Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/641

 Reviews and Notes 637 enough, with Cowley, whose influence did so much to determine the development of the form; though it might be wished that the story had been carried on to Congreve and the beginning of the reaction in favor of regularity. Of special significance are the matters of the source and the poetic values of Cowley's irregular rhythmic form, and it may be well to say a word in detail regarding each of these subjects. Dr. Shafer has given no little attention to the antecedents of the vers libres of the English Pindarists, and includes, to this end, a compendious and much-needed sketch of the earlier history of free lyric rhythms; in particular, he gives interesting evidence for the influence of Crashaw on Cowley in this respect. He further brings evidence against the statement of Mr. Gosse (which has been followed by a number of later writers, including the pre- sent reviewer) that Cowley had misunderstood the structure of the odes of Pindar. 1 On the other hand he probably ex- aggerates the relative importance of the earlier English experi- ments in irregular verse; for most of them do not bear a very close resemblance to Cowley's, and his arrangement of such verses in strophes which bear a certain superficial resemblance to Pindar's, taken together with his adaptation of them to the formal ode, suggests that he believed himself to be obtaining a rough equivalent in effect both to eye and ear. 2 As to the esthetic effects of Cowley's irregular cadences, Dr. Shafer has almost nothing to say; and this is unfortunate, when one considers that they must have made a strong im- pression on writers of the next generation, and indirectly affected ode rhythms down to our own time. Take for example the combination asas, or, as it might be called, the 5+3 ca- dence: we find it in Cowley's ode on "The Resurrection," Then shall the scattered atoms crowding come Back to their ancient home, in Dryden's Killigrew Ode, Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse In no ignoble verse, 1 This is primarily a question of Cowley's Greek scholarship and of the character of the editions accessible to him, matters to which Mr. Gosse might have been presumed to have given due consideration, but apparently he did not. Dr. Shafer's other reason, based on Cowley's remarks in his Preface regarding the "regular feet and measures" of his original, is, I think, quite apart from the question; that is, it has nothing to do with "the choral divisions of the Greek triad." No one has ever supposed that Cowley did not know that Pindar's "feet and measures" were quite different from his own. 2 Dr. Shafer need not, therefore, have laughed (by means of an exclamation point) at Saintsbury's mention of Pindar and the Greek choruses as among Cowley's "patterns."