but which, it seems, had not been owned by him, for the subject of his remarks on English Versification. He says, "of the kinds of English verses which differ in number of sylJables, there are almost infinite. To avoid therefore tediousness, I will repeat only the different sorts of verses out of the Shepherd's Calendar, which may well serve to bear authority in this matter.

"There are in this work twelve or thirteen sundry sorts of verses, which differ either in length, or rhyme, or distinction of the staves." Having quoted several passages to prove this assertion, he adds, " I shall avoid the tedious rehearsal of all the kinds which are used; which I think would have been impossible, seeing they may be altered to as many forms as the poets please: neither is there any tune or stroke which may be sung or played on instruments, which hath not some poetical ditties framed according to the numbers thereof."

But notwithstanding this abundant variety, our author was one of those who fancied that English poetry would be greatly improved by adopt ing Greek and Latin measures, and composing in hexameter, pentameter, sapphic, and other ancient forms. It was a project that had already been set on foot by some of high literary reputation; and he endeavoured to advance it by his advice and example. He was aware, indeed, of the objection that our words are nothing resemblant in nature to theirs, and therefore not possible to be framed with any good grace after their use:" but this he proposed to surmount, by "excepting against the observance of position, and certain other of their

rules." Still there remained various difficulties; and it is amusing to hear him relate his distress, when, composing in the new fashion," he found most of our monosyllables to be long," when, to serve his purpose, they should have been short: he wanted "some direction for such words as fall not within the compass of Greek or Latin rules, and thereof he had great miss." He was forced "to omit the

best words, and such as would naturally become the speech best," to avoid breaking his Latin rules. Under all these discouragements, however, he translated two of Virgil's Eclogues into English hexameters, and transformed a part of the Shepherd's Calendar into sapphics; and these pieces make a conspicuous portion of his book.

The next was George Gascoigne, an eminent poet of that age; his book was published in 1587, and is to be found among his poems; the vo lume is become scarce. It is entitled, Certain Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Rhyme in English.

The more remarkable passages in Gascoigne's work are these. He speaks of no other feet, as entering into verse, than those of two syllables; of which, says he, "the first is de pressed, or short; the second, elevate, or long." He gives rules for rhyming, and for finding a rhyme. Concerning the admission of polysyllables into verse, he gives this direction, "I warn you that you thrust as few words of many syllables into your verse as may be ; and hereunto I might allege many reasons: first, the most ancient English words are of one syllable; so that the more monosyllables you use, the truer English you shall seem, and the less you shall smell of the inkhorn. Also, words of many syllables do cloy a verse, and make it unpleasant." Respecting the cesure, or pause in a verse, he observes that, "in lines of eight syllables it is best in the middle, as,

Amid my bale | I bathe in bliss. In lines of ten syllables, after the fourth, as

I smile sometimes, | Although my grief be great.

In those of twelve syllables in the middle; and in those of fourteen, after the eighth, as,

Divorce me now, good death, | From love and lingering life;

That one hath been my concubine, | That other was my wife.†

Lines of twelve and fourteen syl lables alternate, says he (i. e. such as the last here quoted), "is the commonest sort of verse which we use now-a-days."

But the most celebrated work, hitherto composed on the subject, was a regular treatise, on the Art of English Poesy, published in 1589, but written some time before, by Puttenham. This author was of a different opinion from Webbe in respect to the introduction of Greek and Latin measures into English poetry; and he says, with good judgment, thus, "Peradventure, with us Englishmen it may be somewhat too late to admit a new invention of feet and times that our forefathers never used, nor never observed till this day, either in their measures or their pronunciation: and perchance will seem in us a presumptuous part to attempt; considering also it would be hard to find many men to like of one man's choice in the limitation of times and quantities of words; with which, not one, but every ear is to be pleased and made a particular judge; it being most truly said, that a multitude or commonalty is hard to please, and easy to offend." In conclusion, he condemns this sort of versification, as a frivolous and ridiculous novelty. But, although in this particular he manifested his good sense, in some other points he fell in with the whimsical fancies of his time; such as making poems in the shape of altars, pyramids, and the like.

He who shall peruse Puttenham, may collect from him some information concerning the state of poetry in his day; and may understand what kind of verse was censured or praised, and what degree of estimation former English poets were then held in, but he must not expect much instruction upon the art itself.

Warton says of this book, Hist. of Poet. vol. iii. 10, that it remained long as a rule of criticism.

Another work however was published in 1602, with this title, "Observations in the Art of English Poesie, by Thomas Campion. Wherein it is demonstratively proved, and by example confirmed, that the English tongue will receive eight several kinds of numbers proper to itself; which are all in this book set forth, and

were never before this time, by any man, attempted." Campion was a physician, and was celebrated by his contemporaries, not only as a poet, but also as a composer of music; and his acquaintance with the latter art appears by some remarkable passages in his book. The eight several kinds of numbers which he mentions are to be understood, not of feet, nor yet altogether of verses taken singly, but, some of them, of combinations of verses and stanzas. He has, indeed, a chapter on "English numbers in general," by which he means the feet admissible into English poetry; and he reduces them to two, as being essential, and giving character and name to two different species of verse: viz. 1. the iambic; and 2. the trochy, of which he gives this strange account, that it "is but an Iambic turned over and over."

Having limited his verse to these two kinds, the iambic, and the trochaic, he exhibits his eight several numbers as follows:

1. The iambic verse, of which he makes two varieties; example,

Appear ye sterner if the day be clear. This, being composed of iambic feet only, he calls the pure iambic; the other, into which he admits a spondee, or trochy, as,

Hark how these winds do murmur at thy flight,

he terms the licentiate iambic.

2. His second number he denominates iambic, dimeter, or English march, of which he gives this example:

8. The anacreontic is this.
Love can alter

Time's disgraces. Campion might have shown, even from his own poetry, that our language can receive other numbers than he has enumerated: but his book contains little that is new or extraordinary, except that the poetical part is all in blank verse, and that he wishes to discard entirely from our poetry what he is pleased to call the fatness of rhyme:" which brought forth an answer from a writer of a superior order to Campion, both in verse and prose.

This was Samuel Daniel, who wrote a Defence of Rhyme, against a pamphlet, entitled Observations, &c. "wherein is demonstratively proved that rhyme is the fittest harmony of words that comports with our language." This is, indeed, asserted; but in proofs and demonstration he falls as short as his antagonist; of him he says, "this detractor (whose commendable rhymes, albeit now himself an enemy to rhyme, have given heretofore to the world the best notice of his worth) is a man of fair parts, and good reputation, and therefore the reproach forcibly cast from such a hand, may throw down more at once than the labours of many shall in long time build up again. We could well have allowed of his numbers, if he had not disgraced our rhyme, which both custom and nature doth most powerfully defend; custom that is above all law, nature that is above all art. Our rhyme is likewise number and harmony of words, consisting of an agreeing sound in the last syllables of several verses, giving both to the ear an echo of a delightful report, and to the memory a deeper impression of what is delivered therein for as Greek and Latin verse consists of the number and quantity of syllables, so doth the English verse of measure and accent; and though it doth not strictly observe long and short syllables, yet it most religiously

respects the accent; and as the short and the long make number, so the acute and grave accent yield harmony, and harmony is likewise number: so that the English verse then hath number, measure, and har mony, in the best proportion of music. But be the verse never so good, never so full, it seems not to satisfy nor breed that delight, as when it is met and combined with a like sounding accent; which seems as the jointure, without which it hangs loose, and cannot subsist, but runs wildly on, like a tedious fancy, without a close." Having thus defended the use of rhyme, he proceeds in a similar strain against the rest of Campion's book; asserting, "that of all his eight several kinds of new promised numbers, we have only what was our own before;" such as have ever been familiarly used among us ; and the like of his other positions. He expresses a wish, however, "that there were not that multiplicity of rhymes as is used by many in sonnets; he acknowledges, "that to his own ear, those continual cadences of couplets used in long and continued poems are very tiresome and unpleasing;" and he confesses that his " adversary had wrought so much upon him as to think a tragedy would best comport with a blank verse, and dispense with rhyme, saving in the chorus, or where a sentence shall require a couplet." He says too that he thinks it wrong to mix uncertainly feminine rhymes with masculine ;* which, ever since he was warned of that deformity by a kind friend, he had always so avoided, as that there are not above two couplets in that kind in all his poem of the Civil Wars; that he "held feminine rhymes to be fittest for ditties, and either to be certain, or set by themselves."

"

The opinions of Daniel are more particularly noticed here, because his versification is equal to the best of his times.

Another poet, who valued himself upon his skill in numbers, viz. Cowley, may be joined with these authors; not indeed for any formal work upon the subject, but for certain notes, made by him upon his own verses. The purport of those notes is to inform his readers that the verses are intended and framed to represent the things described, by their imitative harmony. In his preface he expresses himself thus, respecting the odes which he calls Pindaric. "The numbers are various and irregular, and sometimes (especially some of the long ones) seem harsh and uncouth, if the just measures and cadences be not observed in the pronunciation. So that almost all their sweetness and numerosity (which is to be found, if I mistake not, in the roughest, if rightly repeated) lies in a manner wholly at the mercy of the reader. I have briefly described the nature of these verses, in the ode, entitled, The Resurrection;* and though the liberty of them may incline a man to believe them easy to be composed, yet the undertaker will find it otherwise.

-

ut sibi quivis

of versification, together with an assistance towards making English verse. The title was the English Parnassus, or a Help to English Poesie; containing a collection of all the rhyming monosyllables, the choicest epithets and phrases, with some general forms upon all occasions, subjects, and themes, alphabetically digested; together with a short institution to English Poesie, by way of preface. The author was Joshua Poole, MA. of Clare Hall, Cambridge; but it was a posthumous publication. The preface is subscribed J. D.; it contains no matter worthy of particular notice; and for the book itself, it is sufficiently detailed by the title.

This work appears to have been the foundation of another, built on the same plan, but considerably enlarged. The author was Edward Bysshe; who, in 1702, published an Art of English Poetry. The part relating to prosody is contained in three chapters, under these heads: "1. Of the structure of English verses.

2. Of rhyme.-3. Of the several sorts of poems and compositions in verse." His manner of treating these

bore Ausus idem."

In 1679, Samuel Woodford, DD. published a Paraphrase on the Canticles and Hymns; and in the preface made certain observations on the structure of English verse; which are mentioned, not so much for any thing remarkable in his criticism, as for his high commendation, at the period, of Milton's Paradise Lost; though he would rather " it had been composed in rhyme."

About the same time another work came out, comprising some principles

dical nor comprehensive; it presents, however, some useful information, and though perhaps no versifier of the present day may seek from this author "Rules for making English Verse" (for so he entitles this portion of his volume), it continued for above half a century to be a popular book. It also provided a farther help to verse-makers, by a plentiful magazine, or Dictionary of Rhymes. But the bulk of his performance was made up of a Collection of the most natural, agreeable, and noble Thoughts, &c. that are

to be found in the best English poets. Now, if the execution of this part be compared with the promise of its title, he will be found to deserve little commendation. The number of poets, from whom he professes to have formed his selection, are fortythree. Of these, more than a third part are either men of no name, as Stonestreet, Stafford, Harvey; or of no distinguished reputation in poetry, as Walsh, Tate, Stepney, Dennis, and others. Then the selection is made so unequally, that three of his number, viz. Cowley, Butler's Hudibras, and Dryden, have furnished him with at least three-fifths of the whole. In fact, he had very little knowledge of our poets, even of those who lived and wrote but fourscore years before himself; as will appear from this statement. Ellis, in his Specimens of the Early English Poets, has given extracts from upwards of forty authors, in the reigns of Charles the First and Second, not one of whom is mentioned in Bysshe's catalogue. Here is another proof of the same. He affirms that "we have no entire works composed in verses of twelve syllables;" he must therefore have been unacquainted with Drayton.

Not long after Glover's Leonidas appeared, Dr. Pemberton, a great friend of the author, published Observations on Poetry, especially epic, occasioned by the late poem on Leonidas, 1738. The versification of that poem is very regular; and the design of the observations, in part, is to justify and extol that regularity; which, in an instance or two, is done without foundation. The sixth section of the Observations is upon the principles of verse; and here, his singular notions, and the severe rules he would establish, might startle and discourage a young poet. He disallows all licence, all irregularity. He asserts that no irregular composition of feet is by any means necessary towards that variety which is required in the longest work. With the same rigour he pronounces upon the last syllables of verses; and commends Glover for closing his lines with a firm and stable syllable, which, he says, is necessary to support the dignity of the verse; and which Milton now and then ne

The foregoing censure on Milton may warrant the mention here (though not exactly in chronological order) of Tyrwhitt's Essay on the Versification of Chaucer, which contains much learned research into the nature and origin of our poetical measures; but which, in regard to the structure of our verse, advances some positions that are very questionable, to say the least of them; as in this passage: "On the tenth (or rhyming) syllable, a strong accent is in all cases indispensably required; and in order to make the line tolerably harmonious, it seems necessary that at least two more of the even syllables should be accented, the fourth being (almost always) one of them. Milton, however, has not subjected his verse even to these rules; and particularly, either by negligence or design, he has frequently put an unaccented syllable in the fourth place. See Paradise Lost, book iii. 36, 586; book v. 413, 750, 874," Essay, p. 62.

To make this statement respecting Milton, is to show very little attention to his manner of versification; and to put it as a doubt whether he did not, through negligence, set an unaccented syllable in the fourth place of his line, is to doubt whether he was not grossly negligent in that point throughout all his poem; since he has done so no less than three times within the first seven lines:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste