Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/226

180 three or four more syllables than others, to which they form the counterpart, and which are read in the same measure, with increased pleasure for the variation.

The same observation may apply to English verse, though perhaps not so fully. Many of our syllables containing shortly sounded vowels, such as a Hebrew scholar might call Sheva and its compounds, pronounced distinctly, but two in the time of an ordinary syllable, may be found to give an elegance to the line, which would sound faulty with only one of them. But we may go further, and observe, that as in music the melody may be continued by the pause, instead of a note in the bar, so in a line, a pause with one or more long syllables may have the effect of a syllable, instead of the sound or foot to make up the measure. Readers of poetry will not require to be reminded of instances of this adaptation of sounds, and if they notice any such lines in these translations, they will perceive that they have been written in accordance with the precepts referred to.

It must be acknowledged, that in the generality of his poems, Martinez de la Rosa has not risen to any such height of sublimity or fancy as to give him a place in the superior class of poets. But one of the latest critical writers, Ferrer del Rio, who has given a more disparaging estimate of his poetical talents than justice might award, pronounces the 'Epistle to the Duke de Frias' as a composition for which "judges the most grave and least complaisant might place him on the top of Parnassus." The 'Remembrance of Spain,' Del Rio declares to be poor in images, without feeling or depth, but with much of pastoral innocency. The 'Return to Spain' is, according to him, a mere itinerary of his travels, more than an expression of pleasure on escaping from past evil. But in the 'Epistle to the Duke de Frias,' he finds "true-felt inspiration, an appropriate expression, and a plan well traced