pion trusted to the precision of his rhythm. His attempts are not, I think, such failures, as to merit the almost total oblivion, into which they have now fallen; but the examination of them belongs more properly to the next chapter. I shall, at present, call the reader's attention to an experiment by Coleridge, which is more in Milton's manner, and in which he seems to have had the same object* in view as Campion-namely the invention of a lyrical metre, which could support itself without the aid of rhime.

The following lines are addressed "To a cataract from a cavern, near the summit of a mountain precipice."

Unperfishing youth|,

STROPHE.

Thou leapest from forth]

The cell of thy hidden nativity!

Nevler mortal saw|

The cradle of the strong one,

Nevler mortal heard

The gathering of | his voicles

The deep-murmur'd charm | of the son of the rock,
Which is lisp'd | evermore], at his slum berless fountain.
There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veill,
At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing;

It embos oms the roses of dawn],

It entangles the shafts | of the noon|,

And in to the bed of its stillness

The moon light sinks down, as in slumber

That the son of the rock], that the nurse ling of heaven
May be born in a holly twilight.

ANTISTROPHE.

The wild goat in awe
Looks up and beholds]

1 See Quart. Rev. 110. art 24.

Above thee the cliff | inaccessible !

Thou at once | full-born

Mad d'nest in thy joylance,

Whirl est, shatter'st, splitt'st,

Life invulnerable!'

Here Coleridge attempts what Milton carefully avoided, a division into Strophe and Antistrophe. His failure, which he seems to have acknowledged by leaving the Antistrophe unfinished, shews the wisdom of Milton's forbearance. When the rhythm is left, almost without metrical restraint, to follow each change of sentiment or of feeling, we look for exquisite felicity of cadence. But, when the same rhythm is applied to different subjects, or to different divisions of the same subject, we can hardly hope it will adapt itself, with equal happiness, to both. The accommodation of the subject to the rhythm in the Antistrophe, is a matter of infinitely greater difficulty than the accommodation of the rhythm to the subject in the Strophe. Coleridge's rhythm in the three first lines of his Antistrophe, agrees so ill with his subject, as barely to escape the charge of burlesque.

1 I have an indistinct recollection of having seen this ode elsewhere. Is it not copied, or at least imitated from the German ?

CHAPTER X.

METRICAL EXPERIMENTS.

Few of our metres have been invented by the men who used them. The poet adopted, it may be with slight modifications, the rhythms which he found established in popular favour; and variety was obtained, either by the gradual working of such slight but continued changes, or by the introduction of foreign novelties (the church-hymns, or songs of the Troubadour, for example,) which, by fixing popular attention, at length obtained an influence over our native rhythms.

But, during the last three centuries, various attempts have been made to originate new forms of English metre; and the sixteenth century was particularly fruitful in these experiments. One of the most remarkable was the attempt made to imitate, in accentual verse, the temporal rhythms of the classical poets.

The "rhythmus" of the middle ages seems to have succeeded to the "metrum," by a very simple and natural process. The ancient Goth and Celt were probably as unconscious as ourselves of any metrical harmony, resulting from the disposition of long and short syllables. The only property of the classical verse they could appreciate, must have been the arrangement of the syllables, on which fell the sharp tone and the ictus. The laws, which regulated the position of these syllables, were sufficiently de

finite (at least among the later Latin poets) to give very clear notions of rhythmical proportion. The monk, therefore, though in his rhythmus he neglected the quantity of his syllables, gave to his verse all the properties, which his ear had been taught to recognise in the classical metrum.

But in the experiments, which have been made during the last three centuries, a very different course has been followed. Instead of the accent representing the sharp tone, or the ictus, it has been considered as a substitute for the long quantity. The vague notions which prevailed as to the nature of accent, long kept out of sight the difficulties, that necessarily flowed from such a condition. Accentual spondees were talked of, without the least suspicion of absurdity, and though there was much difference of opinion as to many of the examples quoted, yet all seem to have admitted that such a combination of accents was possible. When at last it was discovered, that accented syllables could not come together without the intervention of a pause, it was holden, that a "spondee" might in all cases be represented by a "trochee." In this way, much of the difficulty that stood in the way of these experiments was got rid of; and certainly by aid of such substitution all the most serious obstacles were removed. Still, however, the experiments did not succeed, and it may be well to notice some of the causes, which probably led to this result.

In the Latin "rhythmus," the middle pause was the pivot on which the whole verse turned; in the later imitations it was almost wholly neglected. The omission was more particularly felt in the longer verses, such as the Hexameter. According to analogy, the English hexameter should have adopted the favourite pause of the classical, and have divided after the first (or, in case of the trochaic casura, the second) syllable of the third

metre.

Again, in our English hexameters (which were the most

common, and by far the most important of these classical imitations) the rhythm was, for the most part, much too loose. It followed the triple rather than the common measure, and, as there was seldom any pause to rest upon, the reader was hurried forward by the "breathless dactyles," as Hall sneeringly calls them. When this galloping rhythm was checked by the " drawling spondees," the flow of the verse too often resembled that of the tumbling metres, and was open to a criticism, which has been attributed to Wordsworth; it was "too little metrical at the beginning of a line, and too much so at the close."

If it be urged, that German hexameters but seldom take the pause, and generally incline to the triple measure, it might be answered, that we are not arguing against the possibility of writing English hexameters with loose rhythm, and without any settled pause, but merely pointing out some of the causes which have contributed to their failure. I will, however, confess I have seen few German hexameters which, to my ear, were satisfactory; and though it is hard to say whither association may not lead us, I think it must be difficult, even for a German, to connect any notions of dignity with a rhythm, so loose and tumbling.

But the great objection to our English hexameters is one, that rarely attaches to the German-I mean false accentuation. A false accent is always objectionable, however precise the rhythm may be, and however familiar to the reader; but if this kind of "license" be taken, when the rhythm is loose and new to the reader, what means has he of following the writer? The only clue, which can guide him through the labyrinth, is then broken.

Now in few kinds of metre have we more of false accentuation than in these "classical imitations." Spenser and his contemporaries were led to it, by confounding the rules of Latin and English prosody. In one of his letters he gives it as his opinion, that such words as carpenter, in which