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Essays and Criticisms, by Dr. Goldsmith; With an Account of the Author. in Three Volumes
Essays and Criticisms by Dr Goldsmith With an Account of the Author in Three Volumes Author:Oliver Goldsmith General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1798 Original Publisher: Printed for J. Johnson Description: Vol. 1 is an edition of "Essays. By Mr. Goldsmith" first published in 1765 and is styled "A new edition". Vol. 2-3 contain other essays and reviews by Goldsmith "now first collected". The compiler is named in the prefac... more »e to vol. 2 as Thomas Wright.--ESTC Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ESSAY XIX. VERSE is an harmonious arrangement of long and fhort fyllables, adapted to different kinds of Poetry, and owes its. origin entirely to the meafured cadence, or muiic, which was ufed when the firft fongs or hymns were recited. This mufic, divided into different parts, required a regular return of the fame meafure, and thus every flropbe, antijlrophe, orflanza, contained the fame number of feet. To know what conftituted the different kinds of rythmical feet among the an- tients, with refpect to the number and quantity of their fyllables, we have nothing todo but toconfult thofe whohave written on grammar and profody : it is the bufinefs of a fchoolmafter rather than the accomplilhment of a Man of T'afte. Various eiTays have been made in different countries to compare the characters of antLent and modern verfihcation, and 10 point out the difference beyond any poffibility of miftake. But they they have made diftinctions where, in faft, therff was no difference, and left the criterion un -- obferved. They have transferred the name of rhyme. to a regular repetition of the fame found at the end of the line, and fet up this vile monotony as the charatteriftic of modern verfe, in contradif- tin« less