O, how fallen, how changed United thoughts and counsels, equal hope Joined with me once, now misery hath joined In equal ruin :-into what pit thou seest, From what height fallen :-so much the stronger proved The force of those dire arms?" The difference between the rhythm and the metre is here very strongly marked, especially in the last four lines. It is also discernible in all good poetry, and to make this manifest to the ear is the chief work of the elocutionist. $299. RHYTHM IN PROSE. The greatest writers of ancient and modern times have sought to infuse into their style something which should appeal to the musical sensibility, and many noble passages in prose literature exert an influence difficult to define, yet so powerful that they affect the heart and cling to the memory. Their meaning is in such cases enlarged and reinforced by the subtle yet potent aid of harmony; and while the thought affects the mind, the music charms the ear. Two things are to be observed in such writings: first, the sound of the individual words; and, secondly, their arrangement, with the recurrence of pauses at such intervals as shall produce a certain harmonious rise and fall of tone. These constitute rhythm in prose. Many passages in the English Bible exhibit a matchless beauty of rhythm: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed-or the golden bowl be broken-or the pitcher be broken at the fountain-or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was—and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." "Lord-thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. 66 "Before the mountains were brought forth—or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world-even from everlasting to everlasting-thou art God." "These are they which came out of great tribulation—and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." If these passages be read with attention to the rhetorical pauses, as marked, their euphonious flow and solemn and varied rhythm will not fail to be apparent. It would be difficult to furnish any other translation from their originals which could equal them in this respect. Rhythm in prose may be defined as the alternate swelling and lessening of sound at certain intervals. It refers to the general effect of sentences and paragraphs, where the words are chosen and arranged so as not only to express the meaning of the writer, but also to furnish a musical accompaniment which shall at once delight the ear by its sound, and help out the sense by its suggestiveness. The magnificent and varied harmonies which Milton loved are not more conspicuous in his poetry than in his prose. The following passage has often been quoted as an example of this: "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means." The following passage from De Quincey is both a criticism and an illustration: "Where out of Sir Thomas Browne shall we hope to find music so Miltonic, an intonation of such solemn chords as are struck in the following opening bar of a passage in the Urn Burial: 'Now since these bones have rested quietly in the grave, under the drums and tramplings of three conquests,' etc. What a melodious ascent as of a prelude to some impassioned requiem breathing from the pomps of the earth and from the sanctities of the grave! What a fluctus decumanus of rhetoric! Time expounded not by generations or centuries, but by vast periods of conquests and dynasties; by cycles of Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Antiochi and Arsacides! And these vast successions of time distinguished and figured by the uproars which revolve at their inaugurations-by the drums and tramplings rolling overhead upon the chambers of forgotten dead-the trepidations of time and mortality vexing, at secular intervals, the everlasting Sabbaths of the grave!" Burke, when conversing about the literary value of his own writings, declared that the particular passage which had cost him the most labor, and upon which his labor seemed to himself to have been the most successful, was the following: "Such are their ideas, such their religion, and such their law. But as to our country and our race, as long as the well-compacted structure of our church and state-the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple-shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion; as long as the British monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of state, shall, like the proud keep of Windsor rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers; as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land, so long the mounds and dikes of the low fat Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our sovereign lord the king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this realm-the triple cord which no man can break; the solemn sworn constitutional frankpledge of this nation; the firm guarantees of each other's being and each other's rights; the joint and several securities, each in its place and order for every kind and every quality of property and dignity—as long as these endure, so long the Duke of Bedford is safe; and we are all safe togetherthe high from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity, the low from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen! and so be it, and so it will be 'Dum domus Æneæ Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit."" In the style of Chalmers we find copiousness of thought and affluence of diction with great attention to rhythmical effect. This is shown in the following extract from his sermon on the death of the Princess Charlotte : "The nation has certainly not been wanting in the proper expression of poignant regret at the sudden removal of this most lamented princess, nor of their sympathy with the royal family deprived by this visitation of its brightest ornament. Sorrow is painted on every countenance, the pursuits of business and of pleasure have been suspended, and the kingdom is covered with the signals of distress. But what, my friends (if it were lawful to indulge such a thought), what would be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Where shall we find tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle, or, could we realize the calamity in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light and the moon her brightness; to cover the ocean with mourning and the heavens with sackcloth; or, were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep or a cry too piercing to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe ?" The writings of Carlyle do not abound in rhythmical passages, yet sometimes, as in the following case, his power in this way is very striking: "Look there, O man, born of woman! The bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with care; the brightness of those eyes is quench. ed, their lids hang drooping; the face is stony pale, as of one living in death. Mean weeds which her own hand has mended attire the queen of the world. The death-hurdle where thou sittest, pale, motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop; a people drunk with vengeance will drink it again in full draught looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches a multitudinous sea of maniac heads, the air deaf with their triumph yell !" The simple structure of Macaulay's style and his love of antitheses are not conducive to sustained harmony; yet this quality is not unfrequently exhibited, and nowhere in his writings can richer or more varied rhythm be found than in his famous description of the Puritans: "If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands, their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxiety—who had been destined before heaven and earth were created to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen and flourished and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God!" Among the musical terms which are sometimes used by critics to designate qualities in style, the word "bravura” may be mentioned as being closely connected with the present subject, and as involving beyond everything else a sounding and varied rhythm. In the following passage De Quincey has explained and illustrated this term with unusual beauty and discrimination : "In taking leave of a book and a subject so well fitted to draw out the highest mode of that grandeur which can connect itself with the external |