It is to common language what springs are to a
carriage, or wings to feet. In ordinary speech we arrive at a certain
harmony by the modulations of the voice: in poetry the same thing is
done systematically by a regular collocation of syllables. It has been
well observed, that every one who declaims warmly, or grows intent
upon a subject, rises into a sort of blank verse or measured prose.
The merchant, as described in Chaucer, went on his way "sounding always
the increase of his winning". Every prose writer has more or less of
rhythmical adaptation, except poets who, when deprived of the regular
mechanism of verse, seem to have no principle of modulation left in
their writings.
An excuse might be made for rhyme in the same manner. It is but fair
that the ear should linger on the sounds that delight it, or avail
itself of the same brilliant coincidence and unexpected recurrence of
syllables, that have been displayed in the invention and collocation
of images. It is allowed that rhyme assists the memory; and a man of
wit and shrewdness has been heard to say, that the only four good lines
of poetry are the well-known ones which tell the number of days in the
months of the year:
Thirty days hath September, &c.
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