LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Cla.s lot 054, Digitized by {he Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishmetristsOOomonrich \ICE EIGHTEENPENCE, ENGLISH METRISTS T. S. OMOND, AUTHOR OF A STUDY OF METRE." funbntJge Hcils: Printed and Published by R. Pelton, The Broadway mdcccciii. PRICE EIGMTEENPENCE. ENGLISH METRISTS BY T. S. OMOND, AUTHOR OF "A STUDY OF METRE/' Printed and Published by R. Pelton, The Broadway, mdcccciii. -'^ERAl PREFAC E. THE tollowing pages contain what was meant to form part of the "historical and bibliographical sketch of English Metrical Criticism" referred to in the last paragraph introductory to my Study of Metre (Grant Richards, 1903). Circumstances with which 1 need not trouble the reader compel me to postpone continuing this sketch. As the first part is fairly complete in itself, deals with compara- tively unfamiliar books, and includes a fuller list of Eliza- bethan quantitative writers than has yet appeared, I print it here (Section I.), in hope partly of aiding fellow- students, partly of benefiting by their criticism of its many shortcomings. Section II. (bibliographical) is carried down to the present day, and forms the skeleton on which I was work- ing. This at least, I trust, will be found useful. Mistakes and omissioris are doubtless inevitable. I shall be par- ticularly glad to receive notice of any serious ones, but " de minimis non curandum " must perforce be one's motto. It will be understood that both Sections are in rough draft, awaiting revision and recasting. Disproportionate space may seem given to pseudo-Classic metres, but till lately our metrical critics concerned themselves mainly with this question. Real phonetic study of our verse belongs almost entirely to the last half-century. The notes in Section II. are intended as guides to show contents, not as final criticisms. Even so, apology is due for seeming to pass judgment on living writers. For the benefit of reviewers, let me add that my interest in this subject did not begin yesterday, and need not be supposed due to recent publications, such as Mr. Stone's essay (1898) or Mr. McKerrow's study (1901-2). The former I hailed with delight when it appeared, but differ profoundly from its conclusions. To the latter I owe the identification of "F.S." with Francis Sabie (p. 23), and my knowledge of twelve lines by "L.G" (p. 30). Except where specified, I am not aware of having borrowed from these or other treatises ; my facts and views (for what they may be worth) are derived from my own reading. This impression is printed mainly for privaite distri- bution, but any one desiring a copy can obtain it by forwarding nineteenpence (one penny for postage) to my publisher. The demand is not likely to exceed the supply. T. S. OMOND. 14, Calverley Park, TuNBRiDGE Wells. P.S. — My manuscript went to press in May last, though publication had to be delayed. This will explain the paucity of references to recent verse, particularly to that of Mr. Robert Bridges. It is indeed interesting to find such a writer revive the "Classic" heresy; and one may admire the skill and boldness, while predicting the futility, of his attempt. Even from his own stand- point, 1 must think that he departs from the purity of Mr. Stone's rules, by letting accent sometimes override quantity; and, by adoption of colloquial slurrings, debases our already debilitated vocalisation. In at least one respect, however, his experiments easily transcend those ot his many predecessors. No specimens of quantitative verse that I know of in English attain to anything like so high a level of poetry. INDEX [It will be obvious that Numbers 1 — 54 refer to pages in Section I., Numbers 55 — 120 to pages in Section II. Where references are numerous, the most important are italicised.] "A.W." 63 Abbott 107 Addison 43,44,108 Aldhelm 1 Alford 101 "American Journal of Psychology" 113 Annnvmm 9.R-9.R R.'^ Bridges ... 53, 111, 112=113, 116, 119 Bright 116 Brightland 44, 68 Brown 74, 79 Browning 17, 109 Buckingham 41, 66, 69 ERRATA. Spencer for Spenser several times, posie for poesi (p. 66, line 16), "W.L." for "M L." (p. 94, line 1). Barter 104 Bateson 115 Bayne 118 Beattie 79,82 Bede 1 Bentley 44, 70 Blackie 105 " Blackwood's Magazine " 93 Blair 79 Blake 112 Blenerhasset 56 Blundell 90 Bolton (E.) 41, 64 Bolton (T. L.) 113 Bowen Ill Brewer 114 Chamberlain 30, 64 Chapman 78, 87 Chaucer 1, 32, 34, 35, 48, 71, 79 Cheke 2 " Christian Remembrancer "' 105 Clough 53, 93, 95, 97. 102, 104 Cochrane 103, 104 Coleridge. ..9, 53, 82, 83-84, 86, 91, 115 Collins 98 "Cornhill Magazine "104, 119 Cowley 41, 66 Crawford see Lindsay Crowe 89 Dabney 118 For the benefit of reviewers, let me add that my interest in this subject did not begin yesterday, and need not be supposed due to recent publications, such as Mr. Stone's essay (1898) or Mr. McKerrow's study (1901-2). The former I hailed with delight when it appeared, but differ profoundly from its conclusions. To the latter I owe the identification of "F.S." with Francis Sabie (p. 23), and my knowledge of twelve lines by "L.G" (p. 30). Except where specified, I am not aware of having borrowed from these or other treatises ; my facts and views (for what they may be worth) are derived from my own reading. This impression is printed mainly for privaite distri- bution, but any one desiring a copy can obtain it by 1 L«v..» ». ..*ALv.t »«-»»»«., niv. v.^iao3i«_ iicicsy; anu one" may admire the skill and boldness, while predicting the futility, of his attempt. Even from his own stand- point, 1 must think that he departs from the purity of Mr. Stone's rules, by letting accent sometimes override quantity; and, by adoption of colloquial slurrings, debases our already debilitated vocalisation. In at least one respect, however, his experiments easily transcend those ot his many predecessors. No specimens of quantitative verse that I know of in English attain to anything like so high a level of poetry. INDEX [It will be obvious that Numbers 1^54 refer to pages in Section I., Numbers 55 — 120 to pages in Section II. Where references are numerous, the most important are italicised.] "A.W." 63 Abbott 107 Addison 43,44,108 Aldhelm 1 Alford 101 "American Journal of Psychology" 113 Anonymous 25-26, 63 Anonymous 48-50, 70 "Antijacobin" 83, 89 Arber 31 (note) " Arber's reprints " 1 (note), 55 (note), etc. Arnold 100, 101 Ascham . 2, 5, 10-12, 16, 55 Ashe 107 "Athenaeum" 95, 117 Barker see Hockenhull Barnfield 23,24, 61 Barham 100 Barter 104 Bateson 115 Bayne 118 Beattie 79,82 Bede 1 Bentley 44, 70 Blackie 105 "Blackwood's Magazine " 93 Blair 79 Blake 112 Blenerhasset 56 Blundell 90 Bolton (E.) 41, 64 Bolton (T. L.) 113 Bowen Ill Brewer 114 Bridges ... 53, 111, 112-113, 116, 119 Bright 116 Brightland 44, 68 Brown 74, 79 Browning 17, 109 Buckingham 41, 66, 69 Burnet see Monboddo Burney 79 Byron 83. 84,89 Bysshe... 42-3, 44, 67, 68, 69 Calverley 106 Cambridge Philosophical Society 100 " Cambridge Review"... 118 Campion 6, 27-30, 31, 40, 63 Canning 83, 89 Carey 87 Carpenter 118 Cayley 53, 101-102 Chamberlain 30, 64 Chapman 78, 87 Chaucer 1, 32, 34, 35, 48, 71, 79 Cheke 2 "Christian Remembrancer ' 105 Clough 53, 93, 95, 97, 102, 104 Cochrane 103, 104 Coleridge... 9, 53, 82, 83-84, 86, 91, 115 Collins 98 "Cornhill Magazine "104, 119 Cowley 41, 66 Crawford see Lindsay Crowe 89 Dabney 118 INDEX. Dallas 97,98 Daniel 40, 64 Dart 103,105 D'Avenant 41, 65 Davidson 26, 63 Denham 41 Dennis 41,67,69 Derby 104 Dickenson 24, 62 Dihvorth 73 D'lsraeli 22 (note) Drant 3, 7 Drayton 64 Drummond 21 Dryden 41,42.66, 67 " Dublin University Maga- zine" 98 Dyche 68 Dyer 3, 13, 24 "E.K." 32 (note) Earle 107 •' Eclectic Review " 90 " Edinburgh Review " 85. 87 Edwards 86-87 Ellis (A. J.) 78,95 Ellis (R.) 53, 54, 107 Elze... 10 (note) "Encyclopaedia Britannica" 95, 110 " English Hexameter Translations" 94 Evans 96 Fogg 81 " Fortnightly Review ".. 108 Foster 73, 77, 80, 90 " Fraser's Magazine" 93, 94, 96. 101 Fraunce 3, 20-22, 25, 60 Frere 88-89, 103 Galley 73-74 Gardner 89 Gascoigne 1,2, 31-33, 34, 56 Gayley 113,117 Gildon 44-45, 69 Glover 43, 70 Goldsmith. 50, 51, 74 Gosson 56 Gower 35 Gray 72 Greene 6, 15, 22, 32, 58-59, 61 Gregory 86 Grist .' 104 Grosart 20, 22 (note) Guest 87, 90-91 Gummere 110 Hall 25, 62 Hallam 90 Hallard 114 Hardy 116 Hare . 94 Harford 117 Harrington 39, 61 Harris 71 Harte 106 Harvey ... 13-16, 17, 22, 35, 57-58. 61 Hawkins 75 Hawtrey 94 Herbert 85 Herries 52, 75, 82 Herschell 94,104 Hobbes 41, 65 Hockenhull 31,65 Hodgson 109 Home see Karnes Hood 106 Horsley 81 Hunt 92 James VI 33-34,59 Jenkin 109 Johnson (S.) 6,42,72, 81 Jonson (B.) 4-6, 21, 31, 41, 65 Karnes 73 Kingsley 53, 97 Knight 85 "L.G." 30,63 INDEX. Landon 103 Landor 96 Lanier 108-109, 114, 118 Lansdowne 69 Latham 91 Lecky 110 Liddell 119 Lindsay 103 " Literary World " 114 "Literature" 117 Lockhart 93, 94 " London Student " 106 Longfellow ... 53, 92, 96, 97 Lowell 94 Lydgate 35 Lytton (1st Lord) 106 Lytton (2nd Lord) 99 "M.C." 93 " Macmillan's Magazine" 103, 118 McKerrow 10 (note), 38 (note), 119 Malcolm 69 " Manchester Quarterly Review" 115 Manwaring 70 Mason 72 Masson 97, 98 Mayor 108,110-111 Meredith (George) 118 Meredith (Owen), see Lytton, 2nd Lord Meres 40, 62 Milton 41, 42, 43, 44, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 77, 85, 91, 98, 112 Mitford (J. T. F.) 99 Mitford (W.) 76-77, 80, 85, 89 " Modern Metre"... .... 102 '' Modern Language Quarterly" 119 Monboddo 76,78, 79. 80 "Monthly Magazine" 81 " Monthly Review " 113 Moore 109 More 2 (note) M organ 115 Morris Ill Morritt 103 Mulgrave . see Buckingham Munro 100, 101 Murray (J.) 103 Murray (L.) 42, 81 Nares 80 Nash... 13 (note), 16,17, 22, 32, 59, 61 Newman 101 Normanby, see Buckingham " N. American Review "...92 " N. British Review "...97, 98 "Notes and Queries" ... 118 O'Brien 92 Odell 78,85 Parsons.... 113 Patmore 78,98-99 Peacham 41, 64 Pemberton 70 Phaer 31 (note) Philhellen Etonensis 93 Philological Society. ..91, 95, 100, 101, 108, 110, 115, 117 Poe 94 Poole 65 Pope.. AZ, 43-44, 69,73,74, 85, 102 Primatt 73, 81 Puttenham 9 (note), 11 (note), 31 (note), 36-38, 39, 60, 61 "Rambler" 72 Raymond 114 Ritso 96 Roe 78,88 Ronsard 2 (note) Roscommon 41, 66, 69 Rush 78,89 Ruskin 108, 120 INDEX. Rymer 41, 66 Sabie 23-24,62 Saintsbury Ill " Saturday Review"... . 109 Say 71 Scott (F. N.) 113, 117 Scott (W.) 84, 89 Seaman 115 Search, Edward, see Tucker Seeley 107 Shadwell 92,93 Shakespeare ... 23, 39, 42, 44, 67, 69, 74 Shelley Ill Sheridan 77,81, 89 Sidney... 3,9, /2=/J, 20, 24, 27, 30 (note), 33, 48. 50, 56-57. 60 Simcox 104 Skeat, 87, 90, 91, 111, 112, 7/5 Smith (A.) 96 Smith (T.) 2 (note) Southey...9, 53, 82-83, 87, 88, 89, 96 "Spectator" (old) 68 "Spectator" (new) 116 Spedding 8, 53,100, 101, •102, 104 Spenser... 3, 6, 9, 13=15, 19, Z0,3Z(note), 35, 57-38, 71 Stanihurst, 11 (note), 16=18, 25, 58, 59, 62 Steele 76, 77-78, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 98, 108 Stone.. 6=9, 10 (note), 38 (note), 53, 101, 112, 113, 116, 118, 119 Surrey ...3 (note), 30 (note) Sweet 76, 108, 110, 112 Swift 43,44,70 Swinburne 105, 111 Sylvester 106 Symonds 108 " Tait's Edinburgh Maga- zine " 97 Tarelli 116 Taylor (J.) 31,64 Taylor (W.) 53, 81-82, 86 Tennyson... 53, 54, 101, 104- 105, 107, HI Thelwall 78, 86, 88 TiUbrook 88 "Times" newspaper .. . 119 Tisdall 112 Trissino 2 (note) Twine 31 (note) Tucker 50-51, 75 Tyrwhitt 78-79 "Versification" 114 Victory 120 Walker 80,85, 89 Waller 41, 67 Wallis 41, 65 Warner (J.) 82 Warner (W.) 23 Warton 76 Watt 87 Watson (Bishop) . 2, 10, 24 Watson (T.) 2, 20 Watson (W.) 114, 115 Watts 47-48, 68,71 Watts-Dunton 110 Webb 74, 82 Webbe . 19=20, 30 (note), 31 (note), 32 (note), 34= 36, 37, 59, 76 Wesley 41,42,67 " Westminster Review ". . ,93 Whewell..,3 (note), 93, 94, 95, 103 Whitcomb 110 Woods 119 Wordsworth 84, 91 Worsley 102 Yeats 117 Young 80 Section I.— HISTORICAL. English metrical criticism practically begins with the Elizabethans. Nothing before that date needs notice here. Aldhelm and Bede wrote on Latin verse, nor during the long centuries when our language was making need we expect to find self-conscious analysis. Creation must precede criticism, since the critic does not invent rules, only infers them from practice. Even the work of Chaucer and his followers originated no school of grammarians. The earliest separate treatise on English verse seems to have been the Httle tract of George Gascoigne (1575).* Books on the subject-matter of poetry — figures, tropes, and the like — were not wanting prior to this date, but I do not know any of these which contains an actual reference to verse-structure. Even before Gascoigne wrote, however, a movement had arisen which threatened to revolutionize our verse entirely. A serious attempt was made to substitute for native measures the " quantitative " structures of ancient Greece and Rome. The beginnings of our metrical analysis synchronised with and were power- fully affected by this attempt. Nearly every sub- sequent writer on English prosody has referred to this attempt, and has spent much time comparing English * For particulars of this and all books mentioned later see chronological list (Section II.) Wherever possible, my references are to the cheap and handy volumes known as '■' Arber's Repri?its," which can be obtained from Constable & Co., Westminster. with Classical verse in respect of form. Convenience, therefore, as well as chronological accuracy, requires us to deal with this movement first. It will be pos- sible to trace it to its early conclusion before returning to begin with George Gascoigne the more familiar and orthodox developments of regular prosody. A reference in the Scholemaster (Arber's Reprint, p. 144) of Roger Ascham (1515-68) shows us, some forty years before Gascoigne wrote, a band of young students at St. John's College, Cambridge, prominent among them Ascham himself and Cheke (who later " taught Cambridge, and King Edward, Greek "), dis- cussing the possibility of remodelling English metre. These men were scholars, but not pedants. Cheke discarded traditional pronunciation of the Classics, substituting that convenient if barbarous vocalisation which btill parts us from Continental Hellenists. And he and his compeers were equally ready to abandon "rude beggarly ryming, brought first into Italic by Goths and Huns," and devise other forms of verse.* Ascham recalls longingly his " sweet time spent at Cambridge," and talks with such men as Cheke and " mine old friend Mr. Watson " (Thomas Watson, not the Elizabethan poet of same name, but the prelate who took active part in the ecclesiastical troubles of his day, and was probably at the time this was written a prisoner in the Tower), and quotes a couplet by the * Sir Thos. More is said to have favoured the movement, and Cheke's friend Sir Thos. Smith probably helped. About the same time Ronsard and others made a similar attempt in France, while the work of Trissino in Italy- was a little earlier, and may have inspired the others. At any rate, the idea was afoot, and scholars in all nations soon caught it up. latter which may rank as the earUest specimen of English "hexameter" verse known to us — All travelers do gladly report great praise of Ulysses, For that he knew many men's manners, and saw many cities.* No doubt Cheke and Ascham taught orally to their pupils the expediency of adopting quantitative measures. Their teaching spread, and became fashion- able. By the end of the Sixteenth Century's third quarter, a society calling itself "Areopagus" — of which Sidney, Dyer, and Drant t were leaders, Spenser and Abraham Fraunce pupils — was making an earnest attempt in this direction, and the Arcadia of Sidney (probably written about 1580) contains many pieces framed on Classic models.:]: What was the aim and meaning of this attempt ? We read lines like Watson's with a smile at their halting accents, and probably condemn them as dog- gerel. But this is to prejudge matters. The halting accents were part of the scheme, or at least not in- consistent with it. The scheme itself was no ignoble one. Enthusiastic over the lately rediscovered Greek literature, these men found it recorded that the Romans, already possessing metres of their own, threw them aside on becoming acquainted with Greek verse, and adopted the rhythms and measures of the latter. Why should not England do likewise? Our language was still rude, chaotic, formless. The glories * Ibid, p. 73. t Neither Dyer nor Drant left anything to quote in the present connection. The others will be referred to again later. X The late Dr. Whewell (Macmillan's Magazine, August, i882)speal-s of the "great mass of elegiacs" written by Surrey. Is not this a slip for Sidney ? so soon to be revealed were hidden. It was not unnatural to suppose that for us, too, salvation lay in following Greek guidance. Chaucer was our Livius Andronicus ; might not our Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil come with the new measures? If a dream, it was greatly conceived ; a magnificent ideal, however im- possible to realise. We must comprehend its inten- tion before criticising its methods. Essentially, however, it was a scholars' movement. Pride of caste reinforced love of letters. Inception and execution alike rested with them ; they alone had the keys of the new knowledge. Any ignorant person can " easily reckon up fourteen syllables, and easily stumble on every ryme"; but only the learned can " search out true quantity in every foot and syllable."* This was the weakness as well as strength of their position. Sometimes, indeed, they go further, and seem to claim not merely to discover but actually to create quantity, as if it depended on a master's ipse dixit. But, rightly understood, the task of enquiring whether our language might be capable of receiving rules of quantity like the Classic, was an enterprise not unworthy to be attempted. There perhaps was no a priori reason to assume its impossibihty. We can be wise after the event, but it is not so clear that they should have seen the issue beforehand. At any rate they thought the attempt worth making, and some of the best minds in England agreed with them. It does not seem to have been noticed that no less a critic than Ben Jonson, quite late in life, upheld this * Sckolemaster, p. 146. view. His English Grammar (1640), written in old age, and published after his death, contains a passage so clear and pertinent that it may be quoted in full. I transcribe verbatim et literatim^ which was needless with Ascham, whose spelling is quite erratic. " Here order would require to speake of the Quantitie of Syllabes [syllables], their special Prerogative among the Latines and Greekes : whereof so much as is constant, and derived from Nature^ hath beene handled already. The other which growes by Position, and placing of letters, as yet (not through default of our Tongue, being able enough to receive it, but our owne carelessnesse, being negligent to give it) is ruled by no Art. The principall cause whereof seemeth to be this ; because our Verses and Rythmes [rhymes] (as it is almost with all other people, whose Language is spoken at this day) are 72aturall, and such whereof Aristotle speaketh, ek ton autoschediasmaton, that is, made of a fiaturall, and voluntarie composition, with- out regard to the Quantitie of Syllabes. " This would ask a larger time and field, then [than] is here given, for the examination : but since I am assigned to this Province ; that it is the lot of my age, after thirty yeares conversation with men, to be elementatius Senex [an old man teaching rudiments] : I will promise, and obtaine so much of my selfe, as to give, in the heele of the booke, some spurre and in- citement to that which I so reasonably seeke." Not, however, that he wishes to abolish "the vulgar and practised way of making, but, to the end our Tongue may be made equall to those of the renowned Countries, Italy and Greece^ touching this particular." (Chap. VI.)* The promise thus given was not fulfilled. But its giving proves, both that Jonson intended writing on prosody — which his namesake the Lexicographer blames him for not doing — and that he was prepared to discuss the principles of English quantity. It indi- cates acceptance of the "Classical" view-point, and suggests a rational and plausible explanation of the phenomena. Wherein was the explanation defective ? Why, in other words, did the attempt in question fail ? That it did fail, is evident. English poets would have none of it. Spenser, Greene and Campion dallied with it in their youth, but soon threw it aside. The course of our literature was not diverted into this channel. To realise the causes of this want of success is essential to a due appreciation of the attempt. These causes have been examined by several writers, notably of late by Mr. Stone in a pamphlet (Section II., 1898) to which I shall have frequent cause to refer, most of whose criticism is as sound as it is brilliant. But in one respect he and others seem to go astray. They do not realise the vast changes which have passed over our pronunciation. Mr. Stone judges each syllable by his own ear, and fearlessly proclaims "false quantities" where this test finds * In his lively verses, "A fit of rhyme against rhyme," Jonson pours scorn on Vulgar languages that want Words, and sweetness, and be scant Of true measure. (Underwoods.) fault.* Such judgment is somewhat hasty. The rules which Sidney and Drant prepared for the "Areopagus " have not come down to us ; with others, which have survived, Mr. Stone seems to have been unacquainted. On many points they differ from his own rules, and so far invalidate his too confident censure. It need not be contended that they are correct in themselves, or even always self-consistent ; but they do appeal to sound, not to spelling, and they show that many words were sounded differently then to what they are now. It will not do, therefore, to judge these verses wholly by our ears. The causes of failure I should myself say were three — two technical, one general. The first was their too lax view of quantity, especially that depending on vowel-sound. They believed and asserted, as do many English grammarians, that most of our vowels are vague and indeterminate, and treated the syllables formed by these as " common " — long in one line, short in the next. But such a view is fatal to quanti- tative verse. A few exceptions are permissible, but the great majority of syllables must be known and settled if the reader is to follow the metre. When words like squeaky vain, coy, are made short, what possibility is there of an intelligible system ? Nor were they better advised as regards consonants. Phono- graphy was more to them than phonetics. The * Thus Mr. Stone finds fault with my being accounted short, forgetting that alternative vocalisation which survives in the barrister's "My Lud." Similarly, the two last syllables of testify, prophesy, etc., are usually short with the Elizabethans, and so old people sometimes pronounce them. Had this verse taken root, our quantities would have become stereotyped, and perhaps love would have still rhymed with prove ; the vowel in love and loving was clearly a long one to Elizabethan ears. " doubled consonant fallacy "* for the most part held them fast, though there were protests even then. Their unsettled spelling let them play tricks to the eye, which carried no conviction to the ear, the only true judge. The attempt was thus ruined at the outset by faults of execution. Making every allow- ance for changes of pronunciation, it is still obvious that they had no proper feeling for, no real sense of, the quantity they professed to observe. The second technical reason relates to " halting accents." It was open to them to treat English accent in two ways, either making it coincide with quantity, or frankly opposing the two. Mr. Stone holds they should have done the latter. He main- tains—as Spedding and others before him — that such opposition was essential to Latin verse, and that no metre not reproducing this can claim to follow Classic type. Leaving this point for scholars to settle, we may at least say that choice was imperative. They were bound to make the principle of their measure clear. This they failed to do. We never know what was their ideal, whether the accents in particular lines are merely "halting" or designedly "combative." One writer is credited with studying reconciliation, another with delighting in bold opposition. These opinions of critics show how tentative was the whole undertaking. And, in so artificial an attempt, un- certainty was ruinous. A native verse might have been left to work out its own methods ; an exotic like this must have them defined ab extra. Imagine the * Mr. Stone's pamphlet, p. 29. Romans ignorant of the true nature of Greek quantity and Greek verse-structure; what success would have attended their enterprise ? The EHzabethans courted defeat by uncertainty of aim. These two causes — which will be illustrated pre- sently by examples — were sufficient themselves to ensure failure. But a third more general and more unavoidable one remains. In stating this I differ ioto caelo from Mr. Stone. The verse which he recom- mends I hold impossible in English. It proceeds on a radically false assumption that syllables constitute the whole basis of our verse, that strict feet— whether framed by accent or by quantity is immaterial — explain the secret of our metre. No true English poetry has been written on these assumptions. "Which feet," says an old writer truly, "we have not, nor as yet never went about to frame, the nature of our language and words not permitting it."* When our poets are run away with by false theories — when, like Sidney and Spenser at this time or Coleridge and Southey later, they write by rule instead of ear, counting syllables and constructing "feet" instead of singing as their souls bid them — then their magic ceases, and they write verses no better than those of the critic and the poetaster. Apart from this, any attempt to separate accent, quantity, and metrical stress habitu- ally in English is unlikely to succeed. Our ears are trained to combine them, and accent is so all-power- ful in English speech that it does not easily assume a subordinate position. But the Elizabethan attempt * Ptittetihavi (1589), Arber's Reprint, p. 22. lO was foredoomed to failure, apart from such secondary matters and in spite of the nobility of its aim, by the fact that it sinned against the genius of English poetry. It took no account of pause, no account of time underlying syllable-structure. An artificial and derived verse might possibly have superseded our native measures, had it been based on principles which appealed to us, and could be verified by our ears. Quantity must have so appealed to the Latin ear. This pseudo-Classic attempt was based on principles foreign to our speech and music, and deserved, not indeed ignorant scorn, but the rejection which it un- hesitatingly received. In the light of these principles, it should now be possible to judge any sample of quantitative verse we may come across. As no complete account* has ever been given of this curious side-eddy in our literary history, it seems desirable to enumerate the writers who figured in it, carrying down the tale to its ending before going back to other work of the Elizabethan age. Beyond a few specimen verses, the exhumation of these venerable curiosities may be left to in- quisitive students, there being little beyond his- torical interest in their dry and withered limbs or lineaments. The Toxophilus (1545) of Ascham contams several lines and parts of lines, the earHest specimens of this " new verse " which have reached us, except Watson's * The fullest known to me is that of Prof. EIze in his tract Der englische Hexatiieter (jyQsszxi, 1867), the ablest that of Mr. Stone, the latest and not least valuable by Mr. McKerrow in the Modern Language Quartei ly for December, 1901, and April, 1902. already quoted. Most are translations, and those from Greek iambics read smoothly enough, e.g. It is my wont alwaies my bow with me to bear. (I scan as seems intended, 7fiy being pronounced short). His hexameters are scarcely so good. Obser- vance of Classic rule makes him shorten two long vowels in Quite through a door flew a shaft with a brass head ; but why is / short twice in Eight good shafts have I shot sith I came, each one with a fork head ? A better line is this from Callimachus — Both merie songs and good shooting delighteth Apollo, allowing the grammar to pass muster; but if Stop the beginnings be meant for a dactyl and spondee, the last word is hopeless. He contends himself that our language "doth not well receive the nature of Heroic \i.e. hexameter] verse," because it "doth rather stumble than stand upon monosyllables," and therefore, " Car- men Exametrum [note the spelling, and compare our common Eureka] doth rather trot and hobble than run smoothly in our English tongue" ( Schokmaster, pp. 145-6). Here he voices a complaint which has been repeated to our own day, though other writers find the dactyl natural and indigenous in English.* Some- thing, perhaps, is due to the practitioner; Ascham's attempts at ordinary triple-time verse are not very happy. In hexameters, at all events, he was a pioneer, and it would be unreasonable to expect any great smoothness or success. What does seem extraordinary, * e.g. Puttenham, ut supra, p. 137 ; Stanihurst, and others. T2 and from any point of view unfortunate, is that in these initial experiments by a respected teacher the basis of English quantity was not clearly laid down and illustrated for future use. From Ascham to Sir Philip Sidney, is to pass from schoolmaster to poet. By far the larger part of the verses scattered throughout Arcadia is in ordinary metres. But the Classic attempts are numerous, and comprise hexameters, elegiacs, sapphics, phaleuciacs, asclepiads. The last-mentioned is a pretty piece, beginning — O sweet woods, the delight of solitarinesse ! In this line the a of " solitarinesse " must have had natural length. But in other pieces we have such startling solecisms as Heraditus, shall I see (dactyl), tell me thy (dactyl), shining in harness^ but Oh, etc., while be, by, do, and the like meet us continually. Errand, pallace [sic], pittie, possible, explain them- selves, but what can be said to justify honour and desert 1 These last come from " Dorus and Zelmane," the longest piece in Arcadia. Sidney was naturally a singer, and some of his Classic verses are not un- pleasing, especially the " rhyming iambics " of the " Hymn to Apollo," which reads naturally as English metre — " Apollo great, whose beams the greater world do light, And in our little world do clear our inward sight." But to show how for the most part his lines " halt ill on Roman feet," I will quote one translated quatrain from " Certaine Sonnets,'' asking the reader to notice how the first syllable of woman is short in the first line and long in the third, while the second syllable 13 of the same word is mis-scanned in the first line ; other apparent false quantities are explained by Latin rules, but if unto is long, why is do short ? Unto nobody, my woman saith, she'd rather a wife be Than to myself, not though Jove grew a suitor of hers. These be her words ; but a woman's words to a love that is eager In wind's or water's stream do require to be writ. The rhythm of this is surely as halting as the metre is faulty ; yet this is no unfair specimen of what seems to have satisfied the Areopagite ear.* Gabriel Harvey was some twenty-five years junior to Sidney. He stood aloof from the Penshurst school, vaunting his independence, and actually claiming to be the " inventor of the English hexameter " {Four Letters^ 1592; third letter).t A Cambridge graduate of considerable parts and much self-conceit, he was evidently looked up to by his fellow-Cantab Spenser, to whom he was senior by five years. Some letters which passed between them in the year 1580 % show Harvey assuming quite a magisterial pose. He talks of Sidney and Dyer helping " our new famous enter- prise," believes "mine own rules and precepts" not greatly repugnant to theirs, asks Spenser to "com- mend me to good Mr. Sidney's judgement." He thinks nothing can be done till they have got a settled * Sidney's "Defence of Poesie " will be noticed later among prosodies. t See Chronological List, 1580. Recent critics generally identify Harvey with the Penshurst school : I know not on what authority. The statements above made represent the facts as they seem to my imperfect knowledge of the period. Attempts have also been made to prove that he did not actually claim to have " invented" the hexameter in English, but his words seem to me to bear no other construction. t Accepted now as genuine, though Nash hinted doubts I Spenser is "Signer I mmerito," -compare Shepherd's Calendar (preface). 14 orthography. When Spenser complains that accent " yawneth and gapeth ill-favouredly," and quaintly com- pares the word carpe7iter, with mid-syllable lengthened, to "a lame gosling that draweth one leg after her," while Beaven, in one syllable, is " like a lame dog that holds up one leg " — Harvey is ready with his answer. We must not blindly follow Classic precedent. " The Latin is no rule for us." "The vulgar and natural mother Prosody alone maketh quantity .... position neither maketh short nor long in our tongue, but as far as we can get her good leave." That is, he con- founded accent with quantity. We must not " devise any counterfeit fantastical accent of our own." He will not allow carpmter^ nor such words as majesty^ royalty^ scienas, faculties, suddenly, certainly, merchan- dise. But this is to cut away the roots of quantitative verse. If his contention be right, it is fatal to the system he seeks to establish. The Sidneian school was at least consistent — or tried to be — though con- sistency led to untenable positions. Harvey's boastful superiority issued in mere ignoratio elenchi. Accentua- tion and quantitative structure are clearly not the same things, though he may be right in protesting against their separation. His confusion between them shows how indefinite and unreasoned were his ideas. So far as he followed a path of his own, it led him up a blind alley. Spenser's attempts survive only in this correspon- dence, as he did not reprint them with his poems. His ''^lambicum Trimcirum" is certainly not better than others of the kind, the very first word, Unhdppie, 15 containing a clear false quantity. Of his elegiacs one couplet may suffice — See yee the blind-folded pretie God, that feathered Archer, Of lovers' miseries which maketh his bloodie game ? Pretty is good, if he had not thought it necessary to write it with one /; but to spell ye with two vowels, and then sound it short, is truly grotesque. Was the first syllable of feathered pronounced long, the first of maketh short, as in Scotch? Is lovers allowable? Spenser undoubtedly took these attempts seriously, if the letters are genuine ; but we may rejoice that he soon abandoned them, and went back to his " old use of toying with rhymes." As to Harvey's own contri- butions, they are as incorrect as Spenser's, and much less interesting. What an atrocious line is Not the like Trinitie again, save only the Trinitie above all. Besides crude elision, we have like^ Trinitie^ above all^ surely indefensible. In another piece the diphthong CB is first long, then short, in the same line. His best known attempt begins — What might I call this Tree? ~A Lam ell? O bonny Laurell : Needs to thy boughs will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto. The wits made great fun of this bonetto, as ridiculous as it is incorrect in scansion. He drew a hornets' nest upon him by attacking Greene, and his critics grasped at any opportunity to sting. There must have been good in the man, since Spenser valued his friendship, and addressed him much later in a well-known sonnet. But neither his verse nor his prose writings reveal any thing admirable, and his incompetence seems to us i6 equal to his pretentiousness. His claim to father the hexameter is but of a piece with the rest of his braggart vaunts. Another writer of the same time, who might with more justice have posed as patentee of English hexameters, was Richard Stanihurst or Stanyhurst, a Roman Catholic Anglo-Irishman of good family, resident in the Netherlands, who published at Leyden in 1582 a translation of the first four books of Virgil's Aeneid, with a few other pieces, forming by far the most considerable contribution yet made to the new school of verse. Harvey claims him as a pupil, but in his preface he speaks of Ascham as the inspirer of his attempt, and of his own work as a maiden book. He had, however, read Harvey's letters, and borrows from them their unfortunate confusion of accent with quantity, considering that " position " cannot " sufifice against the natural dialect of English," so that while we say buckler we must also say swashbuckler. But most of Stanihurst's qualities are emphatically his own. His translation is one of the most extraordinary pieces of English ever penned. "A foul lumbering boisterous wallowing measure " Nash calls it, and this description is faint beside the reality. Rabelaisian wealth of words, piled up with apparently no sense of incongruity, is made more wonderful by magni- ficently eccentric spelling. He tries to show quantity by letters, writing hobble when long and hobel when short, y^^rr^i"/ and forest^ flee 2cci^ fle (/), and so forth. This, however, does not explain why he always spells the as thee, to as too or toe, whatever their quantity. 17 His beok is a treasurehouse of old English ; from it Browning perhaps pilfered some of his quaint phrases like " put case " and " dandiprat." * There is vigour enough in it, but extravagance beyond words. Nash's parody is hardly a caricature — Then did he make heaven's vault to rebound, with rounce robel hobble Of ruffe raffe roaring, with chwick thwack thurlery bouncing. Indeed much of this comes verbatim from a fragment of Aeneid Book VIII. , which is quite as funny. Such an attempt could not bring much credit to the cause. It is difficult to believe it serious, which however it undoubtedly was. Its madness has method. But for Harvey's misleading, Stanihurst would probably have exemplified the combative accent more thorough- ly, for he not seldom does it with boldness. However uncouth the garb, there is stuff in this translation, not mere verbal padding. But the garb is too irresistibly comic to produce any effect save one of motley. An important part of his book is the "private precepts " concerning quantity. He explains that he does not wish to "chalk out" rules for others — his prose style is as racy as his verse — but must explain certain points, else " some grammatical pullet, hacht [hatched] in Dispater his sachel, would stand clocking agaynst mee, as though hee had found an horse nest." Accordingly he gives a list of words which he makes "common," including sky^ sea; mouth, your; all words ending in o ; and a host of others. He pro- fesses to write phonetically, and " would not wish thee quantitie of syllables to depend so much upon thee * These, however, are not peculiar to Stanihurst. c i8 gaze of the eye, as thee censure of thee eare." I infer that he meant spelUng to represent sound, so that passadge is to be pronounced differently to pass- agCj and when he writes oaten as oten we are to sound a short vowel. The wild license of his quantities, therefore, may be mainly covered by his rules ; but this only shows the absurdity of rules which actually allow such a dactyl as the snow white ("thee snoa whit ") ! Such monstrosities would be fatal to any verse, and perhaps in any measure Stanihurst would have been as wild. He used hexameter mostly, though the " other Poetical Devices " appended to his volume contain a few attempts in other metres. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he held that " The lambical quantitye relisheth soomwhat unsavourlye in oure language," and that most other measures " sown [sound] not al so pleasinglie to the eare " as hexameter and elegiac. The first six lines of his fragment from Aeneid VIII. give a fair idea alike of his erratic quantities and his extraordinary manner, and will show how impossible it was that such a production should recommend any new metre.* Tw'ard Sicil is seated, toe the welken loftelye peaking, A soil, ycleapt Liparen, from whence, with flownce furye slinging, Stoans, and burlye bulets, lyke tamponds [?] mainlie be towring. Under is a kennel, wheare 'chymneys fyrye be scorching Of Cyclopan tosters, with rent rocks chamferye [channel-wise N.E.D.] sharded, Lewd dub a dub tabering with frapping rip rap of Aetna. * The book was printed abroad, and the publisher apologises for possible misprints due to compositors ignorant of our language. The second edition, printed in England, differs a good deal in "ortographie," and was not revised by the author. 19 Very different was William Webbe, author of A Discourse of Ejtglish Poetrie (1586), whose modest preface and epilogue go far to disarm criticism of the specimen verses appended to it, comprising versions of Virgil's First and Second Eclogues, a translation from Spenser, and one or two fragments. To the Discourse itself we shall return again. At present we need only note that Webbe, a Cambridge graduate, favoured quantitative verse, but perceived that there was no definite agreement as to the value of syllables, and appealed to the "famous and learned Laureate Masters of England " to lay down rules (preface). He sees that Latin rules may not always hold good in English (Arber's edition, pp. 68-70), but in his own experiments strives to follow them, even to elision of vowels (me out, thou art, ye O, yea /, etc., are thus compressed into one syllable). He is driven, how- ever, to make " most of our monosyllables " short (p. 70), for convenience in versifying; and he notes that the pronoun / is always short in such verses, while the second syllable of words like goodlie is long.* We must be prepared, therefore, for such scansions, for quantities like he, she, so, go, my, thy,pdssess (dupli- cated consonant), willow, etc. The result is chaotic ; we find " doo " short in one line, long in the next, and must guess at the length of every monosyllable. And what can excuse busy, stony, lizard, credit, ever, Amphion 1 For the rest, his verse is painfully prosaic. * Yet he is better than his principles in making "pretty" (pretie or prettie) a dibrach, even before mute and liquid ; see second quotation follow- ina:. 20 Cicalas become "grasshops mournfully squeaking." Neither his hexameters after Virgil — TitjTus, happily thou lyste tumbling under a beech-tree — nor his tradition of Spenser into "such homely Sapphic as I could " — O ye Nj'mphs most fine who resort to this brook, For to bathe there your pretie breasts at all times — ever reminds us we are reading poetry. Accent is seldom violated, an almost unique instance being second as an iamb. Spelling is equally seldom dis- torted on purpose ; ahlas yields one amusing case. With better rules of quantity, Webbe would doubtless have written correcter verses, but they could never have been more than a scholar's byplay. His brief excursion into "numbers" did nothing to help the cause he had at heart. A more persevering experimenter comes next. Abraham Fraunce was a cadet of the Penshurst School, and attached in some capacity to Mary, Countess of Pembroke — "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother" — to whom he dedicates his poems. While one piece appeared in his Lawyer's Logic (1588), and his Arcadian Rhetoric (same date) shows him a keen student of poetry in many languages, his verse is practically contained in two volumes, the Latnentatio7is of Aniintas (1587) and The Countess of Pembroke s Lvychurch (1591). The first is a translation from a Latin pastoral of Thos. Watson's, and Dr. Grosart accuses Fraunce of concealing this fact. But the authorship must have been well known, and Watson's annoyance was probably only at Fraunce's forwardness 21 OF THf UNIVERSITY OF in undertaking the work of translation. Ivychurch is a curious medley, containing more pastorals, a render- ing of Virgil's Second Eclogue, a translation from Heliodorus, poems on the Nativity, etc., of Christ, and versions of a few psalms. All (or next to all) of these are in hexameter verse. " Abram Fraunce was a fool with his hexameters," remarked Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden ; meaning, it would seem, not that the design was foolish, but that the execution was faulty. With this verdict one is forced to concur. There is little swing, little original music, in his lines. His first attempts read like school exercises, beginning thus — Silly shepherd Corydon lov'd hartyly fayre lad Alexis. With practice he improved, and a couplet from the dedication of Chrisfs Nativity may illustrate his later style — Mary the best Mother sends her best babe to a Mary, Lord to a ladies sight, and Christ to a Christian hearing. His pastorals sometimes run pleasantly, but there is nothing in them to create a taste or an audience. It was the misfortune of the " new verse " that no capable singer took it up ; this fact alone perhaps condemns its theory. Fraunce at any rate was not the man to force a hearing. Of rules he says nothing, probably accepting the Areopagite tradition. Its lax- ness appears in his quantities ; on the first page of the Lamentations occur -tng and -ing (both before vowels), desert, and the usual he, by, etc. On the whole, Fraunce does not seem to have contributed much to either the theory or the practice of " reformed " verse, 22 cultured mediocrity being the distinctive mark of his poems. Hexameters were now becoming not uncommon. Robert Greene, a young poet of eminence, introduced them into several of his works, particularly his Mourn- ing Garmefit (1590?), which among but a few verses contains two hexameter pieces. His friend Thos. Nash, championing his memory against Harvey, in- cluded the latter and his verse in common condern- nation. Though the hexameter, he says in Strange I^eu's (1592), be "a gentleman of an ancient house, yet this clime of ours he cannot thrive in ; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in." Yet both Greene and Nash could play this tune when they chose, and one suspects Nash of the authorship of a capital line which he professes to quote at second- that good Gabriel Harvey Known to the world for a fool, and clapt i' the Fleet for a rymer. The voluminous works of both poets may contain more such isolated lines ; Greene's occur mostly in Mamillia^ Part H. ; Farewell to Folly; and the Mourn- ing Garme7it* While spirited enough, they are lax in quantity {ebon^ every^ amorous, (9, the), and contribute no new element to the discussion. As for the belli- cose productions of the Harvey-Nash controversy,t * In the preface to Greene's Metiaj>ho7t (1589) Nash thus renders a well known line — He that appal'd [made pallid] with lust would sail in haste to Corinthum. t The following seems the order in which they appeared : — Harvey, Letters (1580) : Nash, Strange News (1592) : Harvey, Pierce's Superero- gation (1592) : Nash, first preface to Christ's Tears (1593), Harvey, New letter of Notable Contents (1593): Nash, new preface to Christ's Tears (1594), and Have withyoutoSaj^ron IValden {i sg6) : Harvey, Trimming of Thomas Nash (1597). Then the authorities interfered. See Isaac DTsraeli, Calamities of Authors ; Grosart, introductioti to complete Works of Nash. The later pamphlets are purely personal. 23 the reader who wades through these will find more to amuse than edify — certainly as regards questions of verse-structure — and will probably be most impressed with each champion's limitless command of abusive Billingsgate. The fashion spread, and some lesser lights come next under review. Richard Barnfield, in his Affec- tionate Shepherd (1594), has a piece called "Helen's Rape," of about seventy-five hexameter lines. Barn- field is a writer of some name, disputing with Shaks- peare himself the authorship of one famous sonnet. But his hexameters are simply detestable ! Reckless quantities {ddultrous, Paris, Jupiter, ^ Peloponessus, reconciled, On Ida immediately followed by That on Ida — all in the first few lines) combine wdth unblush- ing repetition to make such lines as Only a Lasse, so loved a Lasse, and (alas) such a loving Lasse, for a while (but a while) was none such a sweet bonny Love-Lasse As Helen, Maenelaus loving, lov'd, lovelie a love-lasse. {Bonny must be counted for righteousness, but Maene- laus as an anapaest is truly prodigious !) The worst Elizabethan conceits, coupled with atrocious versifi- cation, make Barnfield's single attempt almost a record among many unfortunate experiments. The author of Fans Pipe (1595) — not to b.e con- fused with Pan his Syrinx or Pipe, a prose work by William Warner (1584) — is known to us only as "F.S."* He claims indulgence as a "young be- ginner," and in truth needs it sorely. The poem con- sists of " Three Pastorall Eglogues," introduced by * I believe these initials denote Francis Sabie, of whom otherwise nothing is known. 24 snatches of ordinary verse, to which latter the name " Pan's Pipe " specially applies. The " Eglogues " are in pseudo-Classic verse, hexameters, elegiacs, and what seems meant for choriambics, of which last this is a sample — Winter | now wore away I cold with his hoa | ry frost. The quantities are astounding ; mine^ gf"^^^, stable^ frdmethj equal, vary, etc. One hexameter actually begins " Faustus, infaustus," as if he did not know even Latin rules. And here is an attempted pen- tameter — Forewarn that death is ready to strike daylie. A set of " Sapphics " is almost worse. " F.S.V un- fortunate attempt must rank little above Barnfield's from any impartial standpoint. Less open to censure, but not in any way distin- guished, is the work of John Dickenson. His Shep- Jierd's Complaifit {i^g6?), A risdas, and other pieces, are in prose, with verses interspersed, a few only in " stile Heroicall " or other Classic metre. For the most part these are fairly correct. Quantity is still vague (/, ^/le, lament, Cupid), and accent only casually contrasted, as in this couplet — What shal I doe ? shal I sue to the pow'r whom Cyprus adoreth, Love's love-worthy Mother, though not a friend to Cupid? He claims to have followed Sidney, Dyer and Watson, and speaks of his work as the " fruit of an unripe wit, done subsecivis horisj^ Slight as his attempts are, and without salient points, they show how widely this form of verse had found acceptance, and how easily 25 young writers could have adopted its principles had these been sound and self-consistent. Noting as we pass that Joseph Hall, afterwards a Bishop, in his Virgidemiarum (1597), Satire VI., echoes Nash's ridicule of "headstrong dactyls" and "drawling spondees," we come next to a singular anonymous book called The Preservation of King Henry VII. (1599). The unknown author of this book was an admirer of Fraunce and Stanihurst. In a long curious preface, where prose alternates with verse, while remarking that Fraunce "observed a better Prosodia," he keeps special praise for Stanihurst, who " being but an Irish man " had translated Virgil in his own measure. He would have him, indeed "refile" his lines; but If the poet Stanihurst yet live and feedeth on ay-er, I doe the man reverence, as a fine, as an exquisit Author. Treading in his steps, he aspires to write "five books, in rhythming* Hexameters," on his historical subject. Only the first, and part of the second, appear to have been finished; they are followed by a few short pieces, while the hexameter interpolations in the preface, the " praiers," dedications, and addresses of various kind, considerably increase his tale of verses. He gives his rules, too, evidently based on Stanihurst's, and sanctioning the same fatal laxity ; and alters spelling like him, as in this line — My life is but a blast, I feel death woful aproching. Ordinary verse he describes as "lines of prose, with a "* Rhytkmhig or rhyming is applied by this and other writers to lines ending in mere unaccented assonance (e.g. printer, alter ; obsetve, con- serve) as well as to lines which rhyme in our sense of the term. 26 rythme at the end ; " and to this " rythme-prose " or " prose-rythme " he much prefers his new rj-thmary verses Lately become metricall, which are right verses of Antike, in hero ical English Rythmical Hexameters. Though he admits that his " simpel " verses have their faults, he ends with lamqiie opus exegi — Here is a book that I made which pagan Jove in his anger, Nor Steele shall outweare, nor time authentical, ever. (Why is ever long?) The book is verse, not poetry, and the four lines to his printer illustrate the style of it so appropriately that I cannot resist quoting them. Print with a good letter, this booke, and carefuly Printer : Print each word legibill, not a word nor a sillabil alter : Keep points, and commas, per i odes, the parenthesis observe ; My credit and thy reporte to defend, both safely to conserve. It will be seen that he has some idea of opposing accent to quantity. Two more writers belong to the Elizabethan period. A collection of poems called the Poetical Rhapsody (1602) contains some quantitative verses, apparently by " J.W.," which is supposed to be a pseudonym of the chief editor, Francis Davidson. They are not remarkable, except as showing how widespread was the fashion ; and they are as loose as others in quantity, e.g. Or love the Muses, like wantons, oft to be changing? Quantity and accent seem rather prettily contrasted 27 in the following couplet, addressed to Sir Philip Sidney — ■ Cambridge, worthy Philip, by this verse builds thee an altar, 'Gainst time and tempest, strong to abide for ever. Some " phaleuciackes " are less satisfactory. The last of the Elizabethans to attempt quantitative measures seriously was Thomas Campion. Long lost sight of as a poet, he is now again recognised as one of the sweetest singers of his wonderful time. To find him " Classicising " is therefore of high m- terest. One single piece of " sapphics " in his First Book of Airs (1601) is, I think, his sole actual attempt to copy Classic metres. It is the last piece in that book, a sacred piece, beginning — Come, let us sound with melody the praises Of the king's King, th' omnipotent Cre a tor ; and is neither better nor worse than others that have been quoted. But in his Observations on the Art of English Poesie he goes minutely into the question, and arrives at independent results. He considers that the dactyl is "altogether against the nature of our language," and that "passing pitiful success" has therefore rewarded hexametrists. He thinks iamb and trochee alone suitable, and from these constructs eight different measures. Thus, for the sapphic measure he would substitute stanzas like this — Lo, they sound ; the knights, in order armed, Ent'ring threat the list, addressed to combat For their courtly loves ; he, he's the wonder Whom Eliza graceth. Another metre, which he calls the " English March," runs thus — Greatest in thy wars, Greater in thy peace, Dread Elizabeth ! 28 While instead of elegiacs he proposes a curious couplet alternating thus — Constant to none, but ever false to me, Traitor still to love, through thy faint desires. (The reader must scan these himself, if he thinks it necessary and possible). A more irregular piece of "trochaics" may be quoted for its intrinsic merit : Rose-cheek'd Laura, come; Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's Silent music, either other Sweetly gracing. This is different melody to that of the metre-mongers we have been considering. It is poetical verse, destitute of rhyme, and moving to strange measures, but still capable of being read as ordinary EngHsh verse. The secret of this success is of course his sedulous observance of accent. We read his lines by accent, not by quantity, the latter only contributing smoothness to their structure. How little rules of quantity have to do with the effect may be seen by comparing any of his poems written without obser- vance of these rules, e.g. — Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore, Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more. To most ears the difference between this and the preceding extracts — regarded as verse, not as poetry — lies simply in length of lines, and final rhyme ; other questions of structure practically do not exist. In his tenth chapter Campion goes minutely into rules of quantity. He professes to scan by sound — " we must esteem our syllables as we speak, not as we write " — * instancing words like perfect^ love-sick^ ra?i- some, which he says are pronounced perfei, love-sik, * My quotations are from Dr. Bullen's edition (1889) with its slightly modernised spelling. A new edition has just appeared. 29 raunsum. He recognises the character of doubled con- sonants, and makes such words "common, but more naturally short, because in their pronunciation we touch but one of those double letters, as atend^ apear^ opose^ So too when " silent and melting consonants " come together, as adresi, oprest, reiriv'd. All this is a great advance, and puts him far before any con- temporary. But he couples this with the extra- ordinary assertion that accent "is diligently to be observed, for chiefly by the accent in any language [sic] the true value bf any syllable is to be measured." Nevertheless he admits length by position, giving Trumpiiigtoti as an example. The inconsistency here shown runs through all his exposition. Thus, he makes the first syllables of glory and spirit equally long, because of their accentuation ; the first syllable of holy short, the first syllable of diligent long. This is surely to abandon phonetics altogether. Vowel before vowel is short, therefore dyings going, etc. ; yet the middle syllable of detiyitig is long, because "the accent alters it." Elision is recognised and allowed. It would be tedious to examine his rules in detail, or criticise such abnormal scansions as fur, we, no, do^ virtue, follow, having, glorying. Campion's recognition of the supreme importance of accent was undoubtedly creditable to him as an English poet, but it ruined his sense of quantity. He deserted his own principles, so well expressed in the twice repeated rejection of the doubled consonant fallacy. Had he followed phonetics faithfully, he would probably have given us verses in which accent and quantity invariably coin- 30 cided. To a great extent, this is the effect now produced by his verses, on ears not trained to observe minute differences of sound. But the careful critic must confess that even Campion, though he came nearer than any of his predecessors to writing success- ful " reformed " verse, failed in the task which he had set himself by not having a true and accurate sense of phonetic quantity. With Campion the movement practically ends. His verses were hardly distinguishable from ordinary Eng- lish metre except as being unrhymed. On this point he laid special stress:* on this his critics fastened and joined issue. Rhyme carried the day, and " numerous verse" suffered because it was rhymeless. During the whole remainder of the Seventeenth Century it became virtually extinct. Critical research has unearthed two or three minute exceptions to this absolute rule. A book called " Sorrow's Joy," printed at Cambridget in 1603, contains among other verses twelve hexameters by an unknown " L.G.," beginning thus — Turn to the Lord, proud Pope, by thy bulls nought setteth a good king. Curse though thou dost, yet shall we be blest, for God is on our side. Quantity is here loose as ever, and remains so in the instances which follow. Robert Chamberlain or Chamberlayne in a book called Noduriial Lucubrations (1638) has one epigram of ten hexameter lines on " Death's Impartiality," beginning — _ _ _'■' '_'■ _ _ __ _^w__ High-mindedlPyrrhus, brave Hector, stout Agamemnon. * Hostility to rhyme was common to all the Classic experimenters, and they often speak as if rhymeless verse of any pattern belonged to the school. Thus Surrey's blank verse is referred to by Webbe and others as pioneering the way for Sidney's hexameters. t At its birthplace this movement would naturally linger longer than else- where. 31 And a certain John HockenhuU contributed to the second edition of Barke^-^s Book of Angling (1657) other ten Unes, of which the first will be more than sufficient specimen — Trout, carp, perch, pike, roach, dace, eel, tench, bleke, gudgeon, barbell. A reference here and there may also, no doubt, be traced. John Taylor, the " water-poet," in The Beggar (162 1) ridiculed hexameter verse, comparing it to a certain creeping insect possessed of six feet. Ben Jonson's already noted advocacy found belated and fruitless utterance in 1640. But with Campion the quantitative crusade may be said to have died. At- tempts at revival during the Eighteenth and still more during the Nineteenth Century will be chronicled in due course. The original enterprise has now been traced to its finish, every writer known to me as taking part in it having been enumerated (I shall esteem it a favour to be apprised of any omission*). The singularity of this whole movement, its aloofness from the main current of our verse, seemed to justify treating it by itself. Now the time has come to leave it, and go back to trace the main course of our metrical criticism, beginning with the work of Gascoigne. George Gascoigne, our oldest metrical critic, was a poet of some note at the outset of the Elizabethan era. His tragedies in blank verse, his comedies and lyrics, gained him encomiums as "the very chief of * Prof. Arber (Wehbe, introduction, p. 9) credits Phaer with translating the Aeneid into hexameters. Perhaps the word "heroical," used by both Webbe and Puttenham in speaking of Phaer, caused the slip. Phaer and Twine's version is of course in fourteen-syllable verse, the metre most used of any according to Gascoigne. 32 our late rymers."* Nash, in his preface to Greene's Mermphon, says that Gascoigne " first beat the path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired to since his departure." Other critics echo this praise. The tract with which alone we have to do, " Certayne notes of instruction in English verse," appeared first as the introduction to his Posies (1575), and was afterwards reprinted in his collected works. It does not go very deep, nor is learning the writer's strong point. He speaks of " crambe bis positum," and is more familiar with Chaucer than Horace. But native wit, pithiness, and humour make his little book pleasant reading. He is full of quaint phrases like " a tale of a tub " or " this poetical license is a shrewd fellow," and introduces us to " riding rhyme " and " Poulters' Measure." He gives excellent advice on the choice of a subject, and on " holding just measure." As regards technique, he puts accent first and fore- most, identifying it with " emphasis or sound." And he asserts that it " maketh that syllable long where- upon it is placed" (§ 4). Beyond this there is little to notice. The only pauses he recognises are "Ceasures" (§ 13), and they are optional; the only foot acknowledged by him is the iamb. Yet he points out that older poets had more freedom, that "our father Chaucer" balanced dissyllables against trisyllables in lines which seemed equal in length ; and he " can lament " that this variety of rhythm has been lost (§ 4) On the whole, one cannot feel that * This phrase is quoted by Webbe (p. 33) as occurring in E.K.'s notes on Spencer's Ninth Eclogue, but I cannot find it in those notes. 33 Gascoigne had given much thought to his subject, and the identification of accent with quantity was disastrous indeed ; but the pleasant style, the un- pedantic and sensible tenor, of these hvely Notes secure our interest, and make us glad to hail in their writer the doyen of English prosodists. Sidney's well known Defence of Poesie (1581 ?) deals with the matter rather than the form of imaginative composition, prose as well as verse being expressly included, and makes no direct reference to his own metrical experiments. But toward the end (Arber, p. 70-71) he has a few weighty words on the differ- ence between ancient and modern verse, " number " and " accent " being made the basis of the latter, and rhyme its "chief life." The English language he pronounces capable of either, and notes that in our native verse both accent and caesura are observed " very precisely." No examples are given, and the treatise makes no other reference to prosody unless in the phrase " that numbrous kind of writing which is called verse " (p. 28). But Sidney, like Gascoigne, shows that from the very beginning accent was seen to be a distinctive feature of our verse, holding in it a place other than it held in ancient, or contemporary modern, literature. James VI. of Scotland, at the age of eighteen, in his Essays of a prentice (1584) published "ane short treatise " dealing with rules of verse. Like Gascoigne, he recognises but one legitimate type, the so-called "iambic." (Neither writer uses this word, however.) He divides syllables into shorty long^ indifferent^ with- D 34 out saying what makes them so ; " your ear must be the only judge and discerner" (c. 2). In common verse short and long syllables alternate, which causes "flowing" or rhythm; but in "tumbling verse," fit only for flyting^ two short alternate with one long (c. 3, end). " Proper Verse " has an even number of such alternations, but " broken verse, daily invented by divers poets" (c. 2), has uneven. From four to fourteen feet [syllables ?] make a usual line (ibid). Each line must have its section [caesura], at which point a long syllable is desirable (ibid). He enu- merates eight varieties of [iambic] metre (c. 8), adding one of "tumbling" verse, and curiously anticipates modern stylists by speaking of rhymes as "just colours" (c. I, first words). For a boy of eighteen, the small tract is able enough; but it makes singularly slight contribution to prosody. Like Gascoigne, its royal author evidently identifies accent with quantity. In the word Arabia^ he remarks, the second syllable "eats up" the last (c. i). This is vigorous description, but hardly scientific analysis. Time is never men- tioned by him ; Gascoigne had some notion of it when he spoke about Chaucer, but did not follow up the idea. Thus early was English prosody led to consider syllables apart from time, in imaginary and impossible isolation. King James's " flowing " is but the "syllabic foot " of a later generation of critics. Webbe's Discourse (1586) has been already men- tioned. It differs from its predecessors in containing (besides a preface) a regular historical introduction, of great interest when he comes to recent verse. He 35 knows " no memorable work written by any poet in our English speech, until twenty years past," Gower and Lydgate, and even Chaucer, being evidently thought antiquated. Recent writers are rapidly run through, notably high praise being given to the Shep- herd's Calendar, though Harvey is bracketed with Spencer for promise if not for performance. This occupies the first section of his Discourse, while the second and part of the third discuss the subject- matter of poetry. Finally (p. 56 seq. of Arber's edition) he takes up "the form and manner of our English verse." First he deals, in somewhat languid and half-hearted fashion, with that "rude kind" of measure which constitutes English verse properly so called; then (p. 67) he proceeds to expound his recipe for "reformed" metre, and continues on this to the end. Some ten or eleven pages, therefore, ex- haust what he says on English verse proper, and most of this naturally deals with length of lines and the like, the line of fourteen syllables being again spoken of as " the most accustomed of all other." He does, however, define metre (p. 57) as correspondence "in equal number of feet or syllables, or proportionable to the time whereby it is to be read or measured."* He speaks of "a natural force or quantity in each word" (p. 62 ; cf. p. 57 "the true quantity thereof"), but his illustration shows that "quantity" here means simply accentuation. He claims iambic character for our common metres — "the natural course of most * Cf (p. 37) " measurable speech, framed in words containing number or proportion of just syllables." 36 English verses seemeth to run upon the old Iambic stroke " (p. 62) — borrowing from contemporary gram- mar this unhappy and misleading comparison. He points out (p. 61) that much of our verse is written to music, and evidently thinks that such can hardly be said to have metre of its own. Apart from his *' Classical " heresy Webbe is scholarly and sensible as well as modest, and the " summer evenings " (see Preface) which gave birth to this book were worthily employed. But we cannot expect more than side- lights on English verse-structure from a critic whose pet wish was to " reform it altogether." These were all comparatively slight productions. The first extensive and systematic manual of prosody in our tongue was " The Art of English poesie," pub- lished anonymously in 1589, but known to be by George Puttenham, who wrote it for the delectation of Queen Elizabeth and her Court (see dedication to Lord Cecil, and several references in body of work). This full and erudite treatise is divided into three books, of which the first is general and historical, while the third — longer than the other two put to- gether — deals with figures of speech. Neither of these touches on verse-structure, though in Book I. chap. 2 he denies that our native verse consists of feet^ and in chap. 5 claims for rhyme greater antiquity than belonged to Classic measure. It is in Book II., whose subject is *' Proportion," that Puttenham pro- pounds his theories of metre, and very startling they are. Our ordinary verse he scans entirely by numeration of syllables (c. 3), and devotes many 37 chapters to varieties of line and stanza, even to those most artificial compositions which took a shape of lozenge or triangle or pillar. Neglecting these, we find that he compares English verse-structure with Classical, and gives a most erroneous account of the latter, confounding syllables with times (c, 3) ; that he measures time by "motion or stir" (ibid), the latter word being identified with accent (c. 7) ; that he fails to distinguish between metrical and rhetorical pauses (c. 5, " Of Cesure ") ; that he regards rhyme or "concord" as practically the sole distinctive mark of our verse (cc. 8-1 1); that like VVebbe he thinks Classical feet might be introduced into our verse (end of c. 12, and succeeding chapters), but that this is to be done by treating every accented syllable as necessarily long, while in other respects obeying Latin rules of position, even to regarding the doubled consonant as two consonants and eliding consonants as well as vowels before a following vowel (c. 13). Into this question of "Classicising" we need not enter again. Puttenham was undoubtedly right in perceiving the importance of accent. But his remarks reveal a misconception so fatal, that it fundamentally vitiates his whole analysis. He has no idea of quantity apart from accent. Why a vowel followed by two consonants should be accounted long he does not explain ; of inherent length in vowels he has never dreamed. He actually thinks (c. 13) that the first syllable of " Penelope " is long in Latin, the first of " cano " short, simply because the first poet chose to make it so. " It stands upon bare tradition " 38 (ibid), and is due merely to " pre-election " (ibid). A misconception so radical makes not only Latin verse unreal to him ; English verse also becomes mere rhymed prose. Of anything beyond syllable-counting and rhyme-relation he seems absolutely unconscious. Apart from this terrible want, his notions and methods are accurate, his points well and pleasantly put. He intersperses his teaching with plentiful anecdote, sometimes of that remarkably broad type which EHzabethan humour thought suitable for drawing rooms. To each figure of speech he gives an English name, so that irony becomes " the dry mock," hyper- bole ^^ih^ loud liar," and so on (III., c. i8). In all questions of history, or external form, Puttenham is valuable authority, and most of his long book is excellent reading. But as regards verse-structure he is entirely useless, whether in expounding Classic metre or analysing English.* By these books, of which Puttenham's is far the most important for our purpose, English prosody was fairly set agoing. It will be seen under what con- ditions it began. No reasoned attempt had been made to determine the basis of our metre. Obsessed by Classic analogies, and owing much to contemporary Italian art, our critics assumed likenesses which did not exist. Historically, modern English verse is a compromise between the freedom of Old English ^ Critics differ much about Puttenham. Mr. Stone is contemptuous, a feeling amusingly reflected by the compiler of his index (in the posthumous edition), who enters without qualification "Puttenham, his foolish book!" Mr. McKerrow, on the other hand, calls him " the one really clear-headed man among all the Elizabethan critics" (second paper, p. 9). It must be remembered that his inability to realise vowel quantity was apparently shared by all the " Classicisers " of his day. 39 ("Anglo-Saxon"), with its loose syllable-structure punctuated by alliteration, and that greater strictness of syllabic numeration which Romance languages favoured. The former element was wholly lost sight of ; the latter became an influence ever increasing in force. At the very time when Shakespeare and others were writing blank verse of great variety and mobility, our critics were preaching that such lines consisted of ten syllables and no more, with regular succession of accents. " Numbers " came to mean simply arith- metic applied to syllables ; " rhythmus " (from which word they believed rhyme to be derived) became merely alternation of stronger and weaker accents. This mechanical view of metre, founded on no suffi- cient induction of instances, spread and flourished without challenge. Either it reacted on our verse, or — more probably — the same influences which pro- duced the theory produced also the practice. French succeeded Italian as the literature most affecting ours, and brought in still greater rigidity of pattern. It is long indeed before we come to any expositor who conceives of verse as other than a definite arrange- ment of syllables in prescribed order, of prosody as more than the counting and classifying of those syllables. The four books named had no immediate successor. Criticism as well as creation rose to great height, and treatises on poetry were not wanting. But they deal with matter, not with form. Harrington's "Apologie of poetrie," prefixed to his translation of the Orlando Furioso (1591) refers approvingly to Puttenham, but 40 contributes nothing itself. The Palladis Tamia of Meres (1598) criticises authors merely. Daniel's well- known "Defence of rhyme" (1603?), in reply to Campion, has some general observations pertinent to our subject. " All verse is but a frame of words confined within certain measure." This frame is " Rithmus or Metrum, Number or Measure." " As Greek and Latin verse consists of the number and quantity of syllables, so doth the English verse of measure and accent." Measure he identifies with number, accent with harmony; yet harmony is number ! Though English verse " doth not strictly observe long and short syllables, yet it most religiously respects the accent," and possesses number, measure, and harmony in the best proportion of music* He scoffs at Campion's quantities, calling him the would- be " Rhadamanthus of verse," while his so-styled iambic line is " just the plain ancient verse consisting of ten syllables or five feet, which hath ever been used amongst us, time without mmd."t His vindi- dication of rhyme is excellent, and he has some good observations on the proper management of that auxiliary ; blank verse he thinks most suitable to tragedy. t In fact, so far as criticism goes he is thoroughly sound,- but as an exponent of verse- structure leaves much to be desired. No coherent or sufficient analysis can be extracted from the above- quoted random sentences, which give his only attempt at a definite statement of theory. * Grosart's edition of Daniel's Works, Vol. IV. pp. 38-39. t Ibid, pp. 57-58. X Ibid, p. 65. 41 During the remainder of the Seventeenth Century there is very Httle to note. Bolton in his Hypercritica (1610 seq.), and Peacham in his Compkat Gentleman (1622), have sections on poetry, but nothing about metre. Ben Jonson mentions it only in the one passage already cited. D'Avenant's preface to Gondi- bert (165 1), with the remarks by Hobbes that follow, have interest in themselves, but touch on our subject only when Hobbes speaks of " recompensing neglect of quantity with the diligence of rhyme " (p. 55). Cowley's voluminous prefaces ignore it entirely; Milton has only the ungrateful rejection of rhyme in his preface to Paradise Lost. Grammars of the day may refer to verse-structure, but the only instance I have come across is in Grammatica linguae Anglicanae (1653) by the well-known John WaUis, whose "cap. 15 de poesi" notices briefly the pseudo-Classical movement. Prosody seems to have been nearly a dead art through the greater part of this Century. As it nears its end, we find revived interest in poetics. The new school of elegance and "correctness" had come in. Denham and Waller had led the way; Dryden was now following gloriously in their wake. From 1675 onwards, in the critical writings of the^ day — in Dryden's own prefaces, in the treatises of Rymer and Dennis, in the versified " Essays " of Roscommon, Buckingham, Samuel Wesley — we find much analysis of poetry, little of verse. What of the j latter there is goes into no debateable questions, ' merely specifying with Dryden — pauses, cadence, and well-vowell'd words,* * Commendatory verses to Roscommon's ^jjrty^« translated verse (idZ^), Roscommon himself speaks of "accents regularly placed." or with Wesley bidding us mind our "pauses and accents."* The transformation of English poetry was accomplished. Elizabethan freedom was replaced by mechanical exactness; the syllable-counters had triumphed. While the metamorphosis proceeded, metrical criticism had remained all but silent. Now its lips were opened again, with every encouragement _tp be precise and formal and rigorous. Eighteenth-Century poetical criticism was rarely marked by diffidence. Dryden, and still more Pope, were proclaimed supreme masters; theirs was the Augustan age of English literature. Metrology shared this confidence. Bysshe's Art of English Poetry (1702) may be taken as the first modern book of its kind, the first to fornmlate the familiar doctrines which still form the text of our grammars. He has no doubt about the matter. English verse consists of syllables, arranged with undeviating regularity of accentuation ; a misplaced accent is like a false quantity in Greek or Latin (chap. I., section i). We have here the creed of Johnson and Lindley Murray in all its bareness. No qualification is made, no reference to the practice of Shakspeare or Milton. Csesural pause is laid down L.^as of equal necessity. Bysshe's exposition is short, most of the book being taken up with (i) a rhyming dictionary, (2) a collection of passages quoted from our poets. But his book is important, since it formed the basis of most which followed. Nearly every manual of prosody for the next hundred years builds more or less on Bysshe. His theory is demon- * ^« epistle to a frie7td cojtcerning poetry (1700). 43 strably false when tested even by the poetry he admired ; Pope would be condemned by it again and again. Instead of judging from practice, he sets up an ' imaginary and ridiculous ideal, calling on our poets to conform to it. They, fortunately, had too much good sense to do anything of the kind. Glover, author of Leonidas (1737), is the only writer of whom it is told that he aimed at perfect regularity of accent. Only in an artificial age could such a doctrine have been promulgated, but not even that artificial age was able to carry it into effect. From what immediate sources Bysshe derived his doctrine does not appear. Probably he repeated the current teaching of the schools. For it will be noticed that his theory carries out and makes more definite what the Elizabethan grammarians had as- serted. Number and stress of syllables were the points emphasised by them. While our poets were taking time-periods as their basis — manifestly in their lyric verse, and as I maintain not less really in their most regular measures — their critics paid attention only to syllables. They read the music by its notes^ ignoring rests. Hence the divorce between theory and practice, which has made our prosody so unreal and unsatisfactory. Its artificial character becomes more marked than ever during the period next to bej reviewed. Pope's Essay on Criticism (171 1), Addison's papers on Milton in the Spectator (1711), Swift's Proposal for correcting the Efiglish tongue (1711-12), rightly protest- ing against our love of unmusical contractions such 44 as foughfst for foughtest^ may be dismissed with bare mention. Pope has some general remarks towards the end, and one well known passage (337 seq.), beginning — But most by numbers judge a poet's song. He does not, however, really analyse verse-structure. Addison, even while praising Milton's verse, does not grapple with the question of his method. Nor, later, in Bentley's notes on Milton (1732), and Swift's fierce animadversions on the same, is this discussed. Even Milton's admirers, at this time, seem to claim merely that he was a great irregular genius, whose metrical eccentricities must be pardoned and tolerated. To Shakspeare the same measure is applied. That these old-fashioned writers had command of harmonies un- known to their successors it would have been thought altogether absurd to maintain. The small critics are more interesting than the great. Brightland's English Grammar (17 11), though a mere schoolbook, questions some of Bysshe's views — unless the criticism be a later addition to the issue (1759) which alone I have seen. Gildon, in his Complete Art of Poetry (17 18) and Laws oj poetry explaified afid illustrated (1721), does undoubtedly occupy new ground, and raises for the first time (to my knowledge) a question which was to employ our critics for many a day, viz., what was the exact nature of that "accent" which from the earliest age of our literature had been felt and acknowledged a leading feature of verse. This question, like so much else in our prosody, came from the Classics. A controversy 45 had raged among scholars — it is not wholly determined to this day — whether Greek should or should not be pronounced according to its accent-marks; whether, that is to say, stress should be laid on the syllables which bear an acute accent. Gildon states very clearly the view which is now considered orthodox. Greek accent, he says, was probably a mere rising and falling of the voice, without regard to quantity; a musical variation, not existing in Latin, and which had been lost by the time of Quintilian. Our accent, on the other hand, consists in the "force and em- phasis which we put upon one syllable more than another," and which give length to that syllable {Laws of poetry, pp. 315-16). The sting of this proposition lies in its last words. Does accent create quantity? This question was debated at inordinate length by learned and un- learned. A fashion began of printing Greek without accent-marks ; if they were not to be observed^ they should not be written. And no treatise on English verse was complete without a discussion of the nature of accent. Naturally, those who regarded accent as the sole regulative principle of metre were deeply concerned to establish its true function. Yet the main subject of their debate seems one incapable of argument. How can it possibly be maintained that stress lengthens the first syllable of words like rapid, level, limit, comic, bury — let us add, of words like batiner, letter, little, bonnet, butter 1 Take the word hegemony. We may accentuate either the second or the third syllable of this word, but do w^e in either 46 case necessarily prolong the vowel ? That there is a natural tendency to do so may be frankly conceded ; our habitual inclination in English is to make quantity follow accent. But to exalt this inclination into a universal law of speech is manifestly absurd ; and this these controversialists did without scruple. It was roundly asserted, and indeed usually admitted on both sides, that you could not accentuate the third syllable of such a Greek word as oulomeneen without lengthening the vowel. We have here to do only with the influence of this extraordinary delusion on English prosody. Confusion of accent with quantity has been seen to be characteristic of it from the first. This confusion now wears a scientific mask, and will be found to pervade and vitiate nearly all Eighteenth Century criticism. # * * * * % * * % If « 47 Here this survey must break off for the present, leaving untouched the mass of scholarly writing which, especially during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century, dealt with English verse and with metre generally. For the sake of completeness, however, I add a short notice of some few attempts at writing quantitative verse made subsequently to the date of those last cited. Dr. Watts, in the first book of his Poems chiefly of the lyric kind (1709) has one ode "attempted in English Sapphics." Its terrible subject ("The day of Judgment ") and unshrinking realism make the bulk of it unquotable ; but the first two stanzas are at once unobjectionable and a fair sample of his metre. When the fierce north wind with his airy forces Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury; And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes Rushing amain down ; How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble ! While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet, Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters Quick to devour them. It will be seen that false quantities here are plentiful as ever. Why is the made long in the second line ? — why the second syllable of foainitig short ? What can justify rushing, stand, like, devour 1 Dr. Watts does not state his rules, but they may be presumed to be the usual ones, and pronunciation cannot have changed materially since he wrote. It is clear that he had no ear for phonetic quantity. Accent is evidently meant to follow quantity, but usually rebels 48 in the fifth syllable of each longer line, where the difficulty of getting three consecutive strongly stressed syllables makes itself felt. The remaining stanzas are no better than their predecessors. Among other lapses I notice these^ archangel^ marbie, repose^ horror andj whtle^ living^ prey, how, gloomy, fancy all. A schoolboy showing up Latin verses with such blunders would be heavily sat upon ; what shall we say to an English poet who perpetrates such atrocities ? Hexameters, after more than a century's neglect, were revived by the anonymous author of a very curious book entitled An hitrodiidion of the Ancient Greek and Latin Measures into British Poetry (1737), with "a preface in vindication of the attempt." Translations of Virgil's First and Fourth Eclogues, and an original poem on Jacob and Rachel, are offered as specimens, all in hexameters. The preface is interesting. He thinks Sidney (to whom alone he refers) failed because our language was still too harsh, but that we can "make music of" his lines quite as easily as of Chaucer's. The Latin poets did not succeed all at once; Ennius is less musical than Virgil. Why should In Syrian Pastures, on a flow'ry Bank, be held more melodious than In Syri an Pastures, on a flowery bank by a Fountain? It is a question of taste, perhaps of fashion. "The ear after all must decide the dispute." Should his specimen verses be approved, he will leave " the eminent genius's of the Age " to perfect what he has begun. 49 A postscript gives his rules, which in many ways are excellent. Elision is wholly forbidden. A syllable remains short "where the same Consonant is immediately repeated, as in approaching;^^ and also "where one Consonant is followed by another very near akin to it," e.g. bp^ cg^ dt. Accent is not to be wrenched, as " the Greek poets, and for aught I know the Latin ones too," did at pleasure. Less commendable are his treatment of initial J^' as a vowel (seven years )^ and of sh as two consonants. But these are as nothing to his repetition of the old fatal blunder that English has no fixed vowels. He has made the quantities of syllables long or short as the verse required, "they having never yet been ascer- tained in our language," except where position con- stitutes length. "Diphthongs and triphthongs" are long when sounded as such, but when sounded as single vowels may be short. Of single vowels which are long or ?,'[\oxi per se he has no conception. Verse written on such principles could not prosper. Occasionally, when quantities happen to be approxi- mately correct, we get such not unpleasing lines as — While from tall Mountains shades hugei fall to the Valleys— (yet Valleys transgresses his own rule), or Thence from a steep precipice shall Wood-men sing to the Breezes. But more often the result is an abomination like — A De it y gave us this Leisure, O Meliboeus; For he shall a De it y by me be for ever accounted, which simply bristles with error. It were waste of time to quote further. I notice blossoming, yet redden; and hosts ' of words Ijke wei^^hty, divine, stUpified, E so capable^ unusual. Accents are frequently distorted, in spite of the preface. In fact, this later attempt repeats all the faults of its predecessors, and falls over the same obstacles. It seems to have attracted little or no attention, and remaifis a mere curiosity of literature. In the year 1763 Goldsmith, in a paper on "Versi- fication " now included in his Miscellaneous Essays^ defended pseudo-Classic measures, and asserted that Sidney's failure was due to ignorance on the part of his public. He also mentions that he has seen "several late specimens of English hexameters and sapphics " which he found " as melodious and agree- able to the ear as the works of Virgil and Anacreon, or Horace." I know of no published verses to which these remarks can apply, other than the two last quoted. But it is of course possible, and perhaps probable, that Cjoldsmith referred to verses that he had seen in manuscript. At any rate two books publislied in 1773 contained, one some remarkable hexameters, the other some hexameters and sapphics of a peculiar type ; and it seems not unlikely that Goldsmith may have had a private perusal of these long before they were published. The former of these books is Vocal Sounds, by " Edward Search " (a pseudonym for the well-known Abraham Tucker). This bright little volume contains excellent remarks on phonetics, and recognises — perhaps for the first time in this connection — inherent and unalterable length of vowels. He is therefore able to draw up proper tables of quantity, and his 51 hexameters are based on these, accent being deUber- ately set aside. It is true that his rules admit con- siderable licence. He thinks that " most of our little particles, the vowel immediately preceding an accent, the final >/," and a long vowel immediately followed by another vowel, may all be accounted " common " (p. 69 seq.) ; while "and" may be reckoned short, since the final d is hardly heard. He is also unsound about the double consonant, writing diffuses^ allotted^ and yet elsewhere wholly^ coiuitless abundance. Nor does this practice always square with his rules, else why liicid^ divine, cekstlaU Yet the blots of execution are few in lines like the following. A spirit internal penetrates through earth, sky, and ocean, Mounts to the moon's lucid orb, and stars in countless abundance ; One soul all matter invififorates, gives life to the system. O'er each particular member diffuses alertness. Thence men and all animals sprang forth, beasts and feathered fowl. And whatever monsters swarm through the watery kingdom. On general questions " Edward Search " is vigorous and sensible. The letter h he makes a consonant when sounded, a nullity when not. Accent is to be opposed to quantity, but not too violently ; such an ending as ^ _ . „ _ _ from gross matter exempt seems to himself too harsh, more suitable for prose. Taken as a whole, this book makes an immense advance on any thing earlier, and if Goldsmith knew Tucker he may well have been struck by his examples. Had the Elizabethans worked on principles like these, their attempt might possibly have been longer lived. r 52 The other volume is interesting from its limitations. "The Elements of Speech," by John Herries, frankly abandons quantity. Classic quantity the author does not profess to understand ; the " harmony of Greek and Latin verse " seems to him due entirely to their accents (p. 184 seq.). Naturally, therefore, he sees no reason why these should not be reproduced in English. Numbering the accents in two familiar lines thus — 12 3 456 7 Te, dulcis conjux, te solo in litore secuin I .-2 3 4 5 6 Te, veinente die, te decedente canebat — he suggests the following as an equivalent — 123 45 6 7 Thee, lovely partner, thee only he constantly chanted, I 234 5 6 Thee, at the dawn of morning, thee thro' the shades of the evening. Similarly, his notion of Sapphic structure is this — ^ . ^ . 3 ^ » Place me in regions of eternal wmter 12 34 Where not a blossom to the breeze can open, 1.2 3 4 But dark'nmg tempests closing all around me, I 2 Chill the creation. His English syllables are meant to correspond with the Latin in number and (as he read them) in accentuation of syllables ; and this seems to him sufficient. It is needless to dwell on the futility of this view Tbut it is important to note that here for the first time we have accent deliberately proposed as a substitute for quantity in what professed to be an imitation of Classic structure^ Here, therefore, is struck the first preluding note of what was soon to sound forth in a noisy (some would say, barbaric) orchestra. 53 Readers will know to what this last remark refers. Klopstock and Voss in Germany, followed by Goethe and Schiller and a host of imitators, invented " hexa- meters" which discarded quantity, and were framed upon a supposed accentual basis. Taylor of Norwich (see Section II., 1796) introduced these to English readers, Coleridge and Southey took up the idea, and many subsequent writers have applied it to that and other forms of Classic measure. Into these multi- tudinous developments we need not enter. I have elsewhere contended that they have no claim to be accounted simulacra of Classic verse, and owe what success they obtain to their accidentally coinciding with native verse-forms. Thus the "hexameter" of Southey, Longfellow, Clough, Kingsley and others is in no sense an equivalent of the ancient hexameter ; but it is a perfectly legitimate form of ordinary English verse, and should be written as such. Passing by all lines composed on this model, it remains only to notice that — partly, perhaps, as a protest against the shapeless and lumbering awkwardness of the " accentual hexameter " as too commonly written — a reaction in favour of quantitative verse was essayed by a few writers, including Clough ("essays in Classical Metres"), James Spedding, Tennyson ("experiments in quantity"), Charles Bagot Cayley, Prof. Robinson Ellis, William Johnson Stone, and (within the last few months) Mr. Robert Bridges. These again divide into two classes. Clough and Spedding aimed at contrasting accent with quantity, Cayley followed suit, Mr. Stone and Mr. Bridges insist on this as essential. 54 Tennyson, on the other hand, except in his satirical " hexameters," sought to unite accent and quantity on the same syllable, and was followed in this surpassingly difficult task by Prof. Ellis with his hypersubtle renderings from Catullus. To myself either school seems doomed to failure as attempting the impossible; nor can I esteem success desirable. Be this how it may, previous pages are believed to mention all writers of note who have produced or criticised quan- titative verse in English. Accentual verse-writers, it need hardly be said, transcend enumeration ; a few chief ones are cited in the Section which follows. Of real attempts to imitate Classic metre in our tongue I trust that the foregoing will be found an exhaustive list. Section IL— BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BOOKS, MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC., BY ENGLISH- SPEAKING AUTHORS EXPLAINING OR ILLUSTRATING ENGLISH VERSE-STRUCTURE. [Note. — It will be seen that no works by foreign critics are included. Books may be presumed octavo, and published in London, unless otherwise stated. The arrangement is by date of writings, each author being represented by his first or chief work on the subject, and reference made in that place to his other works. For alphabetical list ol authors, see Index. A few books (as duly noted) I have not had time to consult. The notes on all others were made after personal examination at various times. Notice of inip07ta7it omissions or errors will oblige. Completeness is unattainable, and would probably be useless. But it seemed better to err on the side of in- clusion rather than of exclusion.] 1545. Ascham (Rogep). Toxophilus, first edition. Well-known book (on archery), often reprinted ; Arber's English Reprints, 1868.* Contains incidental trans- lations in quantitative verse. * T his admirable series, price one shilling per volume, is now to be had in a new issue (A. Constable & Co., publishens). My references are to the original volumes, but I believe the paging of the new is uniform with the old, 56 By same author : — The Scholetnaster (1563-8?), first edition 1570 (posthumous). Also often reprinted; Arber, 1870. Makes interesting refeience to beginnings of movement for " reforming " EngHsh verse. 1575. Gascoigne (George). Certayne notes of insiruction in English verse. Originally prefixed to his Posies (1575). Re- printed in his Works (4to, 1587) ; by Hasle- wood in Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy, Vol. II. (4to, 181 5); Arber, English Reprints (1868).* Short, pithy, pointed. The first separate treatise on modern English verse. Addressed to an Italian friend. 1577. Blenerhasset (Thomas). In Mirror for Magistrates, Part II., "in- duction " following poem called " The Com- plaint of Cadwallader," our ordinary accentual verse is styled iambic. [1579. Gosson [Ste\y\\ex\)^s School of Abuse ^nd Apologie for same (Arber, 1868) are mentioned here only because they provoked the treatise which follows.] 1580 (?). Sidney (Sir Philip). Apologie for poetrie (in later editions called Defence of Poesie). First published in 1595 * This volume contains other works of his, and is titled The Steele Gins, (tCf by George Gascoigne. 57 (posthumous); often reprinted, e.g. Arber 1868, and Grosart (with Sidney's Poems) 1877. A few stray references to verse-structure. By same author : — Arcadia^ written about same time^ first pub- lished in 1590 (posthumous, imperfect; first complete edition, 1598). Often reprinted but not in any cheap form. Contains several pieces of quantitative verse. 1580. Harvey (Gabriel) & Spenser (Edmund). Three proper^ wiiiie. familiar letters^ lately passed between tivo Universitie men. Two other very co7nmendable letters., of the same men^s writing [these are of earlier date than the first three]. Both published in 1580 (separately). Reprmted by Haslewood, ut ante (1815); no cheap edition. This very interesting correspondence gives us the views of " Signior Immerito " [Spenser, cf prefatory verses to Shepherd's Calendar^ 1579] and Harvey about English accent and quantity. It seems to have been published by Harvey without Spenser's knowledge or per- mission, and the metrical experiments con- tained in it were never acknowledged or reprinted by Spenser. His two letters are printed in the Globe Spenser (Appendix, pp. 706-9), but only a small extract from Harvey's. The latter's very long letter about an earth- quake (No. 2 of the first three) may be F 58 skipped ; his others are worth reading. His later Four Letters (1592) and his Letter-book (first pubHshed by Camden Society, 4to, 1884; afterwards by Grosart in his Works of Harvey^ 3 vols. Huth Library series, 4to, 1884-5) con- tain several references to verse-structure and quantity, and must be studied by those desiring full acquaintance with the Elizabethan attempt at " reformed verse." 1582. Stanihurst or Stanyhurst (Richard). The first Joure bookes oj Virgil his Aeneis trafislated intoo English verse by Richard Stanyhursty with oother Poetical Divises [devices] theretoo annexed. Lmprinted at Leiden in Holland ... 15S2. Another issue by Bynneman, London, 1583, differs somewhat in spelling. Reprint (of second edition) by James Maid- ment, Edinburgh, 4to, 1836; ditto (of first edition) in Arber's English Scholar's Library, 4to, 1880. The introduction to this extraordinary book deals with questions of quantity. 1583. Greene (Robert). Mamilha, Part IL (first published, 1593), contains hexameter lines. Reprint in Vol. IL of Greene's Works edited by Grosart (15 vols. 4to, "Huth Library," 1881-6). See pp. 219-20. 59 By same author : — Mtnaphon (1589?), with interesting preface by Nash in which he makes particular fun of Stanihurst ; Grosart, Vol. VI. Moicrning Garment (1590) first known edition, 1616; Grosart, Vol. IX. Contains hexameter lines " Alexis in laudem Rosamundae " (pp. 151-3), and " Rosamundae in dolorem amissi Alexis " (pp. 159-62). Fareivell to Folly (1591?), with introduction; Grosart, Vol. IX. Some hexameter lines, translated from Guazzo (pp. 293-4). 1585. James VI. of Scotland. Essays of a Prentice^ in the divine art of poesie (4to, Edinburgh, 1585), contains "Ane short treatise, conteining some rewlis and cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie." The Rules reprinted by Haslewood, nt a?ite (1815). The whole book by Gillies (Edin- burgh, 1814) and Arber (1869). Slight, narrow, some interesting quotations. Scots orthography. 1586. Webbe (William). A Discourse of English Foetrie, 4to. Re- prints by Haslewood, ut ante; Arber, 1870. Very rare till last Century. Little known of author. Written when he was private tutor in Essex. 6o 1587. Fraunce (Abraham). The Laineiitatio7is of Anwitas for the death of Phillisparaphrastically translated out of Latine into English hexameters. Small 4to, rare. Copy in Bodleian Library ; said to have been reprinted in 1588, 1589, 1596; copy of last in British Museum ; no modern reprint. By same author : — The Countess of Pembroke's Ivy church, 1591, which contains nearly all Fraunce's verse, in- cluding Phillis and Amintas, Corydon and Alexis, a translation from Heliodorus, Amintas Dale, Emanuel, and some versions of Psalms. Also The Laiuier's Logtke, 4to, 1588, and The Arcadian Rhetorike, 4to, do. ? Both very rare, latter in Bodleian Library, no copy in British Museum. The former brings in his own Corydon and Alexis ; the latter quotes largely from Sidney's quantitative verse, and has a section dealing with feet, which is unfortunately imperfect in this copy. 1589. Puttenham (Geopge). The Art oj English Poesie, 4to. Published anonymously, and never acknowledged, but ascribed to the above, an officer of Queen Elizabeth's Court. Reprints by Haslewood, ut ante (forms Vol. L of the Essays); Arber, 1869. The first considerable treatise on English metric. 6r 1591. Harrington or Harington (Sir John)— "An Apologie of Poetrie," prefixed to his translation of Or/a?ido Furioso. Reprint in Haslewood, Vol. II. Nothing of importance, but refers to Putten- ham's book as " by an unknown godfather." 1592. Nash (Thomas). Stra?ige ne^vs of the iniercepiing certain letters, etc. His first attack on Harvey. See ante, p. 22. footnote. Reprint in Vol. II. of Works, ed. Grosart (6 vols. 4to, "Huth Library," 1883-5) Cf. especially pp. 206 and 237. By same author : — The Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1592. Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596. (Grosart, Vols. II. and III. ; some stray hits only.) Cf. preface to Greene's Menaphon, ante. 1594. Barnfield (Richard). " Hellen's Rape : or, A light Lanthorne for light Ladies. Written in English Hexameters." Forms part of The Affectionate Shepheard, etc. No name on titlepage, but acknowledged by him later. " Hellen's Rape " is the only quantitative piece, 75 lines, very poor. Reprint in No. 14 of The English Scholar s Library, by Arber (4to, 1883). 62 1595- Sabie (Francis). Paii^s Pipe, Three Pastorall Eglogues in Eng- lish Hexameter, with other poetical verses . . etc. Small 4to, rare. Anonymous, but preface signed F.S. Some elegiacs and other verses come in. All very poor. 1596? Dickenson (John). Ttie Shephearde's Complaint. A passionate Eclogue, ivritten in English Hexameters. Other pieces follow. Reprint in Grosart's " Occasional issues of unique or very rare books " (17 vols.), Vol VI., 1878. Despite title, the " Eclogue " and other pieces are in prose, with occasional verses interposed, some only of which are quantitative. Cf. pp. 10-13, 44, 57» 127. 1597. Hall (Joseph), afterwards Bishop. Virgidemiarum [satires in verse], first series 1597, second 1598. Often reprinted. See Satires IV. and VI., the second referring to Stanihurst with his "manhood and garboiles" [sic]. 1598. Meres (Francis;. Palladis Tamia . . . being the second part of Wits' Commonwealth, small thick 8vo, rare. Compares English with Greek, Latin, and Italian poets (pp. 276-87), but nothing on verse-structure. 63 1599- Anonymous. The First Book of the Preservation of King Heftry the VII. ... compiled in English rythmicall hexameters. Oblong 8vo ; rare. "Epistle dedicatorie" fills 15 pages* (lettered, not numbered), other introductory matter 9, the "First Book" 40 ; Second Book unfinished. All very quaint, in conception and execution. 1602. Davidson (Fpancis). Edited Poetical Rhapsody . . . etc. En- larged in later editions. Reprinted by Nicolas, 2 vols., Pickering, 1826. Poems by many authors. In Vol. II. some quantitative pieces, apparently by "A.W.", an extensive contributor (—Davidson himself?). Nowise remarkable. 1602. Campion (Thomas). Observations in the Art of E?iqlish Poesie. Reprints by Haslewood, ut ante; Bullen, Works of Campion, Chisvvick Press, 1889. A new edition of latter, 1903. By far the ablest of Elizabethan treatises on quantitative verse. 1603. " L.G." In Sorrozue's Joy, Cambridge ; reprint in Progresses of King James, by John Nichols, F.S.A., 4 vols., 4to, 1828. Twelve hexameter lines, Vol. I., p. 13. 64 i6o3? Daniel (Samuel). A Defence of Rhyme^ first known edition, 1607. Reprints in Works, 4to, 1623; 2 vols. j2mo, 1718; by Grosart, 5 vols. (Huth Library) 18,85 ^"^ 1896. The Defence also in Hasle- wood, ut ante. In Grosart, Vol. V. Excellent on verse generally, very little on technical questions. 1610-17. Bolton (Edmund). Hypercriticn. Reprint by Hall (Oxford) 1722. "Address IV., Section 3" deals with verse, but not on its technical side. 1619. Drayton (Michael). Epistle of Poets and Poetry. [Not seen]. 1621. Taylor (John), "Water-poet." The Beggar, a poem. " A louse hath six feet, from whose creeping sprawl 'd The first Hexameters that ever crawl'd." 1622. Peacham (Henry). The Compleat Geiitleman . . . etc., 4to. Chap. X. (pp. 78-96) is "Of Poetrie," but nothinsj notable except list of poets at end. 1638. Chamberlain (Robert). Nocturnall Lucubrations, . . . etc., 16 mo. pp. 1 24 ; rare. One "epigramme" of ten hexameter lines on " Death's Impartiality." 6s 1640. Jonson (Ben), posthumous. An English Grammar, made by Ben Johnson (sic). Copy in British Museum, thin folio, no place or publisher named ; has formed part of larger volume, and begins p. 34. Remarkable passage, quoted ante, p. 5. 1651. D'Avenant (William), Sir; and Hobbes (Thomas). See preface to Gondihert, an heroic poem, by former. Both writers, however, deal almost entirely with the subject-matter of poetry, not with its form. 1653. Wall is (John), Professor at Oxford. Gra77imatica lingiuie Afiglicanae, first edition. Best edition is the 6th, 1765. Introductory section de sonts ; c. 5 de posie, very short, deals with pseudo-Classic metre, and gives some versions of his own, which regard accent more than quantity. 1657. Poole (Joshua). England's Pariiassiis ; a sort of "gradus" for English verse. Short preface, distinguish- ing " measure, proportion, and rhyme " as the ingredients of our metre, but last alone to be dealt with. 1657. Hockenhull (John). In Barker's Delight, or the Art of Angling . . the second edition much enlarged, are some com- mendatory verses, including ten very rude 66 hexameter lines by the above. (Not in first edition, 8vo, 1651, nor in another impression, 4to, 1653. Reprint i2mo, 1820, 1668. Milton (John). Preface to Paradise Lost. ? Cowley (Abraham). Various notes to poems, nothing of import- ance on our subject. ? Dpyden (John). Prefaces to poems, nothing special about verse-structure, speaks of "numbers" without explaining. 1678? Rymer (Thomas). The Tragedies of the last Age considered . . etc. Second enlarged edition, 1692-3, has in Part II. some general remarks on verse, nothing practical. 1684. Roscommon (Wentworth Dillon), Earl of. An essay on translated verse, 4to tract (2nd edition, 1685, i" British Museum). In verse. Accent made fundamental in text. Commendatory lines by Dryden speak of "pauses, cadence, and well-vowell'd words." 1691. Buckingham (Duke of). An essay on poetry : by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Mulgrave. A second edition, same year. 67 Also an edition in 1697, by the Marquis oj Normanby. Another metrical piece, famous in its day, nothing of consequence. 1693. Dennis (John). The Impartial Critic . . . etc. 4to. A reply to Rymer's book, in dialogue form, upholding Shakespeare as against Waller and later poets, but considers that Dryden's "equal numbers in heroic verse " can never be surpassed till the language alters. By same Author : — The Advancement and Reforjnation of Modern Poetry. A Critical Discourse. 1701. Deals with matter, not form. 1700. Wesley (Samuel). An epistle to a friend concerning poetry. By the father of John and Charles Wesley. Speaks of ''pauses and accents." Not im- portant, 1702. Bysshe (Edward). The Art of English Poetry. In three parts : I. "Rules for making "verses." II. A Rhym- ing Dictionary (meagre). III. A collection of similes, etc., separately reprinted as English Parfiassus^ 2 vols., 17 14 (cf. ante, 1657). This last fills more than half the book. Many sub- sequent editions of whole book. 68 Part I. is short, very mechanical, exact number of syllables, absolute regularity of accentuation, caesural pause indispensable. Accent defined as elevation of voice. A wrong accent is like a false quantity in Latin verse. 1 710. Watts (Isaac). Poems chiefly of tht lyric kind, hi Three Books. Preface dated 1709. One quantitative piece, " The day of Judg- ment. An Ode. Attempted in English Sapphic." Occurs about middle of First Book. 17 10 Dyche (Thomas). A Guide to the Efiglish to?igue, i?i tivo parts. Often reprinted, e.g. i2mo, 1775, and by Dean and Munday, i2mo, 1830. [Not seen.] 171 1. Bpightland (John). Efiglish Grammar. Enlarged editions later, e.g. i2mo, 1759. Pp. 156-193 on "The Art of Poetry." Calls syllables long and short, says we make little use of accent, and that "Bishe" and others confuse accent with quantity. 1711. Addison (Joseph). Papers on Milton in Spectator (collected, 1719; edited by Dodd, 1762.) Very little indeed about metre. Cf. No. 267, beginning; No. 285, on language. 69 I7TI. Pope (Alexander). Essay on Criticism (in verse). One famous passage, beginning — But most by numbers judge a poet's song. 1718. Gildon (Charles). The Complete Art of Poetry. In Six Farts . . . . 2 vols., i2mo. Dedication to King George: preface : introduction addressed to Crites (i.e. Dennis). Text in five dialogues, pp. 1-303, followed by extracts from Shakespeare. Vol. II. consists entirely of extracts from poets. Vol. I., pp. 293-303, " Of English Numbers." He represents feet by musical notes, and differs entirely from Bysshe. Very good, but too short. "Our business is the Art of Poetry, not of versifying" (p. 302). By same author : — The Laws of Poetry .... Explained and Illustrated. 8vo, 1721. An examination of the " Essays" by Buckingham and Roscommon (see ante), and one by Lord Lansdowne (quoted in full). Some useful remarks, but for the most part refers to previous volume. 1721. Malcolm (Alexander). A Treatise of Musick, Speculative, Practical, and Historical. Edinburgh. Text, pp. 1-608. Often quoted, but I find no reference to verse-structure. 70 1732. Bentley (Richard). Edition of Milton, with notes correcting metre as well as sense ! 1732. Swift (Jonathan). Milton restored and Bentley deposed. Castigates the great critic's presumption. 1737. Anonymous. An Introduction oj the Ancient Greek and Latift Measures into British Poetry . . . Fully described in Section I. Preface, pp. I.-XVII. ; text 18-59, His rules of quantity in Preface, pp. XIII.-XVII. 1738. Pemberton (H.) Observations on Poetry^ especially the Epic. Anonymous on title page, but preface signed (a common habit at this time). The first of several learned books, treating of accent and quantity, and incidentally of English verse. Begun as a criticism of Glover's Leonidas (1737). Section VI. is on Versifi- cation, ancient and modern. Blames Milton for mixing iambic and trochaic. Thinks our blank verse should be absolutely regular in accentuation, variety being secured otherwise. Caesura distinguishes verse from music. 1744. Manwaring (or Mainwaring.^), Edward. Of Hannofiy and A'umbers^ in Latui and English Prose^ and in English Poetry. 71 Chap. V. is on English verse, which he defines elaborately in musical terms, "Concords and Tierces " ; our heroic line is a " Tierce Minor," or half-tone and whole. The dis- cussion does not seem practical. Earlier books by same author, e.g. Stichology (4to, London, 1737), An Account of Classic Authors (8vo, London, 1737) refer very slightly to English verse. 1744. Harris (James). Three Treatises. The first is on Art (pp. 1-45), the second en Music, Painting, and Poetry (pp. 49-103), the third on Happiness (107-247). A few remarks in second treatise. Milton's verse consists of "ten semipeds," and may carry a pause on any of these (cf. p. 92, note) An early work by the author of Hermes. See his IVorks, edited by his son, the Earl of Malmesbury, 2 vols., 4to, London, 1801, where they are reprinted apparently without alteration. 1745. Say (Samuel). T'oe7ns, etc. (posthumous), 4to. Two essays on " numbers," the second having special reference to Paradise Lost. Uses musical notes occasion- ally. Is great for variety, but has no notion of uniform basis. Dedicated to " Mr. Richardson." Say was a fellow-student with Watts. He made up (from Chaucer and Spenser) two lines quoted by nearly every subsequent writer of the Century — And many an amorous, many a humourous lay, Which many a bard had chanted many a day. 72 1747- Johnson (Samuel). Dictionary^ first volume of. Cf. 6th edition, 2 vols., 8vo, 1778, "abridged," but also " corrected by the author " ; or later editions. Grammar at beginning ; 4th Section deals with Prosody and laws of metre. Identifies accent and quantity. The more uniform the better ; variations " belong to the art of poetry, not to the rules of grammar." Iambic and trochaic feet almost exclusively; anapaests men- tioned by way of afterthought, " quick lively measure." Compare Ramblers Nos. 86, 88, 90, 94, 139, 140, dealing with Milton's verse; also Li/e of Milton (in Lives of the Poets), near end, where he says blank verse too like prose. 1749. Mason (John). Two Essays on the Poiver of Numbers. Published anonymously. Reprinted, with another paper, revised and altered, in 1761. A modest but independent study, comparing English with Classic verse, assumes "times" as units, quotes music much, says iambic measure is triple time, recognises dropped syllables in anapaestic verse. Discursive, but interesting; 1760? Gray (Thomas). Observations oil Eiiglish J//es of Elocution, and Key to Proper Names, for further remarks on these. Walker has natural shrewdness, but no learn- mg, and is too dogmatic. He claims to have discovered the principle of inflection, and the second form of circumflex accent ; but both had been noticed before. On Classic speech he is useless. 8i 1795. Murray (Lindley). English Grammar. Often reprinted ; good edition, 2 vols., York, 1808. Part IV. on Prosody, nothing original, tries to unite Johnson and Sheridan. Confounds accent, quantity, emphasis. Sees no difference between English and Latin feet, when accent is on vowels. His scansions often appalling. 1796. Fogg (Peter Walkden). Dissertations^ Grammatical and Philological (Stockport). Forming part of his Ele?nenta Anglicana. Dissertation XI. on Prosody, XII. on Versi- fication. Sensible, not original, quotes Steele and Sheridan mainly. 1796. Horsley (Samuel), Bishop. On the prosodies of the Greek and Latin languages. Anonymous. Another book on the interminable accent- quantity question. Some remarks on English verse. "We have no other rule of quantity, but to lengthen the accented syllable " (p. 4). Opposes Primatt's view. 1796. Taylor (William), of Norwich. Monthly Magazi?ie, Vol. I. No. for June, contains Taylor's " transversion " from Mac- pherson's Ossian, in accentual hexameters, imitating Germans, who " scan by emphasis, not by position." Short introduction ; men- tions Klopstock, Bodmer, Goethe, Stolberg, Voss, Denis. 82 This marks the real beginning of such verses in English Literature, though Webb, Herries, and Beattie had had the idea. Cf. Historic Survey of German Poetry^ 4 vols., 1828, by Taylor, when old. Much fuller; many examples. Also Memoir^ by J. W. Robberds, 2 vols., 1843, for corres- pondence with Southey, in 1798-1800. Quotes Voss, Liiise^ to him (August, '98). Southey says, " Coleridge and I mean to march an army of hexameters into the country" (Sept. '99), and " A little practice has enabled me to hexametrize with facility" (Oct. '99). Taylor criticises sample of projected poem on " Mo- hammed," by Southey and Coleridge (Dec, '99 ; Feb., 1800). 1797. Warner (John), afterwards D.D. Metrotiariston : or a 7iew pleasure recom- me?ided, in a Dissertation upon a part of Greek and Latin prosody. Small 4to. This amusingly written book protests against confounding accent with quantity, but bristles with fallacies in expounding the nature of these. English verse often referred to; some enter- taining notes and parodies. T797. Southey (Robert). Poems^ published by Cottle (Bristol). A second vol. by Biggs & Cottle (Bristol), 1799. Often reprinted. The Minor Poems of Robert Southey^ 3 vols. (Longmans), 18 15, contain many early pieces not in first edition. 83 The volume of 1797 contains the accentual " Sapphics " and " Dactylics " satirised by the Anti-jacobin. There are also four sapphic stanzas in The Curse of Kehaj?ia (1810, 4to), beginning of Section X. By same author : — A vision of /udgme?it, 4to, 1821. In accentual hexameters, with interesting preface. This poem practically introduced its metre to English readers, and was thus "epoch- making" in its way, quite apart from its con- tents, which provoked Byron's Satire. 1797. Canning (George), and others. The Anti-Jacobin (periodical, ran from 20th November, '97 to 9th July, '98). Parodies of Southey in Nos. i, 2, 5, 6, and- references in other numbers. 1798-9. Coleridge (Samuel Taylor). "Hymn to the Earth," "Mahomet," and Lmes " written during a temporary blindness " (all in hexameter), " CatuUian Hendecasyllables " (translated from German), etc., appeared in Sibylline Leaves. Coleridge seems to have followed rather than led Southey in experimenting with these metres. His lines are rough but more free than Southey's. Cf. " Metrical feet : lesson for a boy" (dated 1807). 84 The obiter dicta of Coleridge on metre in general are worth gathering, e.g. in Biographia Literaria, chap. XVI 1 1., and several passages in his Table-talk (posthumous). But his pre- face to Christabel (1815), claiming that its lines should be scanned by accents rather than syllables, is historically his most important metrical criticism. The first part of Christabel was written in 1796, the second in 1800; both were freely shown and read in M.S., and their metrical basis doubtless explained. From these Scott, Byron, and others of the " new poets " admittedly took their ideas of metre. Cf. below, Scott (1805). 1800. Wordsworth (Wjlliam). Preface to Lyrical Ballads^ 2nd edition. Important manifesto, dealing with matter more than form, but containing some profound remarks on the meaning and symbolic character of metre. Much altered in later editions, but reprinted in Macmillan's one-volume edition of his Works (1888), which gives the poems in chronological order. 1805. Scott (Walter). Lay of the Last Mi?istrel, 4to, Edinburgh. The first long poem written on Coleridge's principle of metre, thus popularised by Scott ten years before Christabel was published. 85 1805. Herbert (William). Edinburgh Reviezv for July (Vol. VI. p. 357), criticising Mitford's Inquiry. Reprint, with short note added at end, in Works of the late Hon. and Very Rev. William Herbert., Dean of Manchester, 3 vols., 1842 (Vol. II., pp. 31-78). Caustic criticism of Mitford. Deals chiefly with accentual element in Classic verse, but some acute remarks on English metre; recognises time, while laying down unnecessary and sometimes erroneous rules about syllables. 1805. Knight (Richard Payne). An analytical inquiry into the principles of taste. Many allusions to verse, scoffs at the " rugged anomalies " of Milton, thinks Pope "the best versifier that ever lived" (pp. 112-13). Thin, shallow, sceptical. 1806. Odell (J.), M.A., [Cambridge]. An Essay on the Elements, Accents, and Prosody, of the English Language. Written some years earlier, preface dated Nov. 1802. Based on Steele, as stated in preface, but has much that is original, and sometimes differs. Says Walker confounded simple with complex accents. " English Prosody" section, pp. 124-190: our metrical system "never yet fully investigated." Con- sists of "rhythmical cadences in regular suc- cession " (p. 152). Pseudo-Classic metres, 86 p. 175 seq. Does not admit length by position. Some experiments of his own, purely accentual. Never mentions Germans (or Taylor, etc.) ; his views seem original. A striking study. 1808. Gregory (George). Letters o?i Literature, Taste and Cofnposition^ 2 vols., 1 2 mo. Posthumously published. Very general, but of. Letter 8 (in Vol. I.), and 24 (in Vol. II.), some useful remarks. Recognises metre in prose as well as verse. [1812.] Thelwall (John). //lustrations of English Rhythmus. N.D. Introduction, pp. VII.-LXXIL, analysing verse. Follows Steele entirely. A practical teacher, friend of Coleridge, and political reformer. Cf. The poetical recreatio7is of the Champion and his literary correspondents, . . . with . . . essays which have appeared in the Champion newspaper, 1822. "Sapphics," etc., by Coleridge and himself (pp. 22, 29-31, 32, etc.) On p. II is Thelwall's "Song without a sibilant." 1813. Edwards (Richard). (i) Treatise on English Prosody. 12 mo. (2) Specimens of English Accentuated Verse, wherein the Intensity of Pronunciation only is measured, and the length of the syllable is unnoticed. 12 mo. 87 is) specimens of Non-accentuated Verse ^ or Verse measured with a regard solely to the le?igth of time required in the pronun- ciation of syllables, the accents and emphasis being entirely unnoticed. 12 mo. Mentioned in Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica. No copy known to exist [(juery, one book or three?]. Guest tried in vain to find (3), see Skeat's edition, p. 108. They were small books, judging from prices in Watt. 1816. Carey (John). Key to practical E?iglish prosody a?id versifi- catiofi. Old-fashioned analysis. Dislikes trisyllabic feet in heroic verse, but admits they exist. Author of Latin prosody made easy, Gradus ad Farnassum, etc. 1818. Chapman (James). The Music of Language. Edinburgh. A follower of Steele, who adds Uttle or nothing of his own. Teacher in Edinburgh. 1821. Edinburgh Review (July). Vol. XXXV, p. 143, review of Southey's poem. Crudest old -fashioned view of metre, ex- pressed with greatest confidence. Number of syllables unvarying ; elision explains all tri- syllabic feet; trochee can never balance dactyl. i822. Tillbpook (Samuel). Historical and Critical Remarks upon the modern Hexametrists^ and upon Mr. Southefs Vision of Judgment. Cambridge. Good historical account, and temperate criticism. But assumes based on quantity, and calls on Southey to state his rules. The first of many controversial books on this subject. 1823. Roe (Richard). The Principles of Rhythm both in speech and viusic ; especially as exhibited in the mechanism of English verse. 4to. Dublin. A systematic treatise, based on Steele, but far clearer, and adding much new matter. Thelwall read the proofs. Identifies verse with music, and fails to separate metrical from musical time. Reduces degrees of quantity to three, long and short and 7?iean. Recognises length by position. A book to be studied. 1824. Frere (John Hookham). Poems. One in hexameters on " Malta." Cf. translation of Frogs (1830), note at end. Accessible in Works, 3 vols., Pickering, 1874. The poem on Malta professes to be " with- out false quantities " [? ?], and the ?tote at end of Frogs justifies redundant initial syllable in hexameter. 89 Frere, friend of Canning, joint author of Antijacobin^ who taught Byron the verse of DonJua7i^ is an authority on metrical questions. But his notions of quantity seem pecuhar. 1827. Crowe (William). A Treatise on English Versification. Oxford. The work of an old man, Public Orator at Oxford, clings to old ideas, thinks vScott and Southey slovenly, suited to ballad-verse only. Praises Mitford on syllabic quantity. Gives list of metrical writers. A good little book, allowing for stand-point. 1832. Gardnep (William). The Music of Nature. Last two chapters, on " Rhythm " and " Quantity." Some remarks on verse, which he divides into bars, and claims that these must be always even in number. Heroic verse has four bars. Scans prose as well as verse, much as Steele did. 1833. Rush (James). The Philosophy of the Human Voice .... 2nd edition, Philadelphia (U.S.A.). I have failed to get date of first edition. Best edition the third (1845, same place). A book on phonetics, able but opinionative, now out of date. Author a teacher, studied facts first, then read textbooks, finding Steele, Sheridan, Walker, alone useful, and them in limited degree. H 90 A note at end (p. 488), on Greek accent^ betrays very imperfect acquaintance with subject. 1837 seq. Hallam (Henry). Introduction to Europea^i Literature in the i^th, i6th, and lyth Centuj'ies. 4 vols., 1837-9. Some sensible remarks on metre, Part I., chap. I, § 34. And in Part II., chap. 5, § 75, an account of the " injudicious attempt ta substitute the Latin metres " for our native measures. 1838. Eclectic Review (April), Vol. III., p. 395. Article on metre, nominally a review of Foster's book (1762 !). Some good criticism. 1838. Blundell (James). Hcxametrical Experimeiits. Thin 4to, Pickering, anonymous. Remarkable preface. Tries to combine accent and quantity. Suggests four degrees of quantity, — long, short, double-shoit, coaimon. Claims to use redundant syllables in any foot, and at beginning of line. Translates four of Virgil's Eclogues (not first four). Refers to last-mentioned article. 1838. Guest (Edwin). History of English Rhythms. 2 vols. (Pickering). New edition, by Prof. Skeat, I vol., 1882. Our chief work on metre, unfortunately based on a most erroneous theory of structure. 91 Large book, full discussion, copious quotations. Began opposed to trisyllabic feet in heroic verse, censured Wordsworth and Coleridge for using such, ended by partly admitting them. Hostile references to Steele's school. Book III. chap. TO on " Metrical Experiments," par- ticularly hexarneter. General capabilities of English verse (p. 559, Skeat's edition). Milton broke laws of metre, a giant rending the habili- ments of the dwarf (p. 560). Twelve hundred and ninety-six possible cadences in heroic verse (ibid). Emphatically a book to study, not to trust. Prof. Skeat's edition adds some valuable notes and other matter. Guest never republished the book himself, and is understood to have declined proposals to do so. 1841. Latham (Robert Gordon). The English La?iguage. First edition. . Section on " Prosody." Much enlarged and altered in later editions, e.g. 4th (1855) ^"d 5^^ (1862), where it is Section VI. Adopts accentual basis, a x and x a. Ac- centuates words like on and for when quite unemphatic. But much sound criticism. Accentuation a relative quality. Last chapter of section on imitations of Classic metre, from his own paper in Philological Society's Trans- actions (1843), contending for accentual rhythm in Classic verse. 92 1841. Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth). Children of the Lord's Supper^ from the Swedish of Tegner. In accentual hexameters; short preface. Cf. Evangeline (1847), Mi/es Standish (1858), and translations of Virgil's First Eclogue and an elegy from Ovid in minor poems. 1842. North American Review July, Vol. LV. Review of Longfellow's poems. Learned discussion. Rather contemptuous of Long- fellow's metre. 1843. O'Brien (William). The Ancient Rhythmical Art recovered. Dublin (posthumous). Original and interesting book, mainly on ancient metre, but postulates " isochronous bars" for English verse (p. 39; cf. Introduction, p. XIX., "isochronism the prime law of metre"). 1844. Hunt (James Henry Leigh). Imagifiation and Fancy. Introductory essay, " What is poetry ? " pp. 1-70. Slight about metre. "The whole real secret of versification is a musical secret" (P- 45)- 1844. Shadwell (Lancelot). The Iliad of Horner. Faithfully rendered in Homeric verse from the original Greek. In parts, paper covers (Pickering), Books I. to IX., line 371 only. 93 See 7iote after Book II., but the promised ex planation never appeared. Very contemptuous of the ordinary "accentual hexameter." His own lines seem to unite accent and quantity, but the latter obeys rules of his own (e.g. dnd^ lay, enquiry). Technical style ; Greek names transliterated. 1844. "Philhellen Etonensis." Iliad, Book I., tract, no preface. Scholarly, but slight. In hexameters (ac- centual, many weak beginnings). 1845. Westminster Review (Apr. -June), Vol. 43. Article on " Homer's Iliad " reviewing Shad- well and others. Signed " M.C." 1845. Fraser's Magazine (December), Vol. 36, p. 665. Dialogue on English Hexameters, probably by Whewell (see below, also 1847 and 1862). Cf. later articles, Vol. 39 (pp. 103 and 342) on Clough, the second being again a dialogue. 1846. Lockhart (John Gibson). Blackwood's Magazine, Vols. 59 and 60. In Ma?rh number, hexameter translation from Iliad XXIV, by " N. N. T.".(last letters of his three names), with short preface. And in May number ditto Book I., with note men- tioning Shadwell's version, just received. Between these, in April number, some specimens of "rhymed hexameters and penta- 94 meters," and letter signed "W.L." (last letters of William Whewell), criticising, and giving specimens of his own. 1846? Poe (Edgar Allen). "The Rationale of Verse." JFor^s, ed. Ingram, Edinburgh, 1875, Vol. III. [The new edition of Poe's Works now being published by Putman's Sons will probably give the date of this paper, to which at present I have no clue.] An extraordinary paper. Brilliant flashes of intuition, but much wild theory. Thinks accent creates quantity, and applies this notion to Greek and Latin verse with wonderful results. Nearly every sentence questionable, but also suggestive. Disappointing as a whole. 1847. Lowell (James Russell). A Fable for C?itics. New York. — " talk of iambs and pentameters Is apt to make people of common-sense danm metres." 1847. English Hexameter Translations, //-(^w Schiller^ Go the, Homer, Callmus, and Meleager. Oblong 8vo. (Murray). This is the only edition I have traced. Yet the book is referred to in Fraser's Mag. for Dec. 1845 (cf. above). Verses by Whewell, Herschell, Hawtrey, Hare, and Lockhart (initials only given). Short preface signed " The Editor " [Whewell ?] Often quoted . as " Cambridge hexameters." Purely accentual; inspiration German; Whewell and Herschell far largest contributors. 95 1848. Clough (Arthur Hugh). T?ie Bothie of Toper-na-Fiwsich (sic), first edition, now Tober-na-viiolich. Amours de Voyage, 1849. These are accentual hexameters, purposely rough, partly burlesque. For his quantitative attempts see Letters of Parepidemus (1853), and ''Elegiacs," "Alcaics," and "Actaeon" among his shorter poems. 1848. Ellis (Alexander James). Essentials of phonetics. Section 25 gives three degrees of quantity, long, brief, stopt. See also pp. 75-77. An early work. Author afterwards President of Philological Society, and our highest au- thority on phonetics. Cf. his translation of Helmholz, and work on Early English Pro- nunciation. Also the following : — Speech in Song (Novello), N.D. Pro7iunciation for Singers (Curwen), N.D. " On the physical constituents of accent and emphasis," in Philological Society's Transactions (1873-4, 8th paper). Presidential addresses in same volume. Encycl. Brit, article " Speech- sounds" (1887). In all these and in other writings, much valuable matter. 1849. Athenaeum (April to July). Letters about hexameters, notably those by M. Philarete-Chasles and W. W[hewell]. 96 1850. Ritso (F. H. I.) ? The first three cantos of Homer : a metrical version most conformable \sic\ though not identical in construction 7vith, the original Greek hexameter. (Rivingtons) anonymous. Short preface, not about metre. Quasi- anapaestic lines, poor. Republished 186 1. 1850. Landop (Walter Savage). In Fraser's Magazine (July, Vol. 42, pp. 62- 63), mock-Southeyan lines, e.g. Germans may flounder at will over consonant, vowel, and liquid. Cf. in Heroic Idylls (1863), burlesque lines "On English Hexameters" (No. 132 of Ad- ditional Poems). 1851. Smith (Albert). In his periodical The Month (September), p. 192-6. " Syringaline : by Professor Long-and-short- fellow." Burlesque hexameters, showing how an English ear naturally treats the measure. Redundant syllables, no caesura, etc., etc. 1852. Evans (R. W.) A Treatise on Versification (Rivington's). Some ancient errors. Verse constituted by the "regulated recurrence of a syllable" (p. 3). Stress necessarily prolongs time of vowel (p. 20). But some good criticism. 97 1852. Kingsley (Charles). A?idromeda : a poem. Perhaps our best piece of accentual hexa- meters, natural quantity being studied in- stinctively. No preface, but cf. his Letters and Memories, edited by his wife, Vol. I., Chap. XL, where his views are fully given, and some important rules suggested (pp. 347-9 for latter). Cf. also one piece of " Elegiacs " among his minor poems. 1852. Dallas (Eneas Sweetland). Poetics. Book III., chap. 2, on "Verse." Som.e good sayings, e.g. " Metre in its simplest form is time heard'' (p. 164). But some very wild ideas about blank verse, etc. 1853. Nopth British Review (May), Vol. XIX., No. 37. Review of Longfellow, Clough, and other hexametrists. Good historical remarks, little real criticism. For review of Dallas in No. 38 (August) see Masson (1856). 1854. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. XXL, p. 219. Review of Evangeline and other hexameter pieces. Sensible article; some good quo- tations. Scholars oppose, ordinary people like, such verse. i854- Dublin University Magazine (July), Vol. 44, No. 259. Article on " German Epics and English Hexameters." Disappointing paper, no definite conclusions. (Cf. in No. 260, some hexameters by Mortimer Collins.) 1856. Masson (David). Assays Biographical and Critical : chiefly on E?tglish Poets. (Macmilian). No. IX. on Dallas (from N. Brit. Review, No 38). Deals with origin of metre (p. 443 seq.) No. X., " Prose and Verse," also suggestive. Cf. edition of Milton, 3 vols. (Macmilian) 1882, essay on Milton's Versification (Vol. III., pp. 206-32). 1857. Patmore (Coventry). Article on " English Metrical Critics " in North British Review (August), Vol. 27, No. 53, pp. 127-61. Reprinted with slight changes, as preface to his poem Amelia (1878), and now as appendix to his collected poems (2 vols., Bell & Son), and entitled " Essay on EngHsh Metrical Law." I quote from this last. Highly important paper, original and stimu- lating. Short historical account, does justice to Steele. Defines metre as " a simple series of isochronous intervals, marked by accent" AllSh3AiKn 3H± JO (p. 224), and finds this in prose as well as verse. Good on accent, or rather ictus (p. 229 seq.). Difference between ancient and modern rhythms (p. 236) ; between metrical and grammatical pause (p. 240). Some appli- cations of his theory questionable ; he makes little distinction between verse and prose, except that the "integer" of the former is double that of the latter (p. 242), and some of his scansions seem very doubtful. Though too dogmatic, and not clear as to the funda- mental basis of our verse, this essay stands almost alone of its kind, and it is surprising that more attention was not given to it when first published. 1859. Mitford (J. T. F.), 2nd Lord Redesdale. (Nephew of William Mitford, ante). Thoughts on prosody .... tract, Parker, Oxford and London. Further thoughts . . . tract, Parker, Oxford and London. Slight ; by-thoughts of a man active in other fields. Wants Universities to settle rules of quantity. 1859. " Owen Meredith " (2nd Lord Lytton). The Wanderer. See two pieces, "Sea-side Elegiacs" and "The Shore." The former is in ordinary pseudo-Classic metre, the latter treats the same metre with great freedom. (Reprint in " Canterbury poets," pp. 47 & 49). lOO i860. Barham (Thomas Foster). '*0n Metrical Time, and the Rhythm of Verse, ancient and modern," in Philological Society's T7-ansactions (i 860-6 t ; Berlin), Part L, pp. 45-62. Short, good, recognises isochrony. Time in English verse corrects defects of natural quantity. Some sample lines by himself, but does not explain his rules. Elision allowed. The same author's edition of Hephaestio7i (Cambridge, 1843) has some curious illustra- tions of ancient metres in English words (pp. 218-29). i860. Munpo (Hugh Andrew Johnstone). Paper in Cambridge Philosophical Society's Transactions (Vol. X., Part II.) for February, i860, with appendix dated July, 1861. "On a metrical inscription at Cirta." Near the end, noteworthy remarks on English metre, replying to Spedding (whom see, below). 1861. Arnold (Matthew). Lectures o?i translating Homer. Also post- script to same, "Last Words," dated 1862. Reprint of both in "popular edition" (1896). Amusing, suggestive, on literary points valuable. On metrical matters untrustworthy. His own attempts at accentual hexameter verse very poor. lOI 1861. Newman (Francis William). Homeric translation in theory and practice. A reply to Matthew Arnold^ Esq. (Williams and Norgate), A scathing rejoinder to Arnold's persiflage. One or two remarks on English verse. 1861. Spedding (James). Paper in Eraser's Magazine (June), Vol. 63, p. 703. Now reprinted with corrections and additions, in his Revieivs and Discussions (1879). Important paper, reviewing Arnold's lectures, and criticising Munro. Maintains existence of quantity in English, accent in Latin verse, and gives specimens. A postscript dated June 1862 carries on the discussion with Munro. Interesting, both in itself, and as the work of a friend of Tennyson's (cf. that poet's " Lines to J.S."). Often referred to, e.g. by Stone (1898). 1861. Aiford (Henry). The Odyssey of Horner^ in English Hendeca- syllable Verse. Books I.-XII. (Longmans.) Short preface, praises hexameter, "but the merely English reader can make nothing of it." 1861. Cayley (Charles Bagot). "Remarks and experiments on English Hexameters," in Philological Society's Tra?is- actiofis (186 1-2 j BerUn), Part I., pp. 67-85. I02 By same author : — The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. Trans- lated m the origifial 7netres. (Hotten) 1867. The Iliad of Horner^ Homometrically tra^is- lated. (Longman's) 1877. No student of quantitative verse should miss these. Clough and Spedding theorised ; Cayley acted. His rules are given in the first paper, and in the preface to his translation from Aeschylus. His quantities are not perfect. He quotes Spedding, and agrees about the doubled consonants. Of his Eliza- bethan predecessors he knew little. His version of the entire Iliad \\2i% no introduction beyond seven prefatory lines, beginning — Dons, undergradu ates, essayists, and public, I ask you, Are these hexameters true-tim'd, or Klopstockish uproar? (Vowels followed by other vowels are reckoned short.) It seems to have attracted little attention. 1861-2. Worsley (Philip Staniiope). The Odyssey of Homer translated into English verse in the Spe?iserian Stanza. See prefaces. Preface to Vol. I. deals with Pope's couplet, that to Vol. n. with hexameter. Both slight. 1 86 1-2. iViodern IVIetre, a monthly magazine. Contains not a word about the technique of verse. I03 i862. Lindsay (Alex. William Crawford), Earl of. 071 the theory of the E?iglish hexapieter . . . A letter to William Jo h7i Hamilton. 31 pages (Murray). Interesting references to unpublished criti- cisms by Morritt, Frere, and others. His own theory defective (deals wholly with "feet"), and his practice inferior to his theory. Much is reprinted from versions privately printed years before. 1862. Whewell (William). In Macmillafi's Magazine (April and August) Vols, v., p. 487, and VI., p. 297, two papers on recent hexameter translations. Whewell had been one of the first adopters, and continued a chief critic, of accentual hexameters on German models. Much good doctrine in these papers. The books reviewed are mostly those which follow in next entry. 1862 (about). Various translations, viz. : — Cochrane (James Inglis). Iliad, Book I. first, then rest (1867). Had translated much from German before. Dart (Joseph Henry). The same; whole Iliad (1866). Murray (John), Commander R.N. The same, combining quantity with accent. Landon (J. T. B.), Oxford. The same, and part of Book II. later. I04 Grist (W.) Ac?ieid, Book L, with preface. Simcox (Edwin W.) Iliad (whole), 1865. Herschell (Sin J. F. W.) The same, 1866. (Book I. in Cornhill Magazine^ May, 1862). The above are grouped together, to give some faint idea of the mass of hexameters pubhshed during the " Sixties " of last Century. Cochrane and Herschell were assiduous culti- vators of this metre. All strike one as metrical exercises, rarely producing real verse. With them may be mentioned a pamphlet on the other side. Homer and English Metre (1862), by W. G. T. Barter. All are interesting to students only. 1864. Derby (Edward), Earl of. The Iliad of Homer. 2 vols. (Murray). Translation in blank verse. Preface de- nounces the " pestilent heresy " of so-called hexameters. 1864. Tennyson (Alfred). Enoch Arden and other poems, " Experi- ments." The "i\lcaics" and " Hendecasyllabics " try to combine accent and quantity; the " Boadicea " is an original adaptation of a rare Latin metre. The six elegiac lines "in quantity," burlesquing his friends Clough and Spedding, were added later. I05 Except some juvenile "leonine elegiacs," Tennyson published no other quasi-Classic verse, though "The Daisy," "To F. D. Maurice," and other poems are modelled after Classic types. His Memoir^ by his son, has many interesting references to verse-structure. 1866. Swinburne (Algernon Charles). Poems and Ballads. Accentual " Hendeca- syllabics" (p. 233), "Sapphics" (235). C f. Ditto^ second series (1878). "Chori- ambics" (p. 141). It need hardly be said that all Mr. Swin- burne's metrical work is full of suggestions to the student. 1866. Blackle (John Stuart). Homer, 4 vols. (Edinburgh). Cf. Horae Hellenicae (reprinted papers), Macmillan, 1874. In the former the last Dissertation of Vol. I. is to the point. In the latter are papers on " English Hexameters," and on " The place and power of Accent in language." One of the acutest and liveliest champions in these discussions, but * erratic and un- systematic. Maintained ancient Greek accent was stress. 1866. Christian Remembrancer Magazine (January), Vol. 51, No. 131. Review of Dart's Iliad. Very amusing paper, claiming naturalness of " hexameter " in English. io6 1866. Lytton (Edward Bulwer), First Lord. Lost Tales of Miletus. Preface about metre : slight. 1868. Calverley (Chai-les Stuart). "On Metrical Translation," in London Student newspaper (October). Reprint in liWks, one volume edition (Bell & Son), 1901. This is one of the classic papers on English verse-structure as compared with ancient, and should not be overlooked by any one interested in that question, but has little to guide the English reader. I have not seen the article which he criticises, and which appeared in the June number of same paper. 1869. Hood (Tom), the younger. The Rules of Rhyme. (Hogg), N.D. Unpretentious summary of common rules. Based on " Young poet's guide," by the elder Hood. 1870. Sylvester (James Joseph). The Laws of Verse., or prificipks of versifica- tion exemplified in metrical tra?islations. Tract (Longmans). Very original, terribly technical. Claims as his own the " silent syllable " theory. Mathe- matical formulas. 1870? Harte (Bret). Parodies. "The lost tails of Miletus." Reprint in Poetical Works ^ Routledge's pocket library, 1886. Shows a casual reader's notion of " hexameters." I07 iSyi. Eaple (John). The Philology' of the English Tofigue. Best edition (third), Clarendon Press, 1880. Last chapter on " Prosody, or the Musical Element in Speech." An early work of the new phonetic school, which treats English verse in and for itself. Good and suggestive statement of principles. 1871. Abbott (E. A.) and Seeley (J. R.) E?iglish Lessons for English Readers. Section on "Prosody." Scansion by accentual " feet." Rules too rigid. E.g. those on page 153 are not without many exceptions. 1871. Ellis (Robinson). The poe??is and fragments of Catullus, trans- lated in the metres of the original. (Murray.) Preface on English quantity. Wonderfully able translations, combining accent and quan- tity (this suggested by Tennyson). But does the result represent either Latin verse or English ? 1873. Ashe (Thomas). Edith, or Love and Life in Cheshire. (H. S. King, paper covers). In accentual hexameters, very "trochaic." No preface. Cf. Foe7ns, complete edition (Bell, 1886), pp. 288-302, 322, etc. Several metrically interesting pieces. io8 1873-4. Philological Society's Transactions. (Berlin and London.) Many very interesting papers, including first drafts of work by Mayor and Sweet (see 1886 and 1888). 1874. Symonds (John Addington). Paper on " Blank Verse," in Fortnightly Review for December.' Reprinted in Sketches and Studies in Italy (1879), ^"^ separately (1880 and 1895) Very suggestive, unsystematic, but clearly recognising the importance of time. 1880. Ruskin (John). Elements of English Prosody^ for use in St. George^ s Schools. Pamphlet (Allen). Characteristically slight, wayward, dogmatic. But some good hints. " Feet " shown in musical notes and called " metres." Classic terms somewhat misused. 1880. Lanier (Sidney). The Science of English Verse. Boston, U.S.A. New edition (1898 ; Scribner, New York). A book of the first importance. Deals with verse wholly in terms of music. Historical introduction slight; Steele disparagingly referred to (preface, XIL). Divides our verse mostly into "3-rhythm" and " 4-rhythm," the former name covering our common metre. A work to be studied with caution, and used as a guide 109 for principles more than details. Later chapters short, as if hastily finished ; author died soon after publication. 1880. Munby (Arthur Joseph), Dorothy^ a country story in elegiac verse. With a preface. Anonymous (Kegan Paul). (The last paragraph alone of preface men- tions metre.) Cf Poems, chiefly ly?'ic a?td elegiac, 4to, 1901 ; several other pieces of "elegiacs." 1881. Moore (George). Pagan Poems. Several pieces in accentual metres. 1881. Hodgson (Shadworth). Outcast Essays and Verse Translatiofis (Longmans). Pp. 207-360 on "English Verse." Much original criticism, excellent about quantity. Specimen verses in hexameter and other metres. 1883. Browning (Robert). Jocoseria, poem of " Ixion." In ordinary accentual elegiacs, treated with his usual roughness and power. 1883. Jenkin (Fleeming). Papers in Saturday Review (Feb. and March). Reprinted . in Memoir by R. L. Stevenson, Vol. L, p. 149 seq. Interesting and original. Seeks to base metre on elocutionary pauses, assuming " time, number, and rhythm " as its elements. I lO 1884. Whitcomb (C.) On the structure of English verse. Short ; good examples ; structure explained as wholly depending on accent. 1884. Lecky (James). Paper read before Philological Society, 19th December. See Transactions for 1885-7, " Proceedings," p. i, where heads only given. Follows Prof. Sweet mamly (see 1888), and deals phonetically with verse. 1885. Watts-Dunton (Theodore). Encyclopccdia Britannica, Vol. XIX., pp. 256-73, article on "Poetry." 1885. Gummere (Francis B.) A handbook of poetics for students of English verse. Boston, U.S.A. Part III, on "Metre." By same author : The begi?inings of poetry. New York, 1901. Chap. II. on " Rh)thm as the essential fact of poetry." Both good, thoughtful ; the latter gives copious references. 1886. Mayor (Joseph B.) Chapters on English Metre. London and Cambridge. Cf. second edition, enlarged, 1901. Goes by accent alone, time never mentioned. Scans wholly by syllables. Otherwise excellent, Ill large and liberal views. The new edition adds criticism of Skeat and Bridges (chap. VI.), Shelley (chap. XIV.), and the English Hexa- meter " (chap. XV.) 1887. Saintsbupy (George). History of Elizabethan Literature. Remarks on metre in chap. I., and short account of " Classic " attempt. Cf., by same author : A Short History of English Literature (1898), p. 402. The Flourishing of Romance^ etc. (Black- wood) 1897, pp. 212-24. History of Criticism^ Vol. I. (Blackwood) 1900, pp. 201-2. It is matter of regret that these obiter dicta have not been explained and developed in a treatise on metre. 1887. Morris (Lewis) Sir. Songs of Britdin. "The Physicians of Myddfai." By same author : — Harvest-tide (1901). " The March of Man." Both in accentual elegiacs, written freely. 1887. Bowen (Charles), Right Hon. Sir. Virgil in Efiglish verse, Eclogues and Aeneid I.-VI. Preface on hexameter, might succeed in hands of Tennyson or Swinburne, but he has adopted modified form. 112 4. i888. Sweet (Henry). Jlisfory of Etiglish Sounds. Oxford. Greatly enlarged from earlier edition (1874). In this new edition, though in scattered passages, will be found perhaps the ablest analysis of English verse-structure yet printed, based on phonetic principles. See especially §§ 356"^) 609, 6t6, 939, 942. KnA passim. 1888. Blake (J. W.) Accent a?id 7-hythm explai?ied by the laiv of monopressures. (Blackwood, Edinburgh). A most interesting attempt to determine the "unit of accent." Adopted by Prof. Skeat (see 1898). 1889. Tisdall (Fitzgerald). Theory of origi?i and development of the heroic hexameter. New York. [Not seen.] 1889. Bridges (Robert Seymour). Milto?ts Pi-osody. Tract (Oxford). First printed in Clarendon Press Milto?i^ ed. Beech- ing, 1887. Many editions, each enlarged. Best single one, 1894; with another treatise [see Stone, 1898], in book form, 1901 ; both (Oxford). The text a careful analysis of Milton's verse; appendices deal with metrical questions, the latest edition adding a new one on the hexa- meter, etc. 113 Cf., by same author : — The Feast of Bacchus (poem, N.D.), note at end on " stress-rhythm " ; also, note to NerOy Part II. (poem, N.D.). The theories and practice of this writer have had much influence on younger authors. Cf. also a new departure — Now in wintry delights, poem (Daniel Press, Oxford, T903). About 400 lines of quantitative hexameters. And Monthly Review for June and July, 1903, quantitative alcaics and quanti- tative hexameters, the latter followed by state- ment of rules, modified in several respects from those of Mr. Stone. 1891. Parsons (James C.) English Versification for the use of students, Boston, New York and Chicago. N.D. Second edition, 1894. A useful manual on the old lines. 1893. Bolton (Thaddeus L.) In The America?i Journal of Psychology (January), paper on " Rhythm," experimentally determined. Historical introduction good, nothing novel. He thinks we pause after each " foot." 1893. Gayley (Charles Mills). Classic myths ifi English Literature. Boston, . U.S.A. Original hexameter translations, pp. 261-6 and 278-81. [Cf 1899, Gayley & Scott] 114 1893. Brewer (R. F.) Orthometry. (Deacon & Co.) Not noteworthy. Some dubious scansions. Bibliographical notes (pp. 280-96), and a small rhyming dictionary at end. 1893. seq. Literary World. Articles and discussions on metre, cf. re- ferences in same paper of dates 5th and 26th June, 1903. [Not seen.] 1894. Mallard (J. H.) The Idylls of Theocritus translated. (Long- mans). Second edition, 1901. Some excellent remarks on metre in preface. 1895. Watson (William). The Father of the Forest^ and other poems. Contains his fine " Hymn to the Sea," in ac- centual elegiacs. 1891-5. Versification, a mo?ithly magazine of measure and metre ; later called " Poetry and prose." In first number (p. 79), and in last number (p. 58), prosody referred to. Other- wise nil. — 1895. Raymond (George Lansing). Rhythm and harmony in poetry a?td music. (Putnam, New York and London). Elaborate and careful study. Bases verse on music (following Lanier?). Prints sample lines with rests (pp. 41-2). 6 H 1^5 1896. Bateson (H. D.) An ififroduction to the study of English rhythms^ with an essay on the metre of Cole- ridge's ChristabeL Tract (24 pages), reprinted from Manchester Quarterly Review. No name or date. Some good suggestions. Speaks of " iso- chronous division of accents." 1896. Seaman (Owen). The Battle of the Bays. (Lane). " Elegi Musarum," parodying Mr. Watson. 1897. Morgan (George Osborne), Sir. The Eclogues of Virgil. Translated into English hexameter verse by . . . 4to. Ordinary accentual lines. He fancied no one had preceded him in translating any of the Eclogues into this measure. 1898. Skeat (Walter William). Paper on the " Scansion of English poetry," read before Philological Society on January 14th, see Transactions for 1895-98, pp. 484- 503. (This paper recasts and expands the argument contained in his Chaucer^ Vol. VI., Introduction pp. LXXXII.-XCVII.) Adopts idea of " monopressure " (cf. ante, 1888), and rejects uniform units of division altogether. ii6 1898 Stone (William Johnson). Ofi the use of Classical 7?ietres in English. Paper covers (Oxford). Revised edition (post- humous), with Milton's F?'osody by Robert Bridges, in book form, Oxford, 1901. A brilHant essay. Historical knowledge imperfect, theory of accent crude. But admirable intuitive grasp of quantity. No better account of its phonetic principles ever written. Particularly good on the " doubled consonant fallacy." The author's rules of quantity were tentative, and may need amend- ment ; the verses based on these were unique, and puzzled most critics. It seems a pity that these specimen verses do not appear in the new edition. English prosody is the poorer for Mr. Stone's early death (age 26). 1898. Tarelli (Charles Camp). Persephone and other poems. (Macmillan). " Persephone " is in accentual hexameters ; two other pieces, "Catullus" and "Juventus Anni," in accentual elegiacs. 1898. Hardy (Thomas). Wessex poems. Harper (London and New York). The first piece, "The Temporary and the All," seems intended for sapphic metre. 1898. Spectator newspaper (March 12th). Article on " Blank verse." 117 1899- Literature newspaper (May to June). Letters about hexameters. 1899. Bright (J. W.) Paper " Concerning English rhythm " read before Philological Society, see condensed report in Athenceum newspaper of July 8th. 1899. Gayley (Charles Mills) and Scott (Fred Newton). An introduction to the methods and materials of literary criticism. The bases in aesthetics and poetics. Boston, U.S.A. Invaluable handbook, if only for its re- ferences, which would have saved infinite labour to older students. Chap. VIL deals with our subject. 1900. Yeats (William Butler). The Shadowy Waters. Play : 4to. A sample of the "new" blank verse, based on the stress-rhythm theory, e.g. The mountain of the gods, the unappeasable gods. Are such lines" metrical ? ~ 1900. Harford (F. K.) A Note on the Sca?ision of the Pentameter and its use i?t English poetry. Pamphlet (Oxford). Rightly claims that silence and sound are convertible, but seems unaware that this point of view has been taken by others, both in theory and practice. 1 ii8 1900. Carpenter (Edward). In Cambridge Review (Feb. 22nd and March ist), "On English Hexameter Verse," review- ing Stone. 1901. Bayne (Peter). Paper in Notes and Queries for 27th April . (p. 321) on "English Hexameters and Elegiacs " ; very slight. 1901. Macmillan's Magazine (October). Article, same title as last item ; and same remark applies. 1901. Meredith (George). A reading of life, ivith other poems. (A. Constable & Co). "Fragments of the Iliad in English hexameter verse" (pp. 107-25). Cf. " The main regret " (p. 66), elegiacs. Mr. Meredith, as notes to other poems show, has always been a student of metre. 1901. Dabney (J. P.) The musical basis of verse. New York C V (Longmans). A study of verse in terms of music. Follows, while criticising, Lanier; does not seem to know other predecessors. Many good features, but the parallel between notes and syllables surely too precise. V'' JI9 1901-2. McKerpow (R. B.) In Modern La?iguage Quarterly^ for Decem- ber 1901 and April 1902; 4to (Nutt). Two papers on " The use of so-called Classical Metres in Elizabethan Verse." Good, thorough, independent. A brief reference is made at the end to Mr. Stone's pamphlet. 1902. Liddell (Mark H.) A?i Introduction to the scientific study of English Poetry. Beifig Prolegomena to a science of English Prosody. New York (Doubleday, Page & Co.) Boldly attempts to find a basis for verse in wave-rhythms of thought, thus emphasizing the intellectual side of rhythm. Deserves attentive study. 1902. Woods (Margaret Louisa). The Pri?icess of Hanover. Play ( Duckworth), Short preface on metre, saying ditto to Mr. Bridges, and claiming that rhyme should follow colloquial usage. Cf, by same author, "The Builders," poem, in Coinhill Magazifie, December 1902. 1903. Times Newspaper. Literary supplement, loth April; review of poem by Mr. Bridges (cf. ante, 1889). 1903. Victory (Louis H.) Imaginatio?is in the dust, 2 vols. (Gay & Bird). Being the complete poetical works of. . . Essay in Vol. II. on "elementary metres," quoting from Ruskin, and following him in his use of musical notes. -M FNIYEPSTT^ ^ ^ATJFO"R\TTA M'.^AT;. - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 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