best poem that could be written in these metres would only be a parody, or at best, an imitation. Rhythm will be perfect or imperfect according as the words are correctly or incorrectly accented; for, though the poet may change the accent of a word by the place in which he puts it in a line, he may be assured that the reader will not do so. A few examples of incorrect accent will illustrate this: These are my own loved native hills, Neither of these lines agrees with its corresponding line. You get "verdant" against "each old," and "and dearly" against "these are." All the harmony of the verse is destroyed by the lame feet. Another example, also from a published song: I used to dream in childhood Of the gay green wood to-morrow, And days and nights brought happiness, The penultima of the last line disagrees with its fellow, and this infringes one of the canons of poetry. A few more lines, with their corresponding lines, will be sufficient to warn the student against falling into similar errors: Exchange, or Eld, their points discuss, O'er the remains of geni-us. Then, let us not mourn that the flower was borne: She blooms 'neath Mercy's radiant morn. I would not see thee when thy cheek To count the days since thou wert seen. NOTE.-Mr. George L. Craik, whose position, as "Professor of History and of English Literature," in Queen's College, Belfast, entitles him to respectful consideration, has stated, in his "English of Shakspeare," a somewhat strange, and I venture to think, very original theory. He says, "The mechanism of verse is a thing altogether distinct from the music of verse. The one is a matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling." If this be so, and the taste and feeling are not expressed in accordance with the "matter of rule," what becomes of the music? "But, then," says Mr. Craik,"music is not an absolute necessity of verse. There are cases in which it is not even an excellence or desirable ingredient," and it is upon this that I must beg to join issue with him.* adds, "No rules can be given for the production of music;" and if by the "production" he means the "composition" of music, in the same sense that he means the making of poetry, to this I He * "The poet, briefly described, is he whose existence constitutes a new experience, who sees life newly, assimilates it emotionally, and contrives to utter it musically. His qualities, therefore, are triune. His sight must be individual, his reception of impressions must be emotional, and his utterance must be musical; deficiency in any one of these qualities is fatal to his claims for office."-David Gray and other essays. ROBERT BUCHANAN. The last example outrages both rhyme and metre, but it is, alas! a "modern instance" of Magazine poetry (?) reply, that no music can be composed unless by rule, governed by the laws of harmony, which are fixed and defined, as, no doubt, the Professor of that art at Queen's College, Belfast, would have told his learned colleague, had he taken the trouble to inquire. Mr. Craik, however, in a sentence a little further on, contradicts himself, for he continues, "The mechanical law, or form, is universally indispensable. It is that which constitutes the verse. It may be regarded as the substance; musical character, as the accident or ornament." This is not so. However fine might be the words employed, the sentiments expressed, unless the mechanical law is complied with, a discord would be produced, and there would be no music. It is the harmony of the line, as expressed by the "mechanical law or form," that makes the music, i.e. makes the perfect verse. CHAPTER IV. ON STYLE. TYLE, in poetry, must always remain a matter of individual taste and feeling. As there is no positive standard of beauty, so is there no arbitrary test of art; but there are certain conventional forms which we accept as substitutes, and certain models by which we are enabled to make comparisons. It is generally admitted that poetry differs from prose and the ordinary language of conversation, not alone by the measures and rhymes which constitute its outer framework, but by those figures of speech, metaphors, images, and lingual ornaments by which it is embellished. Wordsworth alone, of all our poets, has endeavoured to establish a different doctrine, and to recommend that poetry should be formed "as far as possible of a selection of the language really spoken by men. This would be to form mere rhyme; and where this plan has been adopted, we at once see the distinction between good poetry and bald verse. Wordsworth himself was too much of a poet to carry out, in the greater part of his writings, his own plan. Much did it taunt the humbler Light That now, when day was fled, and night 99 is not the sort of language "really spoken by men ;' nor do men in ordinary conversation use such exclamations as "And lo!" "Much did it," "Maternal Flora," “Behold the mighty morn, "Ah me!" "Forth sprang, ""Thou knowest," "Fame tells, 66 'Hail, orient conquerer ! all of which are proper to poetry, and occur within a few pages of one of Wordsworth's numerous volumes. Again, in ordinary conversation, and in elegant prose writing, a man says all that he has got to say upon a subject, explaining it clearly and precisely; but in poetry the effect is produced, not so much by what is expressed in absolute words, as by what the words suggest, by the ideas which they convey, and the feelings and associations that may spring from them. Poetry should excite emotion in the breast of the reader, and to effect this the poet must lift him into the realms of imagination, dazzling him by its grandeur; or he must open his heart to him, and by tenderness, grace, fancy, feeling, and pathos, awake in that of his reader a kindred spell. The styles of poetry are various. For FIRE, DASH, ACTION, Scott may be taken as an example. Scott, inspired by the olden ballads, of which he was an enthusiastic student, selected for his ground a field that had long lain fallow. He brushed the cobwebs |