On this last consideration I have shunned the caesura
as much as possibly I could; for wherever that is used, it gives a
roughness to the verse, of which we can have little need in a
language which is overstocked with consonants. Such is not the
Latin where the vowels and consonants are mixed in proportion to
each other; yet Virgil judged the vowels to have somewhat of an
over-balance, and therefore tempers their sweetness with caesuras.
Such difference there is in tongues that the same figure which
roughens one, gives majesty to another; and that was it which Virgil
studied in his verses. Ovid uses it but rarely; and hence it is
that his versification cannot so properly be called sweet as
luscious. The Italians are forced upon it once or twice in every
line, because they have a redundancy of vowels in their language;
their metal is so soft that it will not coin without alloy to harden
it. On the other side, for the reason already named, it is all we
can do to give sufficient sweetness to our language; we must not
only choose our words for elegance, but for sound--to perform which
a mastery in the language is required; the poet must have a magazine
of words, and have the art to manage his few vowels to the best
advantage, that they may go the farther.
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