the choristers in a cathedral retard or precipitate the words of the chaunt, according as the quantity of its notes, and the colon which divides the verse of the psalm, conspire to demand it. Had the moderns borne this principle in mind when they settled the prevailing systems of verse, instead of learning them, as they appear to have done, from the first drawling and one-sylla bled notation of the church hymns, we should have retained all the advantages of the more numerous versification of the ancients, without being compelled to fancy that there was no alternative for us between our syllabical uniformity and the hexameters or other special forms unsuited to our tongues. But to leave this question alone, we will present the reader with a few sufficing specimens of the difference between monotony and variety in versification, first from Pope, Dryden, and Milton, and next from Gay and Coleridge. The following is the boasted melody of the nevertheless exquisite poet of the "Rape of the Lock," exquisite in his wit and fancy, though not in his numbers. The reader will observe that it is literally see-saw, like the rising and falling of a plank, with a light person at one end who is jerked up in the briefer time, and a heavier one who is set down more leisurely at the other. It is in the otherwise charming description of the heroine of that poem : On her white breast-a sparkling cross she wore, If to her share-some female errors fall, Look on her face--and you'll forget them all. Compare with this the description of Iphigenia m one of Dry. den's stories from Boccaccio: It happen'd-on a summer's holiday, That to the greenwood shade-he took his way, For Cymon shunn'd the church-and used not much to pray, His quarter-staff-which he could ne'er forsake, By chance conducted—or by thirst constrain'd, } Like Dian and her nymphs-when, tir'd with sport, The dame herself-the goddess well express'd Her comely limbs-compos'd with decent care, Her bosom to the view-was only bare; Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied- The fanning wind upon her bosom blows— To meet the fanning wind--the bosom rose; The fanning wind-and purling stream-continue her repose. For a further variety take, from the same author's Theodore and Honoria, a passage in which the couplets are run one into the other, and all of it modulated, like the former, according to the feeling demanded by the occasion; Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves he stood- A sudden horror seiz'd his giddy head- Nature was in alarm -Some danger nigh Seem'd threaten'd-though unseen to mortal eye. Unus'd to fear-he summon'd all his soul, But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and accent, apart from emotion, nothing can surpass the account, in Para. dise Lost, of the Devil's search for an accomplice ; There was a plàce, Now not-though Sìn—not Tìme-first wroùght the change, Where Tigris-at the foot of Paradise, Into a gùlf-shot under ground-till pàrt In with the river sunk—and with it ròse Satan-invòlv'd in rìsing mìst-then sought Where to lie hìd.-Sèa he had search'd—and lànd Downward as fàr antàrctic;-and in length At Dariën-thènce to the land whère flows Mòst opportune mìght sèrve his wìles-and found If the reader cast his eye again over this passage, he will not find a verse in it which is not varied and harmonized in the most remarkable manner. Let him notice in particular that curious balancing of the lines in the sixth and tenth verses :— and In with the river sunk, &c., Up beyond the river Ob. It some It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of Milton, that it exhibits too constant a perfection of this kind. times forces upon us too great a sense of consciousness on the part of the composer. We miss the first sprightly runnings of verse,—the ease and sweetness of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses weight into heaviness. Thus much concerning the chief of our two most popular measures. The other, called octosyllabic, or the measure of eight syllables, offered such facilities for namby-pamby, that it had become a jest as early as the time of Shakspeare, who makes Touchstone call it the "butterwoman's rate to market," and the " very false gallop of verses.” It has been advocated, in opposition to the heroic measure, upon the ground that ten syllables lead a man into epithets and other superfluities, while eight syllables compress him into a sensible and pithy gentleman. But the heroic measure laughs at it. So far from compressing, it converts one line into two, and sacrifices everything to the quick and importunate return of the rhyme. With Dryden, compare Gay, even in the strength of Gay, The wind was high-the window shakes; With sudden start the miser wakes; Along the silent room he stalks, (A miser never "stalks ;" but a rhyme was desired for "walks") Looks back, and trembles as he walks: In every creek and corner pries. Then opes the chest with treasure stor❜d, ("Hoard" and "treasure stor'd" are just made for one another) But now, with sudden qualms possess'd, And so he denounces his gold, as miser never denounced it; and sighs, because Virtue resides on earth no more! Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by time instead of syllables ;—by the beat of four into which you might get as many syllables as you could, instead of allotting eight syllables o the poor time, whatever it might have to say. He varied it further with alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions precisely analogous to those in music, and rendered it altogether worthy to utter the manifold thoughts and feelings of himself and his lady Christabel. He even ventures, with an exquisite sense of solemn strangeness and license (for there is witchcraft going forward), to introduce a couplet of blank verse, itself as mystically and beautifully modulated as anything in the music of Glück or Weber. 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily he crew. Sir Leoline, the baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock Four for the quarters ănd twèlve for the hoùr, Is the night chilly and dark! The moon is behind, and at the full, The night is chilly, the cloud is grey; (These are not superfluities, but mysterious returns of importunate feeling) Tis a month before the month of May, And the spring comes slowly up this way. The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle-gate? |