the orb of the beautiful. Poetry, in its complete sympathy with beauty, must, of necessity, leave no sense of the beautiful, and no power over its forms, unmanifested; and verse flows as inevitably from this condition of its integrity, as other laws of proportion do from any other kind of embodiment of beauty (say that of the human figure), however free and various the movements may be that play within their limits. What great poet ever wrote his poems in prose? or where is a good prose poem, of any length, to be found? The poetry of the Bible is understood to be in verse, in the original. Mr. Hazlitt has said a good word for those prose enlargements of some fine old song, which are known by the name of Ossian; and in passages they deserve what he said; but he judiciously abstained from saying anything about the form. Is Gesner's Death of Abel a poem? or Hervey's Meditations? The Pilgrim's Progress has been called one; and, undoubtedly, Bunyan had a genius which tended to make him a poet, and one of no mean order: and yet it was of as ungenerous and low a sort as was compatible with so lofty an affinity; and this is the reason why it stopped where it did. He had a craving after the beautiful, but not enough of it in himself to echo to its music. On the other hand, the possession of the beautiful will not be sufficient without force to utter it. The author of Telemachus had a soul full of beauty and tenderness. He was not a man who, if he had had a wife and children, would have run away from them, as Bunyan's hero did, to get a place by himself in heaven. He was "a little lower than the angels," like our own Bishop Jewells and Berkeleys; and yet he was no poet. He was too delicately, not to say feebly, absorbed in his devotions, to join in the energies of the seraphic choir. Every poet, then, is a versifier; every fine poet an excellent one; and he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest amount of strength, sweetness, straightforwardness, unsuperfluousness, variety, and one-ness;-one-ness, that is to say, consistency, in the general impression, metrical and moral; and variety, or every pertinent diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process. Strength is the muscle of verse, and shows itself in the number and force of the marked syllables; as, Sonorous metal blòwing màrtial sòunds. Paradise Lost. Behemoth, biggest born of eàrth, ùphèav'd Id. Blow winds and crack your chèeks! ràge! blòw! You càtărăcts and hurricànoes, spòut, Till you have drènch'd our steeples, dròwn'd the còcks! You sulphurous and thoùght-èxecuting fìres, Vaùnt couriers of òak clèaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! and thòu, àll-shaking thùnder, Lear. Unexpected locations of the accent double this force, and render it characteristic of passion and abruptness. And here comes into play the reader's corresponding fineness of ear, and his retardations and accelerations in accordance with those of the poet : Then in the keyhole turns The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar With impètuous recoil and jarring sound Par. Lost, Book II. Abòmînăblě-unùttěrăblě-and worse Than fables yet have feigned. Wallowing unwieldy-ěnòrmous in their gait. Id. Id. Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in the Fairy Queen, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross Knight : But he, my lion, and my noble lord, How does he find in cruel heart to hate Her that him lov'd, and ever most ador'd As the god of my life? Why hath he me abhorr'd? See the whole stanza, with a note upon it, in the present volume. The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is weakness. There is a noble sentiment,-it appears both in Daniel's and Sir John Beaumont's works, but is most probably the latter's, which is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words : Only the firmest and the constant'st hearts God sets to act the stout'st and hardest parts. Stout'st and constant'st for "stoutest" and "most constant!" It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line in Hudibras; He that hangs or beats out's brains, The devil's in him if he feigns. Beats out's brains, for "beats out his brains." Of heaviness, Davenant's "Gondibert" is a formidable specimen, almost throughout : With silence (òrder's help, and màrk of càre) They chìde that nòise which hèedless youth affèct; Who was, though nàked, sàfe, till prìde màde strife, And so he goes digging and lumbering on, like a heavy preacher thumping the pulpit in italics, and spoiling many ingenious reflections. Weakness in versification is want of accent and emphasis. It generally accompanies prosaicalness, and is the consequence of weak thoughts, and of the affectation of a certain well-bred enthusiasm. The writings of the late Mr. Hayley were remarkable for it; and it abounds among the lyrical imitators of Cowley, and the whole of what is called our French school of poetry, when it aspired above its wit and "sense." It sometimes breaks down in a horrible, hopeless manner, as if giving way at the first step. The following ludicrous passage in Congreve, intended to be particularly fine, contains an in stance: And lo! Silence himself is here; Methinks I see the midnight god appear. Behold the reverend shade. An ancient sigh he sits upon!!! Whose memory of sound is long since gone, And purposely annihilated for his throne!!! Ode on the singing of Mrs. Arabella Hunt. See also the would-be enthusiasm of Addison about music : For ever consecrate the day To music and Cecilia ; Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below, Music can noble HINTS impart!!! It is observable that the unpoetic masters of ridicule are apt to make the most ridiculous mistakes, when they come to affect a strain higher than the one they are accustomed to. But no wonder. Their habits neutralize the enthusiasm it requires. Sweetness, though not identical with smoothness, |