CHAP. XIV.

HERMANN, IN IGNORANCE OF PORSON'S STRENGTH, PUBLISHES A RIVAL

EDITION OF THE HECUBA."- -HIS REMARKS ON PORSON AND WAKE

FIELD. HIS NOTIONS ABOUT THE ADMISSIBILITY OF ANAPESTS INTO TRAGIC TRIMETER IAMBICS.- -ELMSLEY'S REMARK ON THE SUBJECT. PORSON'S "PAUSE." HERMANN ATTEMPTS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE NECESSITY OF IT. ELMSLEY AGREES WITH HERMANN. - - HERMANN'S REASONS APPARENTLY FANCIFUL.-PORSON DISPLEASED AT HERMANN'S HOW THEY AFTERWARDS REGARDED

DISRESPECTFUL STRICTURES.

EACH OTHER.-REMARKS ON HERMANN IN THE QUARTERLY REVIEW." HERMANN'S CONTEMPTUOUS MENTION OF HEATH AND BENTLEY. LETTERS TO PORSON FROM HERMANN AND HEYNE.

BUT a more considerable antagonist than Wakefield was rising against Porson on the other side of the Channel; a man, says Kidd, neque meo judicio stultus et suo valde sapiens. Gottfried Hermann, then a very young member of the University of Leipsic, had published, in 1789, a treatise on the metres of the Greek and Latin poets, and was preparing to put forth an edition of the "Nubes" of Aristophanes, which appeared in 1799. Meeting with Porson's edition of the "Hecuba," he could not but see that it had much merit, but observing that Porson, in his preface, had proposed his dicta regarding the metres without much proof, and seeing that many of them were contrary to his own notions of what was allowable, he resolved, in entire ignorance of Porson's full strength, to publish a rival edition and preface, in which he might pronounce his opinions, as a superior on an inferior, regarding Porson's emendations and me

trical tenets.

He accordingly mingled with his praise, in his prolegomena and annotations, an abundant quantity of censure. It will be well to quote the commencement of his preface:

"Porson, although he warned his readers to expect from his edition nothing recondite, or of deep research, has yet done such service to Euripides as no one, who is not either unjust, or unskilled in Greek literature, will deny to be eminently worthy of a great critic. But there is one point, and one only indeed, in which he has disappointed the expectation which rumour had excited regarding his publication. He was said to have made many observations relating to the science of metres; a subject which it was the more desirable to illustrate, as the text of Euripides, in this respect especially, is somewhat more difficult of emendation than that of the other tragic writers; but though some remarks, indeed, on this department of classical learning, have been offered by Porson, yet he has chosen to state them arbitrarily and oracularly, rather than with the fulness of explanation which it is the duty of a critic to give. The consequence of this method seems likely to be, that the greater number of those who read the Hecuba' of Porson, considering his character and authority as sufficient supports for his assertions, will be more ready, at least in this department of learning, to yield an implicit assent to his notions than to examine with care what he has somewhat too obscurely delivered. Whatever Porson, therefore, appears to me to have erred in asserting, I have taken upon myself to notice, not, however, for the purpose of censuring him, but for the benefit of those who take an interest in these studies. Nothing absolutely perfect in any respect has ever been produced, we must remember, by any individual of the human race. It is but right, therefore, that we should criticise the performances of others with freedom, nor should we, if we receive censure, be uneasy under it. I do not plead my own cause, but that of literature and knowledge in general.

"I have thought proper, too, to take some notice of the

conjectures of Wakefield, whom Porson has suddenly found, though not an equal, yet a determined, adversary; and who, as he exhibits not less rashness and presumption than ability, and not more exact knowledge of Greek than of Latin, is, though deserving of some consideration, yet quite unworthy to carry such authority as he has gained among my countrymen, who are apt to be too favourable judges of foreigners."

After some remarks on Porson's spelling of certain words, and his adherence to Dawes's canon respecting the unlawfulness of omitting the augment in Attic Greek, a canon which Hermann labours to impugn as far as he is able, he proceeds to attack Porson's dictum regarding the inadmissibility of anapasts into any place of a tragic senarius except the first, and of dactyls into any except the first and third, unless when proper names, which could not be subjected to this rule, were used. He fixes, first of all, on a passage of the preface which must be acknowledged to be indeed vulnerable. Porson says, "So far is it impossible, in my opinion, for an anapæst to constitute the second or fourth foot, that it cannot even constitute the third or the fifth. Whoever admits that this is true with regard to the third foot, will admit à fortiori, as logicians say, that it is true with regard to the fifth; for a dactyl, which is very often used in the third foot, is never seen in the fifth; and therefore the anapæst, if it is excluded from the third, will be excluded from the fifth." This reasoning is not sound, because there might not be the same objection to placing the long syllable of the anapæst before the final iambus as to placing the two short syllables of the dactyl before it. Porson, indeed, only showed that the anapast was not used in the fifth foot,

more.

(or in any foot but the first, except in the case of a proper name,) not that it could not be used; and all who have since written on the subject have shown no Hermann next, in the course of his dissertation, proceeds to argue that an anapæst would be less tolerable in the third place than in the fifth, but a schoolboy may see that what he advances for argument on this point is mere fancy.

His conclusion is, that an anapæst may be admitted indiscriminately into any place of a trimeter iambic; nihil interesse quâ in sede trimetri anapastus occurrat, excepting of course the last; "and therefore," he adds, "if all senarii that present an anapast in the third place are corrupt, it will not from thence be deducible that all those require correction which present anapasts in other positions. If indeed we resolve to eject the anapæst altogether, we must inquire whether it is to be ejected for causes inherent in its own nature, or for causes external to its nature. As to its nature, it must be allowed that though it is not altogether adapted to the gravity of the tragic trimeter, yet that it is not altogether at variance with it, since it is admitted with such frequency in the case of proper names. We must suppose, accordingly, that it was not admitted except under the strong obligation of necessity, as when the poets were compelled to use words for which they could not substitute others; of which kind of words there might not only be proper names, but other words, that could not conveniently be changed, and in the use of such words who would be offended at the introduction of an anapæst?"* We need not follow Hermann's rea*Præf. in Hec. p. xlviii.

soning any further. If Porson did not prove that an anapæst could not be used in a tragic senarius elsewhere than in the first foot, he at least made all scholars believe that it was not elsewhere used. "Should any scholar of the nineteenth century," says Elmsley, "venture to maintain the admissibility of an anapast, not included in a proper name, into any place of a Greek tragic senarius except the first foot, he would assuredly be ranked with those persons, if any such persons remain, who deny the motion of the earth, or the circulation of the blood. Before the appearance of the Preface to the 'Hecuba,' critics were divided into two sects upon this subject; the more rigid of which excluded anapæsts from all the even places, whereas the other admitted them promiscuously into any place except the last. Mr. Porson, p. 6, with his usual strictness in attributing the merit of discoveries and improvements to the right owners, mentions an obscure hint of the true doctrine, which is contained in the preface to Morell's Thesaurus Græca Poëseos."* But that hint fell without effect on all Morell's successors until Porson.

In his note on ver. 343 Porson obscurely indicates his knowledge of that kind of cæsura of the fifth foot which he afterwards called the pause, to distinguish it, as he afterwards said, from the other cæsuras, because a verse which is without any of the other cæsuras is of necessity ill-modulated, but a verse may not strike the ear as ill-modulated which wants the pause. The verse is,

Κρύπτοντα χεῖρα, καὶ πρόσωπον ἔμπαλιν,