The Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability of a stratified and viscid magnetoplasma including the effects of "finite-resistivity and suspended particles is investigated using normal mode analysis. The horizontal magnetic field and the viscosity of the medium are assumed to be variable. The dispersion relation, which is obtained for the general case on employing boundary conditions appropriate to the case of two free boundaries, is then specialized for the longitudinal and transverse modes. It is found that the criterion of stable stratification remains essentially unchanged and that the unstable stratification for the longitudinal mode can be stabilized for a certain wave number band, whereas the transverse mode remains unstable or all wave numbers which can be stabilized by a suitable choice of the magnetic field for vanishing resistivity. Thus, resistivity is found to have a destabilizing influence on the RT configuration. The growth rates of the unstable RT modes with the kinematic viscosity and the relaxation frequency parameter of the suspended particles have been analytically evaluated. Dust (suspended particles) tends to stabilize the configuration when the medium is considered viscid with infinite conductivity. The kinematic viscosity has a stabilizing influence on the ideal plasma modes.
