endings, will start many a noble image and idea while he is only pursuing a sound. So far from being seduced to attenuate his matter for the accommodation of recurring points, where the rhymes must strike in like oars in rowing, which while they feather the surge, and make it flash in the sun, impel the boat onward, and accompany the song of the seamen, the genuine poet, of whom we speak,— like Pope, the greatest master of rhyme in our own, or, perhaps, in any language, because in none other is it so difficult, shy, and perverse,* *-will deliberately prefer it, for the remarkable reason which he states in the introduction to his "Essay on Man," because of its power of compression! Hear him :— "If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering between the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite; in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect, system of ethics. This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts, so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterward. The other may seem odd, but it is true; I found that I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness." To this may be added, that if poets understood the secret of compression thus ingeniously expounded, and if they practised it after the example of their preceptor, poetry, instead of being the dullest, * In proof of this may be mentioned the simple circumstance of plural nouns ending in the consonant s, while in verbs the usual termination of the third person singular, present tense (that which of all others oceurs the oftenest), is the same. This is a source of perpetual sorrow and plague to metre-mongers, and probably curtails the available rhymes in the English tongue one-fourth of what they might be, were the unmanageable s equally the termination of either singular or plural nouns and Terba. 66 heaviest, and least attractive species of literature to the great mass of readers, which I do not hesitate to acknowledge that it is, would be, at least, as generally acceptable as imaginative and intellectual prose. It is not. "Do you like poetry?" said the Frenchman to his friend. "O yes!" replied the other, next to prose!" This is the real sentiment of many a reader of feeble, fanciful, fashionable verse,-ay, and of verse of the first order,-who has neither courage nor ingenuousness to avow his indifference; indeed, who will hardly acknowledge it to himself, though he has shrewd misgivings, which he represses, because they make him suspect that he must be miserably deficient in taste. The reason is plain; and even good poets have too often to thank themselves for the failure of their most elaborate efforts, because they will not write naturally, but rather choose to disguise common sense with oracular ambiguity, and trick out commonplace in the foppery of euphuism. It is impossible to please people by convincing them that they ought to be pleased: you must make them, that they can not help being so. How to do that I pretend not to teach. Let us try a paragraph from the "Essay on Man," by the poet's own gauge,-elegant compression: "Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine? Earth for whose use?-Pride answers, "Tis for mine; Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; This brilliant clause shows the fine tact and masterly management of the ten-syllable couplet, peculiar to Pope, who is at once the most affluent in resources, and yet the most compact and energetic in the employment of them, of all writers in rhyme (without any exception) in our language. Here all the great features of the visible universe, the bounties of Divine Providence, and the general business of human life, are presented in the smallest possible compass consistent with distinct and harmonious arrangement: sun, moon, and stars; earth, ocean, air; flowers, fruit, harvest, and vintage; wealth, luxury, commerce; and, the "end" of all,-the gratification of the rational creature! It is remarkable, that throughout this melodious flow of nevertiring numbers, the cesural pauses float between the fourth and fifth, and the fifth and sixth syllables. This, probably, was accidental, the poet being ruled solely by the infallible test of his ear, which most exactly suited the cadence and consonance of the verse to the subject. It has been suggested, that it would improve the passage morally, if these lovely lines, and lovelier sentiments, instead of being uttered by Pride, in supercilious vaunting, had been put into the mouth of man himself, as the grateful beneficiary of his Maker. It is with the diction, not the morality, of this brief extract from a long and implicated argument that we have to deal at present; and I state this "new reading" for no other purpose than to show on what nice and subtle adaptation of sound to sound, not less than of sense to sense, depends the perfection of verse to. the ear, through which it must (however we may reason against it) affect the mind. Let the amendment be put, and Í am sure that it will be negatived without à division. "Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine? Earth for whose use ?-Man answers, "Tis for mine." Is not the sweet accordance of the whole clause marred by the jangle of " Man answers," instead of the sharp, clear phrase, “Pride answers,” &c. "Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine? Earth for whose use ?-Pride answers, 'Tis for mine.” Blank Verse. Blank verse is principally confined to the drama, and compositions in our five feet measure of ten syllables; nor is there any probability that it will ever much transgress those bounds; a circumstance which seems to establish rhyme as a vital principle in minor pieces,-songs, ballads, odes, and octosyllabic effusions. There is, indeed, one splendid and victorious exception to the unmanageableness of blank verse in metres of every kind, and this too in an epic poem. Concerning "Thalaba,"-the "wild and wondrous tale," as the admirable author, Dr. Southey, himself styles it,-whatever be thought of the eccentricities of the plot, or the moral to be deduced from fictions the most preternatural, the success of the experiment of framing that prodigy of song in .numbers of all lengths and cadences, without rhyme, cannot be doubted by those whose ears and hearts are tuned alike to all the varieties of rhythm of which our language is capable, associated with the most gorgeous imaginations that modern poetry has conjured up and converted into realities. For myself, I am free to acknowledge, that the effect produced on my mind by the perusal resembled the dreams of the Opium-eater, especially that magnificent one which "commenced with a music of preparation and awakening suspense; a music like that of the coronation anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march-of infinite cavalcades filing off; and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day, -a day of crisis and final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where; somehow, I knew not how; by some beings, I knew not whom; a battle, a strife, an agony K was conducting, was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as usual in dreams, where of necessity we make ourselves central to every movement, had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. 666 'Deeper than plummet ever sounded,' I lay in active. Some greater interest was at stake; some mighter cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, and hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives; I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and, at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me,-and but a moment allowed,-and clasped hands, and heartbreaking partings, and then everlasting farewells! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death,-the sound was reverberated-everlasting farewells !-and again, and yet again, reverberated-everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, 'I will sleep no more!" This dream has transported me too far:-1 return. Such music, such mystery, such strife, confusion, agony, despair, with splendours and glooms, and alternations of rapture and horror, the tale of "Thalaba the Destroyer," with its marvellous rhythm and oriental pageantry, produces on the mind of the entranced, delighted, yet afflicted reader,-so, at least, it affected me. Í have said that the experiment was victorious, but the author himself has not ventured to repeat it; like a wise man (which poets seldom are, especially successful ones), contenting |