of the trochee. This is a remnant of the old construction of the line, as we have already seen (66), and is admitted by the Italian into every foot but the last, and even two are allowed to stand together, as in the very first line of Tasso's epic. Milton, who was so deeply imbued with Italian poetry, and had a pedantic turn, accordingly admits it indiscriminately, as in "Paradise Lost:"

Shoots invisible virtue e'en to the deep.-iii. 587.
In the visions of God. It was a hill.-xi. 377.
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of his dart.-Ib.

The English construction of the line, however, commonly rejects the foot, except in the first place. Pope is fond of it here. It gives a brisk start to the verse, as in "Essay on Man,” i. :—

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.

But there is commonly a pause, either in the first foot, as in the above lines, or after it, as in Dryden, "Palamon and Arcite :"

Serious in aspect, earnest in their talk.

Such a line as

Poverty breaketh noble hearts in twain,

however common in dramatic poetry, will hardly be found in the school of Dryden and Pope.

Once admitted in the first place, it would gain admission into the places following the cæsuras (48), where however it seldom occurs except in older writers and dramatic poets.

71. Admitting the above licence, as also that of the double and triple termination, and that of trisyllabic feet in any part of the line, dramatic writers have formed a characteristic measure, differing from that of the heroic much in the same way as the comic trimeter differed from the tragic. It may be brought thus to the very verge of prose, as we may see from the arrangement of parts of Spectator," No. 459:

66

For instance, in that disputable point,
Of persecuting men for conscience' sake,
Besides embittering their minds with hatred.

Distress their fortunes, hurt their reputations,
Ruin their families, make their lives painful,
Or put an end to them. Sure when I see-

*

It is to be regretted, therefore, that our comic poets should have composed in prose rather than in this loose metre. The difference of trouble to the author would have been slight, while that of literary value is incalculable. He would communicate an ideal cast, which never should be wanting, even

to the most familiar representation of human life, be it even the joke of a clown. At the same time also we lament to find how inferior is such a strain to that which the Greek comic metre breathes, maintaining the poetical and ideal cast of the tragic down to the lowest relaxation of its form. It can never fall into prose, nor can prose ever rise into it. But it maintains a character in exact harmony with its subject, and with nothing else. Indeed this measure of ours and the trimeter may be considered as no very inaccurate exponents of the nature of the two theatres, which is as different as the statues of Apollo and Silenus are from those of Newton and Sutor John. Such considerations only illustrate still more its defectiveness as a measure for heroic poetry, without borrowing help from such an extrinsical source as stanzaic arrangement. Its highest pitch should not carry it higher than moral poetry and conversation, beyond which even the trimeter did not aspire, except in the narratives of messengers in tragedy. But we are anticipating considerations which will be entered upon more at large presently.

91

CHAPTER X.

ON THE PAUSES OF THE VARIOUS TETRAMETERS

72. We have seen that in proportion to the length of the line the cæsuras become more marked, until they obtain all the force of closes, and the line breaks into two (64). The Greek, therefore, polysyllabic though it was, and from that cause demanding much more room for a sentence than English, and therefore also a longer range of verse, never pushed its metre beyond eight feet, or even quite so far, but stopped within a syllable or half a foot of it, as in the tetrameters composed of the iambus, of the trochee, of the anapast. So marked are the cæsuras in these, that it will be sufficient merely to quote examples in each: :

Επίσχες ἐν ταῖς ἀσπίσιν· [ λαβὴν γὰρ ἐνδέδωκας.

Equit. 844.

Ω βαθυζώνων ἄνασσα | Περσίδων ὑπερτάτη.

Pers. 158.

Λέγε θαῤῥήσας ὡς τὰς σπονδὰς ] οὐ μὴ πρότερον παραβῶμεν.

Aves. 461.

The other pauses, though not all equally constant, are sufficiently obvious after all that has been already stated, and therefore nothing remains for remark but the fact of these cæsuras occurring after complete feet, so that the latter part of the line is an echo to the former, as we saw was the case in the Alexandrine (62). It is, however, inevitable, from the peculiar length of the line, which naturally breaks at those points. Nor can we find fault with it, but on the contrary we feel how admirably such a monotonous repetition suits the uses to which the Greeks commonly put those measures, namely, to carrying on scenes peculiarly occupied with tragic agitation or comic bustle, which would be much heightened by language so strongly marked in intonation. But it should be observed, that no whole poems, but only parts in subordination, are composed in these measures, if we except the earliest tragedy, of which however no remains exist. Nothing shows more than this the nice discrimination and exquisite taste of the Greeks, whose genius gradually formed a language so flexible in all its departments, as to vary and give the proper expression to every mode of thought, as to whole and to parts. struct a building, in which the

They can conkitchen shows

without vulgarity that it is the kitchen, as much as the chapel shows with all solemnity that it is