212 
We should premise, by the way, just 
to show where it is that he begins to 
trip, f 
And silence broods upon the world’s 
repose,” 
which, at least, is a very good verse ; 
but thus he immediately proceeds : 
*€ Even then the Muse, joys midst the 
solemn 
Stillness to outpour, her secret soul, and 
Give each burning thought, its voice, and 
utterance. 
” Tis then she tunes, her harp symphonious, 
? Tis thenshe joins, the music of the spheres, 
? Tis then she throws, her mortal nature off, 
And joys to find, her daring spirit free, 
Free from the shackles that hath bound her 
here. 
It is curious, upon minute analysis, to 
observe how completely all the con- 
fusion and prosaic dissonance of this 
passage has arisen out of the mistaken 
notion into which Malone and Ste- 
phens, and even Johnson, and all the 
modern editors have so ridiculously 
blundered, that the numbers of verse 
can be counted, like those of arith- 
metic, upon the fingers—as if versifi- 
cation were addressed, not to the sense 
of hearing but of touch, and was to be 
measured, not by quantities and quali- 
ties, but by the vulgar addition or enu- 
meration of syllables alone—according 
to which, 
** One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
eight, nine, ten,” 
with their usual expedient of a barba- 
rous elision, would make a good heroic 
verse.* But for this mistake, mere 
* To pass by a multitude of other blun- 
ders still more revolting to the ear, we will 
particularize one curious instance of edito- 
rial pragmaticism. There is a consider- 
able portion of the scene between Glo’ster 
and Lady Anne, in the original play of 
“Richard the Third’”—that part, we mean, 
in which they indulge ‘the keen encounter 
of their wits’’ in a long series of repartee, 
/ which Shakspeare, obviously for the terse- 
ness and smartness of the effect, had writ- 
ten in octo-syllabic verse, and which, in 
the old folio of 1623, is so printed. But 
the sapient editors of a more critically en- 
lightened age (the restorers of the genuine 
text) not being able to conceive how any 
thing less than ten syllables could consti- 
tute a dramatic line (as if there were not 
licenses and varieties of verse enough, in the 
scenes of Shakspeare, to have suggested a 
very different conclusion) set their fingers 
to work and counted the syllables into what 
they call regular -heroics often syllables. 
each: and so they stand in all the modern. 
A Scrap of Criticism. 
[Nov- I, 
perception alone could not: have failed 
to discover that the clause which stands 
above, at the commencement of the first 
line, is, in fact, an imperfect portion of 
some precedent verse; and the whole pas- 
sage, by the mererestoration of two harsh 
and unnecessary elisions, the correc- 
tion of a careless slip of grammar, the 
inversion of one syllable, the dismis- 
sal of another, and the avoidance of 
the unmeaning repetition of_a third, 
would haye stood thus, in a series of, at 
least, very tolerable verse : 
“ Even then the muse 
Joins midst the solemn stillness to outpour* 
Her secret soul, and give each burning 
thought 
Its voice and utterance. Jt is then she tunes 
Her harp symphonions ; z¢ ts then she joins. 
The music of the spheres; ’tis then she 
throws 
Her mortal nature off, and joys to find 
Her daring spirit from the shackles free 
That bound her here.” 
When the poet had once got thus 
far, he would easily have filled up, if 
he had deemed it necessary, his two 
imperfect lines. For the first, the sacri- 
fice of one of his own precedent lines. 
which we have not quoted— : 
“* When Contemplation holds her starry. 
reign,” 
which confounds cause and effect—as. 
if our contemplations made the stars — 
shine, instead of the shining of the stars. 
inducing us to contemplation !—would. 
have furnished the materials: 
“ Eyen then, by Contemplation led, the 
Muse” 
which would have given him one good 
verse, instead of two bad ones. And as 
for the concluding desideratum, 
“ That bound her here, and checkh’d 
towering flight,” 
was too obvious to have been missed. 
If these observations should be of 
any use to our correspondent, we have 
hopes that they will be regarded as no 
ungrateful return for his sometimes very 
pleasing favours; and those of our gene- 
ral 
editions, to this day ; although so standing 
(if the voice attempts to follow the typo- 
graphical arrangement), they are neither 
verse nor prose. O Midas! Midas! thy . 
ears were a legacy bequeathed to the bray- 
ing tribes of critics and of editors! We 
feel at our own, that we may be sure whe- 
ther they do not need the crop. yak 
* “ Pour out”? would have been better. 
grammar, and equally good—nay, in point 
of euphony, somewhat better verse. — ak 
. 
her: 
