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MANUSCRIPTS OF MELMOTH.

A lady who had been educated by Melmoth (the translator, author of Fitzosborne's Letters, &c.), told me, about the year 1813, that she had a trunk full of his manuscripts. As an article of literary gossip, this may as well be made known: for some author, writing a biographical dictionary, may be interested in knowing all that can be now known of Melmoth, and may even wish to examine his manuscripts, which (from the liberality of the lady) I am confident would be readily lent. For my part, I never looked into Fitzosborne's Letters since my boyhood: but the impression I then derived from them was that Melmoth was a fribble in literature, and one of the "sons of the feeble." Accordingly I shrunk myself even from the " sad civility" of asking to look at the

manuscripts. Melancholy lot of an author-that, after a life of literary toil, he must be destined to no better fate than that of inflicting an emotion of pure disgust upon a literary man, when he is told that he may have the sight of "a great trunk-full” of his manuscripts!-However the lady was to some degree in the wrong for calling it "a great trunk:" if she had said "a little trunk," I might perhaps have felt some curiosity. The Sybil was the first literary person who understood the doctrine of market price; and all authors, unless they write for money to meet an immediate purpose, should act upon her example and irritate the taste for whatever merit their works may have, by cautiously abstaining from overstocking the market.

SCRIPTURAL ALLUSION EXPLAINED.

In p. 50, of the "Annotations" upon Glanvill's Lux Orientalis, the author (who was, I believe, Henry More the Platonist) having occasion to quote from the Psalms-" The sun shall not burn thee by day, neither the moon by night," in order to illustrate that class of cases where an ellipsis is to be suggested by the sense rather than directly indicated, says-" the word burn cannot be repeated, but some other more suitable verb is to be supplied."-A gentleman however, who has lately re

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it to walk. Just as certain as it is that all human beings could never, by clubbing their visual powers together, have arrived at the power of seeing what the telescope discovers to the astronomer; just so certain it is that the human intellect would never have arrived at an analysis of the infinite or a Critical Analysis of the Pure Reason (the principal work of Kant), unless individuals had dismembered (as it were) and insulated this or that specific faculty, and had thus armed their intellectual sight by the keenest abstraction and by the submersion of the other powers of their nature.-Extraordinary men are formed then by energetic and over-excited spasms as it were in the individual faculties; though it is true that the equable exercise of all the faculties in harmony with each other can alone make happy and perfect men."-After this statement, from which it should seem that in the progress of society nature has made it necessary for man to sacrifice his own happiness to the attainment of her ends in the developement of his species, Schiller goes on to inquire whether this evil result cannot be remedied; and whether the totality of our nature, which art has destroyed, might not be re-established by a higher art."—but this, as leading to a discussion beyond the limits of my own, I mit.

* This Lux Orientalis was first published about 1662; but republished, with Annotations, in 1682.

ON ENGLISH VERSIFICATION.

No. VI.

OF THE SPECIES OF POETRY WHICH ADMIT OF RHIME.

RHIME is to be esteemed an ornament of verse, but not of the highest order it may therefore not merely be dispensed with as unnecessary, but is to be rejected as improper in some kinds of poetry. Other kinds there are in which it is required; to some of these it is suitable, and to some attached by custom. Blair says of rhime" that it finds its proper place in the middle, but not in the higher ranges of poetry:" and he suggests good reason for its exclusion from these when he adds, that it is "suitable to subjects where no particular vehemence is required in the sentiments, nor sublimity in the style."

The ornament of rhime is proper, and required in the shorter pieces of verse; as, epigrams, songs, madrigals, sonnets, epitaphs, elegies, and the like: and in general, all pieces that are written in stanzas, or in any other measure than the heroic. It is likewise commonly thought necessary to give to translations the embellishment of rhime; and this rather from custom and compliance with the public taste, than for any reason that has been alleged. The translations of Virgil and Homer into blank verse failed, and are forgotten; though we have no translation of the latter which represents the Greek so faithfully. In the present day another

attempt in blank verse has been made with better acceptance, and well-deserved success; the translation of Dante by Mr. Cary, for fidelity to the original and good versification, is not surpassed by any in the English language.

Some of the lighter kinds admit rhimes, either single or double, in the middle of the line; which King James, in his Treatise on Scottis Poesie, calls broken verse, and gives this example.

So

Lo, how that lytil God of love
Before me then appear'd;

myld-like and chyld-like, with bow
three quarters skant;

So moylie and coylie he lukit like a sant.

But such rhimes are of so little repute that English critics have passed them by without name or notice.

It is further to be observed concerning the kinds of poetry now mentioned, that in strictness of propriety they require different measures, according to the subjects treated of: The Elegy, for instance, being (as its name denotes) of a mournful nature, is most fitly composed in a staid and grave kind of verse; viz. the heroic. The same kind of verse is likewise best adapted to the epitaph. We have, indeed, epitaphs of great merit in other measures; such is that of Gray on Mrs. Clarke, beginning with these lines,

• The form in which English Elegy has most commonly appeared is the stanza of four lines in which the rhimes alternate. Dr. Johnson seems to censure this form; for he says, "Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the elegy is gentleness and tenuity: but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not inconsiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords.”—Life of Hammond.

In alleging the authority of Dryden, Dr. Johnson has not dealt fairly with his readers; for, granting that Dryden had a perfect knowledge of English metre, he did not always speak according to that knowledge: and this the Doctor knew; for, in his Life of Dryden, he says of him, "his occasional and particular positions (in criticism) were sometimes interested, sometimes negligent, and sometimes capricious. It is not without reason that Trapp says, novimus viri illius maximi non semper accuratissimas esse censuras, nec ad severissimam critices normam exactas: illo judice id plerumque optimum est, quod nunc præ manibus habet, et in quo nunc occupatur. He is therefore by no means consonant to himself." Such, according to Dr. Johnson, was the judgment of Dryden in his occasional criticisms. It is needless, we think, to vindicate the practice of our elegywriters against so disputable an authority. When Dryden gave that high character to the quatrain, he was composing his Annus Mirabilis, which is written in that measure.

Lo, where this silent marble weeps, A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps: which yet we cannot but consider as defective, in that the verses, being of

eight syllables only, want the gravity of the heroic line, and the solemnity which is required by their subject.*

OF THE DISPOSITION OF RHIMES.

Under this head rhimes will be considered; first, as to the order in which they stand; and 2d, the number which rhime together.

manner of doing it, but only some of the most approved examples.

To describe this verbally would at least be tedious: we shall therefore borrow, from Puttenham's Art of Poetry, his method of showing the disposition of rhimes, which is compendious and clear, and applicable to every rhiming poem.

-The simple, and most natural or-
der is that, when adjoining verses
rhime together, as in the couplet:
the next seems to be that of alternate
rhimes in the stanza of four lines.
But as rhimes are frequently disposed,
both in order and number, very dif-
ferently from the instances here
given, it is proper to notice how that
is done; not indeed every licentious
By this method the couplet will be represented thus:
O parent of each lovely Muse,

It is a bracket, by the points of which the rhimes are represented; and the part which connects those points shows the connexion and place of the rhimes.

Thy spirit o'er my soul diffuse.

J. Warton.

And thus the alternate rhimes in a quatrain.

How meanly dwells th' immortal mind

How vile these bodies are!

Why was a clod of earth design'd

T'enclose a heavenly star?

Watts.

*The following stanzas, by Ben Jonson, are part of an epitaph on a child of Queen Elizabeth's chapel.

Weep with me, all you that read

This little story:

And know, for whom a tear you shed

Death's self is sorry.

"Twas a child that so did thrive

In grace and feature,

As Heaven and Nature seem'd to strive

Which own'd the creature ; &c. &c.

It would not be easy to frame any thing more different from what it ought to be, than the combination of short measures, double rhimes, and false thoughts, which enter into this epitaph.

We shall presume on the reader's patience to lay before him a Latin epitaph, of a most singular form; it being in Sapphic verse: in other respects of much propriety and beauty. It is that in Westminster Abbey, upon Carteret, a boy of the school. The device of the monument is a figure of Time, holding a scroll with these lines inscribed:

Quid breves Te delicias tuorum
Næniis Phœbi chorus omnis urget,
Et meæ falcis subito recisum

Vulnere plangit?

En, Puer, vitæ pretium caducæ :
Hic tuas Custos vigil ad favillas
Semper astabo, et memori tuebor
Carmine famam.

Audies clarus pietate, morum

Integer, multæ studiosus artis ;

Hæc frequens olim leget, hæc sequetur
Emula pubes.

A more complicated form of the bracket will be seen if applied to the

sonnet:

I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong;
When golden hairs shall change to silver wire,
And those bright rays that kindle all this fire
Shall fail in force, their working not so strong:
Then Beauty (now the burden of my song)
Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire,
Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire ;

Then fade those flowers that deck'd her pride so long.
When, if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,
Which then presents her winter-wither'd hue,
Go you, my Verse, go tell her what she was;
For what she was she best will find in you:
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But, phenix-like, shall make her live anew.

By these brackets may be seen the disposition of the rhimes: i. e. how they are connected and placed: and it is evident that such brackets may be formed as will show the same thing in any poem by mere inspection of them, independent of the words which they represent. This we shall have occasion to exemplify when we come to treat of lyric poetry.

The sounet which is here given is in the regular form of that species of poem. It came to us from the Ita lians, and, according to Ellis, (Specimens of English Poets, vol. ii. p. 3) who calls it a "difficult novelty," was introduced here, probably by the court poets of the reign of Henry VIII. But in that age the name of Sonnet was very loosely applied. "Some think, (says Gascoigne, in his Instruction concerning the making of Verse in English,) that all poems, being short, may be called sonnets ; as indeed it is a diminutive word derived of sonare; but yet I can best allow to call those sonnets which are of fourteen lines, every line containing ten syllables," p. 10.

Even this limitation is not strict enough for the regular sonnet: for there the rhimes of the first eight lines are to be such, in number and

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place, as in the example above. In the remaining six lines the composer has liberty to arrange his rhimes at discretion. It may be added, that our early writers very seldom constructed their sonnets upon the regular plan. Three quatrains with alternate rhimes, and a couplet in the close was the most usual form of their composition. Such are the sonnets of Lord Surrey, Gascoigne, Spen cer, and Shakspeare; those of Sir Thomas Wyat are an exception, for they are all regular.

Under the disposition of rhimes is to be noted the distance at which they may stand apart, and the number that may properly rhime together.

It has been already observed that the quick return of rhime is inconsistent with sublimity in verse: by which was meant a return at the end of every line of eight, or fewer, syllables; but, on the other hand, the extent to which correspondent rhimes may be separated, is not easy to determine. When three heroic lines intervene, they seem to be set as far asunder as can be allowed with propriety. The following verses, from a sonnet of Milton, exhibit an example.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

He who of these delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

Although our poets in that century did not choose to encounter the difficulty of composing regular sonnets, they were not backward to contrive and execute various difficulties of composition in verse, of which some ridiculous specimens may be seen in Webbe's Discourse of English Poetry, edited by Haslewood, p. 64, 65.

If rhimes should be set further apart than in this instance, their correspondence on the ear, which is the main purpose of rhime, would be lost.

As a quick return of rhime destroys the gravity and dignity of

verse, so a continuance of the same rhime, for many lines together, tends to produce a similar effect. A very licentious repetition of rhimes occurs in the following stanza of Cowley's Ode, addressed to Brutus:

Virtue was thy life's centre, and from thence
Did silently and constantly dispense
The gentle vigorous influence

To all the wide and fair circumference.
And all the parts upon it lean'd so easily,
Obey'd the mighty force so willingly,
That none could discord or disorder see

In all their contrariety:

Each had his motion natural and free,

And the whole no more moved than the whole world could be.

A rhime continued for three lines together is allowable, and often graceful if the last be an alexandrine, as here.

Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."

Pope's Imitations of Horace. Epist. 1.

* It is not unlikely that the bracket which used to be set against such triplets as this, and which the printers have lately omitted to insert in our books, had the same origin with those adopted by Puttenham; and that its design was to apprise the reader of the connexion of the rhimes.

The criticism contained in these celebrated lines seems to have been received by subse quent critics as a sentence of decisive authority. Dr. Johnson's account of Waller and Dryden is a sort of commentary upon them. He says, Waller "certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers, who were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies (on the Immortality of the Soul) which though merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified." Of Dryden he affirms that "veneration is paid to his name by every cultivator of English literature; as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers, of English poetry: that after about half a century of forced thoughts, and ragged metre, some advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and Denham ; they had shown that long discourses in rhime grew more pleasing when they were broken into couplets, and that verse consisted not only in the number but the arrangement of syllables."-Life of Dryden.

It is unpleasant to contradict such grave authors, when they are treating of a subject with which they must have been well acquainted: but unless we will suffer some of our chief poets to lie under the reproach of great ignorance and incapacity; unless we are ready to acknowledge that the art of modulation which existed in Queen Elizabeth's age was neglected or forgotten; that for half a century afterward nothing was produced but ragged metre; that our writers did not perceive, till Waller and Denham showed them, that the arrangement of syllables, as well as the number, was necessary to make a verse; that till they were taught by Dryden, they knew not how to compose; that neither energy nor majesty, nor sonorous lines, nor variation of numbers, is to be found in their works; unless we will acquiesce in the justice of these injurious censures, we cannot permit them to pass without contradiction. In fact, they are altogether unfounded. Waller indeed was smooth; yet not (as Pope would insinuate) the first by many who wrote smoothly in English verse; and some of them equally so with Waller himself, for example William Browne: but Dryden taught nothing of what is attributed to him. If the poets who wrote before him should be examined, there will be found, in some one or other of them, each particular quality for which he is here praised; and all of them in Milton. Neither is it true that the art of modulation was ever forgotten by our poets. After the time of Queen Elizabeth it was preserved by many, besides William Browne above mentioned; namely by the brothers Beaumont, by Giles and Phineas Fletcher, by Sandys, to whom others might be added: and when Dr. Johnson speaks of "ragged metre," he must have had in his recollection only Donne, and Ben Jonson, and the disciples of their school.

We subjoin the following commendatory verses, not only as an authority for our cha

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