at its existence and referring to its effects, I do not profess to enter. My chief business is with Synectic.

This, also, on a slight examination, will be found to run into three channels-Anastomosis, Symptosis, and between them the main flood of Phonetic Syzygy. But it may be asked preliminarily how can Symptosis, which deals with rhymes, assonances (including alliterations, so called), and clashes (this last comprising as well agreeable reiterations, or congruences, as unpleasant ones, i.e. jangles or jars), how, I say, can a theory dealing with discreet matter of this kind, come under the head of Synectic: but the answer is easy, for if the elements with which it deals, its matter, is discontinuous, not so is the object to

* I cannot resist the temptation of quoting here from a daily morning paper the following unconsciously chromatic passage descriptive of the total eclipse of the moon, that grand spectacle of nature, which I witnessed and watched yesternight from Woolwich Common in front of my house, which in a few days I am to quit: The last portion of the shadow of the earth had been passed through by the moon, which then again sailed “in its full orb of glory through the dark blue depth." The beauty of sound in this description is almost as delicious as the impression of the sight of nature which it recalls.

† I have heard of practical use being made by some to whom the report of it has reached of this salient principle of phonetic syzygy, alike for proving, correcting, and strengthening their verses. A lady also has conveyed to me through a mutual friend the conviction of the value and fertility of this principle, in its application to musical composition, which has forced itself on her

which it tends (its form); just, for instance, as in an iron shield or curtain or a trial target, the bolts and screws and rivets are separate, but serve to consolidate and bring into conjunction the plates, and to give cohesion and unity to the

structure.

Anastomosis regards the junction of words, the laying of them duly alongside one another (like drainage pipes set end to end, or the capillary terminations of the veins and arteries) so as to

notice. I conceive that the method of triadic analysis which I have employed in the genesis and distribution of the principles of lyrical poetry, is founded on the nature of things and not on an arbitrary subjective rule of classification. I can honestly aver that I was not on the look-out for any such an arithmetical law, but that starting originally with phonetic syzygy alone as my distinctive principle, the connexions and ramifications which grew out of and around it, grouped themselves as it were spontaneously, according to this law of trichotomy, each joint of the arborescence at which I successively arrived in my analysis, throwing off from itself three branches. It may be the case that a similar ternary law of development would apply to music, painting, sculpture, in a word, to the elucidation of the higher principles of all the fine arts. Following out this clue it is conceivable that we might succeed in laying the foundations of a science of Comparative Aesthetic, or at least of a general Aesthetico-technic. Of one thing I have no doubt, which is, that when the analysis of principles which I have here faintly indicated has been carried to its full term, we shall be in possession of a system of rules, by which the criticism of the technical part at least of lyrical poetry may be reduced to the form of propositions capable of being logically argued and debated, and entirely removed from that indefinite region of taste which, like the so-called discretion of a judge, does not admit of being made the subject of rational discussion.

provide for the easy transmission and flow of breath (unless a suspension is desired for some cause, or is unavoidable) from one into the other,

The great topic of Phonetic Syzygy has something in common with each of these flanking principles. In matter it agrees with Symptosis, in form (in respect of operating with distinct reference to continuity of impression) it borders upon Anastomosis.

We look to Metric for correctness of form, to Chromatic for beauty of color; it is to Synectic, and to its main branch Syzygy, that we must attend in order to secure that coherence, compactness, and ring of true metal, without which no versification deserves the name of poetry. It is to Syzygy that I have called most attention in my annotations, and it was with this principle exclusively that at the outset I intended to deal. The subject has grown upon me in passing through the press; and the book has been built up in a most unforeseen and unpremeditated manner, which I state in order to account for the numerous dislocations, ill-fittings, gaps and other irregularities of structure, as well as occasional repetitions, which I must beg the courteous reader to overlook or excuse. In fact the work may be truly said to have been born,

cradled, and nurtured in the press, nay often to have fallen asleep there, to awake like a baby refreshed, hungry and calling for more. I began with a single fly-leaf containing a translation of "Tyrrhena Regum' for distribution among the audience at the Penny Reading where I was to recite the ode. This, doubled subsequently into a half-sheet, augmented with notes, assimilating to itself fresh matter, and leading me off into unintended analyses and discussions, has grown up by successive stages and additions into its present form, the simulacrum of a full-fledged book-to the surprise of no one so much as that of the originator of its being.

In my translations from Horace, especially in the first of them, I have aimed at a high ideal of fidelity to the original-probably at a higher one than has been achieved or even attempted in Metre since the days of Milton. What success has attended this effort, philologically speaking, I must leave to others to determine; but I can speak with some confidence as to the agreeable musical impression made on audiences illiterate as well as literate by its recital, and may do so without violation of modesty, as an evidence of the scientific correctness of my principles of versificatory construction.* The great law of

* Starting from the safe postulate, that Horace's ear was as

Continuity (continuity of sound and continuity of mental impression) has been my guiding star throughout. Some of my readers may chance to remember that I laid much stress upon this principle in the inaugural address delivered by me as President of the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Exeter. I went, on that occasion, so far as to say that Mathematics under its existent aspect might be defined as the Science of Continuity. I have thought, then, that this would be a not unsuitable occasion for republishing the address in a separate form, as I have received frequent applications for copies of it, with which I have not had the means of complying.

The address in an abridged form, under the title, A Plea for the Mathematician,' was published by request of the Editor of Nature in two numbers of that valuable journal, with additional notes, which are here reproduced. In an appendix will be found the letters of a correspondence which grew out of these notes, concerning the improper description of Kant's doctrine of Time and Space, common with Scotch and English writers on perfect as his taste is irreproachable, I have been able to apply syzygetic principles in aid of settling two disputed readings in the Latin text of 'Tyrrhena Regum,' (Od. iii. 3, 29,) lines 6 and 34.