1. My first example shall be one employed by Lord Kaimes. Oh! the pleasing, pleasing anguish, When we love, and when we languish: Charms transporting, Joys ensuing. Oh! the pleasing, pleasing anguish. Here the two lines at the beginning being short, and having their rhymes contiguous, tend rather to produce an enlivening effect. The very short lines succeeding, produce it in the utmost possible degree. But the last, of which the rhyme is connected with others that are very remote, causes a sudden transition to a quite opposite tone of sentiment. 2. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Here the two rhymes, way, me, immedi ately following each other, and both connect ed with others at a considerable distance, produce, at the close, a deep impression of solemnity, which renders this stanza admirably fitted for elegiac composition. 3. In epic poetry the chief requisite is dignity, which occupies a middle place between gaiety and melancholy. The couplet used in English heroic verse, is observed by Lord Kaimes, to partake too much of the former quality Notwithstanding the length of the line, the rhymes appear still to come too close to each other. This appears particularly where sublimity is aimed at; where, by the frequency of the rhymes, the passage is split into a multitude of little divisions, which prevent any grand effect from being produced. Thus : This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vowsHe spoke, and awful bends his sable brows; Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, The stamp of fate, and sanction of the God. High heaven, with trembling, the dread signal took, And all Olympus to the centre shook. With this compare the following: Him the Almighty power Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, To bottomless perdition, there to dwell It was probably from a secret perception of this, that Milton was led to prefer blank verse; not merely, as Johnson supposes, because he found it casier. ; 4. A singular mode of obviating this disadvantage has been adopted by the Italian poets. Their stanza consists of eight lines the six first of which rhyme to each other alternately, and the two last in succession; as in the following Quivi da precursori a noi vien detto E viste insegne, e indicii, onde han sospetto Che sia vicino essercito infinito Non pensier, non color, non cangia aspetto Ben che molti vi sian ch'al fero aviso Tingan di bianca pallidezza il viso. Here the first six are of the nature of the elegiac, while the two concluding lines form a heroic couplet. The opposite qualities of these counteract each other, and bring the verse, on the whole, pretty nearly to a due medium. If the former composes the greater part of the stanza, the latter occupies the most conspicuous place. I doubt, however, if this variation of the rhymes have in other respects a very happy effect in narrative poetry. 5. Spencer, who formed himself rather too closely upon the Italian school, has used a stanza of nearly the same length. The disposition of the rhymes, however, is different. Though several follow each other in succession, yet none of these stand by themselves, so as to form a couplet, but have always some others with which it is connected. This circumstance, with the alexandrine at the close, prevents them from having any enlivening effect. This structure of the stanza has, I suspect, had a great influence in occasioning that languor, which, notwithstanding the merit of the poetry, every one feels in reading the Fairy Queen. Thomson has, with great taste, selected this stanza for his Castle of Indolence. From it I shall extract the following fine specimen. I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot bar. my frequent foot to trace reave. Nor can we blame the choice which Beattie has made of it for the Minstrel. H |