it retains in a later age, when others have learned to emulate and preserve the same uniformity.' (Hallam, Literature, 3. 466, ed. 1854.) It was especially in attention to the laws of rhythm that the newly awakened æsthetic sense found its occupation. The reform of the school of the Restoration in the melody of versification has been so great, that it has struck every critic, and has tended to obscure the fact that this reform was but a portion of the general endeavour at 'composition.' 'The exquisite perfection of the versification has withdrawn the public attention from their other excellences, as the vulgar eye will rest more upon the splendour of the uniform than the quality of the troops.' (Byron, Works, 15. 87.) The greater part of the poetry of the seventeenth century, prior to the Restoration, seems to be without any prosodial system; to know nothing of rhythm, metre, or accent, and to be bound together solely by the final assonance. There were not wanting some earlier exceptions, such as Sandys (died 1643); but in Donne (died 1631) we have versification which can scarcely be said to be subject to any laws at all. As the century advances we trace a growing effort to bring English versification under metrical law. Dryden (1631-1700) did the most in this direction. Dryden, indeed, always referred to Waller (died 1687, æt. 83) as his master, declaring that 'unless he had written, none of us could write.' (Scott, Life of Dryden, ch. 1.) But Dryden has many irregular verses, and it was left for Pope to bring the couplet under rules of metrical scansion as strict as the English language will allow. The Essay on Man is composed in the rhymed couplet of verses of five accents. The history of this metre is curious. It was long used for light and trifling subjects, and is contemptuously spoken of by the critics of the sixteenth century, in contrast with the Stanzas, which were alone thought appropriate to serious topics. (Puttenham, Art of English Poesie, p. 50, ed. 1811.) It is easy to see the origin of this preference for the stanza in grave works. The stanza in verse is the analogue of the prose sentence as constructed by Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, or Milton. Each of these stately periods carries along with it, over and above its direct predication, all the conditions and exceptions to which the writer wishes to submit that predication, all woven into one structure. There is in each stanza or sentence so much as fills the mind to the utmost strain of its capacity for attention; and then a pause for reflection and digestion. The same process which broke up the composite period of earlier prose into the disjointed modern style of short sentences, took place in verse. The stanza gradually gave way before the couplet. This dissolution of the staff was going on all through the seventeenth century. In Denham we have the intermediate stage. Cooper's Hill (1643) is in couplets, but the sense is habitually continued from verse to verse, to such an extent that we feel as if the poet had forgotten he was not writing in stanzas. Davenant cut down the Spenserian stanza to the elegiac staff of four lines, alternately rhyming. But when in his Preface (Gondibert, 16) he defends himself for not using couplets, we see that the couplet has already : revealed itself as the instrument of poetical expression which was required by the age. Dryden achieved the final victory of the couplet. But Dryden did not attain the art of giving variety to the couplet by the variation of the pause, and sought to attain this object by the ruder expedients of triple rhymes, interpolating verses of six, or even seven accents, and admitting three syllables to one accent. In Dryden, not only is the sense often carried beyond the second line, but the second line of one couplet and the first of the next are united in a single sentence, so that the two, though not rhyming, must be read as a couplet. A tendency to the stricter practice of the French to terminate the sense with the couplet increased from the Restoration. It is strictly observed by Pope in the present poem. But though he carefully avoids the couplet enjambé, he is not wholly free from lesser blemishes of carelessness or laziness. He abounds in imperfect rhymes, the First Epistle alone having seventeen such. He allows the accent to rest too often on a weak syllable, and occasionally even at the end of a line, e. g. 'Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.' With exquisite taste as to how much the language could bear, he stopped short of the rigorism of the French heroic verse of six accents, which invariably exacts the cæsura in the middle. This rigorism is defended by Marmontel (Poètique Franç.), on the ground that the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes furnishes sufficient variety to French poetry. English critics are apt to think that the uniform French cæsura imparts too artificial and mechanical a character to their versification. The opinion of Dr. Blair seems not far from the truth, that (Lectures, Lect. 38) 'it is a distinguishing advantage of our English verse that it allows the pause to be varied through four different syllables in the line. The pause may fall after the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh syllable; and according as the pause is placed after one or other of these syllables, the melody of the verse is much changed, and its air and cadence are diversified.' On the whole, the rhythm of the heroic couplet as settled by Pope, must ever remain the classical model of English versification. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the reaction against the poetry of good sense set in, it was not thought enough to depart from the style of Pope, unless his metre was rejected also. The return to nature, in the poetical as in the political revolution, was attempted by throwing off law. The aspiration to reach a higher melody' by means of lawless rhythms, has led us back to the barbarous versification of the seventeenth century, and much is written as poetry, which can only claim to be so called because it is not prose. The best preservative from such licentious taste that can be recommended to the young writer, is the diligent study of Pope. All study, to be useful, must be in a spirit of deference. Criticism is only an aid to appreciation. 'They mistake the nature of criticism,' says Dryden (State of Innocence, Pref.), ' who think its business is to find fault.' On the other hand, study must not be in a spirit of servility. With reverence should we approach the shade of Milton; but criticism would lose half its usefulness and all its dignity, if we yielded an unqualified assent to the doctrine that its canons are nothing more than the practice of our great poets reduced to rule.' (Guest, English Rhythms, 2. 242.) There are flaws in Pope's workmanship. But though it is easy to repeat the criticisms of others, it is only the carefully-trained perception that can judge these flaws justly. The young student should dwell patiently upon the text of the author, and not take up with borrowed criticism. Yet, in addition to independent study, reference to the best critical treatises is indispensable, provided always that he make the mental effort of endeavouring to test the critic's dicta by his own judgment. The following is a list of books that may be consulted: 1. Poetical Works of A. Pope. Edited by Robert Carruthers. 3 vols. Second Edition. 1858. 2. Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. By Joseph Warton. 2 vols. 8vo. Fifth Edition. 1806. 3. Alexander Pope. By Thomas De Quincey. In De Quincey's Collected Works. 4. Life of Dryden. By Sir Walter Scott. Scott's Miscellaneous Prose Works. 1848. 5. The Poetry of Pope. By Prof. Conington. Oxford Essays. 1858. 6. English Poetry from Dryden to Cowper. Quarterly Review, July, 1862. Article V. in The Essay on Man was translated immediately into French verse by the Abbé du Resnel; into French prose by M. de Silhouette, 1736. There are besides these, two modern French versions, one by Delille, and another by de Fontanes, Paris, 1821. A version in Latin hexameters was published at Wittenburg in 1743, and another by J. Costa, Patav. 1775. Kretsch translated the Essay into German, and there is another version by Murnser, Hamburg, 1783. There is one Portuguese, and more than one Italian version. A polyglot edition, containing six versions, was published at Amsterdam, and Strasburg, 1762, and another of five versions by Bodoni, at Parma, 1801. The Essay also called forth numerous imitations. Of these may be mentioned : Albrecht von Haller. Ueber den Ursprung des Uebels. 1734. Wieland. Die Natur der Dinge. Voltaire. 1750. John George Schlosser (1799) told Goethe that he had written a poem in the same metre as the Essay on Man to refute its principles' (Dichtung und Wahrheit, p. 242), but I do not know if it was ever published. The text followed in the present edition is that of Warburton's first collected edition, 1751, errors of press excepted. As Warburton followed a copy left corrected for press by the author himself, an editor of Pope would seem to have no choice but to adopt his text. The spelling of that edition has been strictly adhered to. To 'modernise' the spelling of a classic, is nothing less than to deface one of the monuments of the language. I desire to thank those who have assisted me with corrections, and valuable suggestions, especially Mr. Henry Nettleship, Mr. Whitwell Elwin, Mr. J. B. Mayor, and Mr. Theodore Walrond. LINCOLN COLLEGE, M. P. |