It is possible, I
confess, though it rarely happens, that a verse of monosyllables may
sound harmoniously; and some examples of it I have seen. My first
line of the "AEneis" is not harsh -
"Arms, and the man I sing, who forced by Fate," &c. -
but a much better instance may be given from the last line of
Manilius, made English by our learned and judicious Mr. Creech -
"Nor could the world have borne so fierce a flame" -
where the many liquid consonants are placed so artfully that they
give a pleasing sound to the words, though they are all of one
syllable. It is true, I have been sometimes forced upon it in other
places of this work, but I never did it out of choice: I was either
in haste, or Virgil gave me no occasion for the ornament of words;
for it seldom happens but a monosyllable line turns verse to prose,
and even that prose is rugged and unharmonious. Philarchus, I
remember, taxes Balzac for placing twenty monosyllables in file
without one dissyllable betwixt them.
The way I have taken is not so strait as metaphrase, nor so loose as
paraphrase; some things, too, I have omitted, and sometimes have
added of my own.
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