think, we may account for the successive changes, as well as improvements, which so often take place in poems that afford a wide scope to the language of the writer, and which cannot be always attributed to inexperience, or want of practice; as in the different editions of the Seasons* *The authority of Dr. Johnson has given currency to an opinion, that the Seasons of Thomson have not been much improved by the successive alterations of every fresh edition. He says, that they lost that raciness which they at first possessed. This opinion, I may venture to say, is by no means correct. They improved very much and very rapidly in the course of the second and third edition; so much so, that I have often been struck, in reading them in the different stages of their improvement, with the uncommon change which must have taken place in the taste of the author during so short a period. For this change, in some degree, I can now account satisfactorily; as I possess an interleaved copy of the Seasons (of the edition 1736) which belonged to Thomson, with his own alterations; and, with numerous alterations and additions by Pope, in his own writing. Almost all the amendments made by Pope, were adopted by Thomson in the last edition; and many lines in the Seasons, as they now stand, are Pope's own composition. The last four lines of the tale of Palæmon and Lavinia are Pope's entirely: "The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine! If to the various blessings which thy house on me lavish'd Has shower'd upon me, thou that bliss wilt add, dearest That sweetest bliss, the power of blessing thee!" The four lines which Thomson wrote, and which stood in the place of these, in the printed edition of 1736, were: "With harvest shining all the fields are thine! And, if my wishes may presume so far, In the same episode, Thomson had printed the following lines: Recluse among the woods; if city-dames Will deign their faith: and thus she went compell'd of Thomson, the Pleasures of Imagination by Akenside, the English Garden by Mason, and other poems. In these, the reader will observe, that it is not always the error or omission in the subject, but the unexhausted fancy of the poet, that leads to the alteration. It is mentioned as a saying of Pope's, by the younger Richardson the painter, "that in Garth's poem of The Dispensary, there was hardly an alteration, of the innumerable ones through every edition, that was not for the better.”* By strong Necessity, with as serene And pleas'd a look as Patience e'er put on, To glean Palæmon's fields." These lines Pope erased, and wrote the following in their place, which now stand in the subsequent editions: "Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self. Recluse among the close embowering woods. deep As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills A myrtle rises, far from human eyes, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild: So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all, The 259th line of this episode now stands: "And as he view'd her ardent, o'er and o'er:" But in the edition of 1736, it is somewhat comically expressed: "Then blaz'd his smother'd flame, avow'd and bold, And as he run her ardent, o'er and o'er," &c. This however Thomson himself altered. * See Richardsoniana, p. 195, note. "A work" (says Richardson) "that has had a great were But in the didactic poems mentioned above, their looser measures * opened at intervals to receive, not so much the corrections of the writer's judgement, as the overflowings of his imagination; and in this respect, they may perhaps be compared to those structures built by Saxon or Saracenic architects, which may be added to, or diminished, without destroying the integrity of the whole. In such poems there is so little artificial confinement of the verse, that the alterations which may be introduced at the will of the poet, are almost endless: and I think something akin to this will be acknowledged by any one, who, being much accustomed to the stricter habits of versification, for the first time begins to devote his attention, to composition in prose. Dryden said, that the verse of four feet,t that in which Hudibras, and the Fables of Gay, and many lyrical vogue, and which is afterwards altered by the writer himself, is generally thought at first to be altered for the worse; as was the case with Garth's Dispensary. People had been so accustomed to read it over and over, and even to repeat whole passages by heart, of the first edition, that their ear could not bear the change, and they thought it was their judgement. We now see fairly, that every edition was for the better." See Pack's Miscellanies, p. 102. * See Dryden's Prolegomena to his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, p. 13, ed. Malone. "The great easiness of blank verse, renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted; or at least be shut up in fewer words. But when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, when the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense in such words that the rhyme shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgement to come in, which, seeing so heavy a tax imposed, is ready to cut off all unnecessary expenses. This last consideration has already answered an objection which some have made; that rhyme is only an embroidery of sense, to make that which is ordinary in itself, pass for excellent with less examination. But certainly that which most regulates the fancy, and gives the judgement its busiest employment, is like to bring forth the richest and clearest thoughts." Almost all the old metrical romances or tales are written in short metre. Some, like 'Kynge Horne,' in verse of three feet only: a form of verse since used by Skelton. The assistance which this short measure, with the frequently recurring rhyme, must have given to the memory, could be no slight inducement for its continuance. The quick return of the VOL. I. n compositions are written, did not give him room to turn round in. “I would prefer," he says, "the verse of ten syllables, which we call the English heroic, to that of eight. This is truly my opinion, for this sort of number is more roomy; the thought can turn itself with greater ease in a larger compass. When the rhyme comes too thick upon us, it straitens the expression. We are thinking of the close, when we should be employed in adorning the thought. It makes a poet giddy with turning in a space too narrow for his imagination; he loses many beauties, without gaining one advantage. Certain it is that a short measure, such as has been just described, when once clothed in words, will hardly bear any transposition or alteration: it must be left almost as it was created; or, if touched, must be modelled entirely anew.† Indeed the difficulty of rhyme also supplied the necessity of inverted phrase, and ornamented language; and was almost the only distinction, between verse and prose. When this was found tedious from the length of the poems, and when variety was demanded, the stanza with the alternate rhyme (the rime entrelacée) was introduced. To this cause may be attributed the use of rhyme in the Latin language, in what are called Leonine verses. When the "Bards of those degenerate days" could no longer support the verse by its proper materials of ornamented diction, graceful rythm, and varied cæsura, they called in the assistance of rhyme; and when rhyme was once used, all attention to the other part of the versification, became absorbed, and lost in the importance of the final word. * See Dryden's Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of Satire, vol. iv. p. 208, ed. Malone. One of the most pleasing examples of the harmony and variety of cadence that can be given to the verse of four feet, is "the Death of the Fawn," by Andrew Marvell. Much of this arises from the pause taking place in the middle, and not at the end of the line. Through the whose of this beautiful little poem, the pauses are skilfully varied, and the effect produced is excellent. Milton has varied the cadence of verse in his Penseroso and Allegro by other methods: his pauses almost invariably occur at the end of the line. Dyer introduced the triplet very happily indeed into his Grongar Hill for the same purpose. The Italian sonnet has, I believe, been called the touchstone of genius; and it certainly cannot be composed successfully by any one who has not learned to confine his thoughts in effecting any alteration in the lyrical stanza, with its confinement of metre and condensation of language, more especially if we also add the stricter construction by strophè and antistrophè, may be proved by any one who should attempt to vary the lines in The Bard, or other poems of Gray. Passages in any part of The Seasons might be introduced with facility; but how difficult would it be to supply, with any degree of satisfaction, the last stanza of the poem to Mr. Bentley; and how indifferently has even the poetical taste of Mr. Mason succeeded in his supplement to the Ode on Vicissitude! If such had been Gray's habitual mode of composition in his lyrical verses, he would of course carry it to his poems of another form; and the additional difficulty which it would create in them, may partly account for the unfinished state, in which he left all those poems that are written clear and concise language. "La brevita del sonetto (says Lorenzo de Medici) non comporte, che una sola parola sia vana.” And so Boileau, in his L'Art Poetique, ii. 89: "Sur tout de ce Poëme il bannit la license; Ni qu'un mot déja mis, osât s'y remontrer. Un sonnet sans défauts, vaut seul un long poëme." This was a favourite species of composition with our elder poets, who derived their taste from Italy; with Spenser, Drayton, Daniel, and Drummond of Hawthornden. Milton was the last, I believe, of our old poets, who practised this species of composition; nor am I aware, that it was revived by any one before Gray wrote his beautiful Sonnet on the Death of West.' It certainly had no charms for Dryden or for Pope. * The unfinished poem on the Alliance of Education and Government,' Mr. Mason remarks, "opens with two similes, an uncommon kind of an exordium;" but which he supposes the poet intentionally chose, to intimate the analogical method he meant to pursue in his subsequent reasonings. The younger Racine, in his Reflexions sur la Poesie, p.79, has touched |