ed performance of Célimine, which she is to act for the first time on Monday next. The chased silvergilt soupière at her side is a newyear's present for Monsieur le Redacteur. The article will not appear. Her performance will be cited as a model de grace, d'intelligence, et d'esprit.

That?-Hush! turn away, or he will call us out for merely looking at him. 'Tis Z―, the celebrated duellist. Yesterday he wounded General de B, the day before he killed M. de C, and he has an affair on hand for to-morrow. To-day he goes about distributing sugar-plums, as in duty bound, for c'est un homme très aimable.

I don't know either of the two gentlemen who are kissing both sides of each other's faces, bowing, and exchanging little paper packets. The very old man passing close to them, in a single-breasted faded silk coat, the colour of which once was appleblossom, is the younger brother of the Comte de He is on his way to pay his annual visit to Mademoiselle who was his mistress some years before the breaking out of the Revolution. He stops to purchase a bouquet composed of violets and roses-Violets and roses on New Year's Day!-his accustomed present. His visit is not one of affection scarcely of friendship-c'est une affaire d'habitude.

I am of your opinion, that Mademoiselle Entrechat, the opera-dancer, is extraordinarily ugly, and of opinion with every one else, that she is a fool. She is handsome enough, however, in the estimation of our countryman, Sir XY(who is economizing in Paris), because she dances, and has just sense enough to dupe him-very little is sufficient, Heaven knows! He is now on his way to her with a splendid Cachemire and a few rouleaus. "Vraiment, les Anglais sont charmants." The poor simpleton believes she means it, and sputters something in unintelligible French in reply; at which Mademoiselle's Brother swears a big oath, that Monsieur l'Anglais a de l'esprit comme

quatre. Sir X Y invites him to dinner, but the Captain makes it a rule to dine with his sister on New Year's Day. O! if some of our poor, simple countrymen could but see be hind the curtain ! but 'tis their affair, not mine.

In that cabriolet is an actress who wants to come out at the Comic Opera. What could have put it into her head that Monsieur L- who has a voice potential in the Theatrical Senate, has just occasion for a breakfast-service in Sevres porcelaine !

Behind is a hackney-coach-full of little figurantes, who have clubbed together for the expense of it. They are going to etrenner the Balletmaster. One does not like to dance in the rear where no body can see her; another is anxious to dance seule; a third, the daughter of my washerwoman, is sure she could act Nina, if they would but let her try; a fourth wants the place of ouvreuse de loges for her maman who sells roasted chesnuts at yonder corner. They offer their sugar-plums, but, alas! they lack the gilding. Never despair, young ladies. Emigration is not yet at an end; economy is the order of the day in England, and Paris is the place for economising in. Next year, perhaps, you too may be provided with eloquent douceurs to soften the hearts of the rulers of your dancing destinies.

So then, it may be asked, is all this visiting, and kissing, and present-making, and sugar-plumizing, to be set down, either to the account of sheer interest, or to that of heartless form! Partly to the one, perhaps, partly to the other, and some part of it to a kinder principle than either. But, be it as it may, motives of interest receive a decent covering from the occasion; these heartless forms serve to keep society together; and, without philosophising the matter,-let it be set down that, of all the days in the year, none is so perfect a holiday as New Year's Day in Paris.

P*.

ALTHOUGH the art of English poetry has been long and diligently cultivated, in every species of composition, and every kind of measure that our language will admit, it would be difficult to point out any complete treatise of English prosody, or account of the nature of our verse, as yet existing among us. There are not indeed wanting writers, who have treated of the subject; but they, have either touched upon it inci dentally, or considered it partially, without giving that full and satisfactory information which would supersede the propriety of any future attempt. Upon this account it is proposed, in the following pages, to investigate and explain the principles of our versification, and to give a more systematic English prosody than has hitherto been made public. - Another reason might also be alleged for engaging in the task which is here undertaken. Our English writers of the present age are indeed seldom deficient greatly in the art of versification; but there are certain popular works in circulation, which, though, in other respects, of great merit, are composed in verse of so loose a structure, and with such unwarrantable licences, that, if they should obtain many imitators (they already have some) we might relapse again into ignorance of true poetical measures; and the art " to build the lofty rhyme" might fall into disuse and be forgotten. I allude to some of the poems of Sir Walter Scott, and of Dr. Southey, the poet laureat; and to such measures as these:

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight,
When the broken arches are black in sight,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white ;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

These lines, which are found in the Second Canto of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, are evidently composed after the manner of our ancient ballad-makers; and they are perhaps allowable in this work, because they are not unsuitable to the character of the minstrel, nor to his subject, which is a ballad. But the same loose measures and licences abound in his greater piece, his Marmion, where they are entirely destitute of the same excuse. They have no congruity with his subject; indeed, they are in direct opposition to it. The dignity of an heroic poem requires an heroic measure of verse; and an author could hardly debase his subject more by celebrating his hero's exploits in eight syllable (that is, four feet) lines, than if he had represented the hero himself as only four feet high.

Demetrius Phalereus, in his Treatise on Elocution, has a section expressly on this head. Having observed that a length of phrase is admissible and proper for grand subjects, of which he gives an example from Plato, he adds, "therefore the Hexameter is called the heroic verse because of its length, as being suitable to heroes: for no man would think of writing the Iliad of Homer in the short lines of Archilochus, such as

Τις σας παρήειρε φρένας,

Who now has enchanted her eyes? nor in those of Anacreon,

Φερ' ύδωρ, φερ' οικον, ὦ παι

Bring me water, bring me wine, boy; which is a measure of verse for a tippling old man, and not for a warlike hero."-Sect. 5.

The judgment which Dryden passed on Butler is applicable here. "The choice of his numbers (says he, in the Dedication prefixed to his Translation of Juvenal) is suitable enough

die;

When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's

grave.

has managed it; but in any other hand the shortness of his verse, and the quick returns of rhyme, had debased the dignity of style.""

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 syllables, 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 natu rally become the speech best," to avoid breaking his Latin rules. Un der all these discouragements, how ever, 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 volume 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 depressed, 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 syllables 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.

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:

4. The elegiac, this he calls a compound number, and to form it takes two lines,

Constant to none, but ever false to me,

sires.

5, 6, 7. These numbers are still more compounded; they are (as he says)" fit for ditties and odes, and may be called lyrical;" in short, they are stanzas containing four or five lines each, which it is here unneces❤ sary to transcribe.