Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/896



It appears that the most noted measures of the Greek and Latin poets were not of any simple order, but either composites, or mixtures too various to be called composites. It is not to be denied, that we have much difficulty in reading them rhythmically, according to their stated feet and scansion; and so we should have, in reading our own language rhythmically, in any similar succession of feet. Noticing this in respect to the Latin Hexameter, or Heroic verse, Poe says, "Now the discrepancy in question is not observable in English metres; where the scansion coincides with the reading, so far as the rhythm is concerned&mdash;that is to say, if we pay no attention to the sense of the passage. But these facts indicate a radical difference in the genius of the two languages, as regards their capacity for modulation. In truth, * * * the Latin is a far more stately tongue than our own. It is essentially spondaic; the English is as essentially dactylic."&mdash;Pioneer, p. 110. (See the marginal note in §3d. at Obs. 22d, above.) Notwithstanding this difference, discrepance, or difficulty, whatever it may be, some of our poets have, in a few instances, attempted imitations of certain Latin metres; which imitations it may be proper briefly to notice under the present head. The Greek or Latin Hexameter line has, of course, six feet, or pulsations. According to the Prosodies, the first four of these may be either dactyls or spondees; the fifth is always, or nearly always, a dactyl; and the sixth, or last, is always a spondee: as, "'Lūdĕrĕ \ quǣ vēl\-lēm călă\-mō pēr\-mīsĭt ă\-grēstī.'&mdash;Virg." "'Infān-\dūm, Rē\-gīnă, jŭ\-bēs rĕnŏ\-vārĕ dŏ\-lōrēm.'&mdash;Id." Of this sort of verse, in English, somebody has framed the following very fair example: "'Mān ĭs ă \ cōmplēx, \ cōmpōund \ cōmpōst, \ yēt ĭs hĕ \ Gōd-bōrn.'" Of this species of versification, which may be called Mixed or Composite Hexameter, the most considerable specimen that I have seen in English, is Longfellow's Evangeline, a poem of one thousand three hundred and eighty-two of these long lines, or verses. This work has found admirers, and not a few; for, of these, nothing written by so distinguished a scholar could fail: but, surely, not many of the verses in question exhibit truly the feet of the ancient Hexameters; or, if they do, the ancients contented themselves with very imperfect rhythms, even in their noblest heroics. In short, I incline to the opinion of Poe, that, "Nothing less than the deservedly high reputation of Professor Longfellow, could have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one thing nor another. Some few of them are dactylic verses&mdash;English dactylics. But do away with the division into lines, and the most astute critic would never have suspected them of any thing more than prose."&mdash;Pioneer, p. 111. The following are the last ten lines of the volume, with such a division into feet as the poet is presumed to have contemplated:

An other form of verse, common to the Greeks and Romans, which has sometimes been imitated&mdash;or, rather, which some writers have attempted to imitate&mdash;in English, is the line or stanza called Sapphic, from the inventress, Sappho, a Greek poetess. The Sapphic verse, according to Fabricius, Smetius, and all good authorities, has eleven syllables, making "five feet&mdash;the first a trochee, the second a spondee, the third a dactyl, and the fourth and fifth trochees." The Sapphic stanza, or what is sometimes so called, consists of three Sapphic lines and an Adon-