PREFACEJMU

It is not with the view of making poets and PARKEDetesses, that I send forth this little publication that must be the work of Nature alone: it is not in

my

power to create them; and, if it were, I might be accused of doing more harm than good, in tempting any of my young readers to quit a gainful calling for the gainless trade*. My aims are more humble1. to teach the learner to read poetry with propriety and grace; -2. to improve and polish his style for prose composition.

However unprofitable the writing of poetry (as a professional occupation) may in general prove, the reading of it is universally allowed to be far from unprofitable. It softens and humanises the heart: it inspires the soul with generous and exalted sentiments it inculcates every virtue with greater energy and success, than the most labored, the most animated, prose. But it loses much of its effect,

• Trade. My profound respect for the inspired sons and daughters of genius would have forbidden me to apply this ignoble term to their sublime pursuit, if a great poet had not himself set me the example

I left no calling for this idle trade. (Pope.

a

when dis-harmonised and enfeebled in the recitation, by an injudicious mode of utterance; and this will ever be the case, when the reader is not thoroughly acquainted with the metre-not aware of what latitude it allows in the changes of feet, and other poetic licences of different kinds*. Nor can that necessary knowledge be so well acquired from precept alone often ill understood, and quickly forgotten as it may be gained by practice. For this obvious reason, it has been deemed expedient, in all the chief schools of this and other countries, to train the young student to Latin versification, for the purpose, not of making him a Latin poet, but of qualifying him to relish the beauties of the ancient poetry, and to improve his style for prose composition. And shall we pay more attention to a dead language than to our own? It were a shame if we did a flagrant shame, if, while we carefully cultivate the Latin versification, we wholly neglected the English; hardly one individual in a thousand ever feeling any temptation to write Latin poetry after he has quitted college; whereas there are very few

With studied impropriety of speech,

He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach ;
To epithets allots emphatic state,

While principals, ungrac'd, like lacqueys, wait.......

Conjunction, preposition, adverb, join,

To stamp new vigor on the nervous line.

In monosyllables his thunders roll:

He, She, It, And, We, Ye, They, fright the soul. (Churchill.

of the thinking part of mankind, who do not, at some time or other, find occasion to pen a few verses in their native language. In such cases, which may daily and hourly occur, what a pity, that, for want of due acquaintance with the technical part of the business, they should, by the unmetrical rudeness of their lines, disparage perhaps good ideas, which, in a more terse and polished form, might command the reader's applause! Indeed every person, whether poet or not, who has received any tolerable education, and pretends to write decent prose, ought likewise to be qualified for the occasional production of a few verses, smooth, at least, and metrically correct, whatever may be their merit or demerit in other respects.

That the practice of versification materially improves the style for prose composition, there cannot be a doubt. The ear which is acutely sensible to the harmonies of verse, will naturally revolt against inharmonious harshness in prose; and the pains, bestowed in searching for a variety of words of different lengths, quantities, and terminations, to suit the exigencies of the metre

Th' expedients and inventions multiform,

To which the mind resorts in chase of terms,...
T'arrest the fleeting images, that fill

The mirror of the mind*-

will copiously enlarge the writer's stock of expressions will enable him to array his thoughts in a more elegant and attractive garb, and to vary that garb at pleasure, by the ready aid of a diversified phraseology. It will at the same time produce a more important and beneficial effect-it will enrich the intellectual store of thought: for, while in search of an epithet, for example, or a periphrase, he is obliged to view the subject in all its possible bearings and relations, that he may choose such particular word or phrase as shall exhibit it in the most advantageous point of light. And what study more effectual to call into action the powers of the mind, to exercise the judgement, to whet the sagacity, and give birth to a variety of ideas, which might otherwise have lain for-ever dormant, like those deepburied seeds, which sleep inert and barren in the womb of earth, until the hand of Industry have turned them up, to feel the genial influence of the sun and air?

* I have some-where read, that earth, turned up from deep pits, produces plants before unknown in the vicinity. Have the seeds of those plants lain dormant in their dark recesses, from the time when the general deluge, or some later inundation, providentially overwhelmed the forests of our isle, to preserve them for remote posterity under the more convenient form of pit-coal? That question, if answerable by any other than the Creator alone, I leave to be answered by those who are better qualified, than I, to investigate and explain the wondrous operations of almighty wisdom and power.

For these weighty considerations, the practice of verse-making has been recommended by Locke, Chesterfield, Franklin, &c, and, although it has not yet been publicly adopted as a necessary part of an English education, it is to be hoped that every teacher who aspires to eminence in the profession, will henceforward bestow on it that serious attention which it so evidently deserves. Indeed, from the opinions which I have heard on the subject, I entertain not a doubt, that those heads of seminaries who shall make it a regular branch in their system of instruction, will, in the estimation of all good judges, gain a decided preference over those who neglect it*.

Nor is the business a matter of any difficulty, if the following simple plan be pursued. 1. Let the learner begin with single lines, which, without any mixture of alien feet, have all the even syllables rcgularly accented, and the odd syllables un-accented; and in which the words, barely transposed from their poetic order, require only metrical arrangement, to produce the proper feet, which shall stand the test of scansion. 2. Let him have transposed single lines, containing other feet besides the Iambus. Let him be directed to mark every such foot in each verse

*I do not say this with the interested view of recommending my book for the simple method, which I point out in the ensuing paragraph, may be pursued by any teacher, without the assistance of my book, or any other publication of the kind.