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1 Elizabetha Triumphans. ' A Tale of Two Swans,' a blank 

 Terse poem by William Vallans, appeared in 1590; and 

 ' Hieronymo,' another tragedy without rhyme, had also been 

 acted before that year. So that when Shakspeare began to 

 write for the stage, as he is supposed to have done in 1591, 

 he may be said to have found blank verse already familiar 

 to the publie ear as the legitimate form of dramatic poetry. 

 (See Warton's History of English Poetry, section xl., and 

 the notes to the edition of 1824. See also section x. of the 

 Dissertation by Dr. Nott on 'The State of English Poetry 

 before the Sixteenth Century,' prefixed to his edition of 

 Surrey's Poems, 1815.) 



It is curious that Sir Philip Sidney does not mention 

 blank verse in his treatise entitled ' The Defence of Poesy,' 

 which must have been written after several of the pieces we 

 have mentioned above had appeared. Sidney died in 1586, 

 at the age of thirty-two. ' Now of versifying,' he says, 

 ' there are two sorts, the one antient, the other modern ; 

 the antient marked the quantity of each syllable, and ac- 

 cording to that framed his verse; the modern observing 

 only number, with some regard of the accent, the chief life 

 of it standeth in that like sounding of the words which we 

 call rhyme.' ' Truly,' he afterwards adds, * the English, 

 before any vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts ;' 

 and then he goes on to show its superiority to the Dutch 

 (that is the German), the Spanish, the Italian, and the 

 French, resting his argument entirely, in so far as the three 

 last-mentioned tongues are concerned, on its alleged greater 

 variety of final rhymes. In a preceding part of the treatise 

 he expressly mentions the tragedy of Gorboduc, making it 

 an exception to the rudeness of all the English plays he 

 had seen, as being 'full of stately speeches, and'well- 

 sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his 

 style, and as full of notable morality, which it doth most 

 delightfully teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy.' 



Notwithstanding the examples thus set, the employment 

 of blank verse was almost confined to the drama for the 

 greater part of the seventeenth century. Drayton, and 

 Daniel, and Phineas Fletcher, and Davenant, all in that 

 interval wrote long poems, and all in rhyme. Even dra- 

 matic composition had, after the Restoration, in the hands 

 of Dryden and others, begun to revert to that form. At 

 length in 1667 appeared the ' Paradise Lost,' and vindi- 

 cated the capabilities of blank verse by the noblest exem- 

 plification of it the language yet possesses. In an adver- 

 tisement prefixed to the second edition of this poem, printed 

 in 1668, Milton, professing to give ' a reason of that which 

 stumbleth many why the poem rhymes not,' says, ' The 

 measure is English heroic verse, without rhyme. . . . This 

 neglect of rhyme is so little to be taken for a defect, though 

 it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it is rather 

 to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of 

 antient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the trouble- 

 some and modern bondage of rhyming.' He allows, how- 

 ever, and indeed urges the fact in vindication of himself, 

 that ' some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note 

 have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as 

 have also long since our best English tragedies.' 



For the last century and a half blank verse may be said 

 to have been recognised as the only legitimate form for the 

 higher species of dramatic composition in our language. 

 ' Aristotle observes,' says Addison (Spectator, No. xxxix.), 

 ' that the Iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most 

 proper for tragedy, because at the same time that it lifted 

 up the discourse from prose, it was that which approached 

 nearer to it than any other kind of verse. For, says he, we 

 may observe that men in ordinary discourse very often speak 

 Iambics without taking notice of it. We may make the 

 same observation of our English blank verse, which often 

 enters into onr common discourse, though we do not attend 

 to it, and is such a due medium between rhyme and prose, 

 that it seems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am there- 

 fore very much offended when I see a play in rhyme ; which 

 is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of hexameters would 

 have been in Greek or Latin.' Muny long moral and de- 

 scriptive poems, as well as shorter pieces of the same class, 

 have also within this period been composed in blank verse ; 

 but here it can only be said to hold a divided empire with 

 rhyme. It is to be observed, that unless we are to include 

 a few attempts to imilate the hexameters, pentameters, sap- 

 phics, adonics, and other measures of Greek and Roman 

 poetry, the use of blank verse has almost been confined in 

 English to the common heroic line of ten syllables. The 



attempts that have been made to reject rhyme in our ctherf 

 measures have all been failures, in so far as regards tlio 

 establishment of the principle, however much the beauty of 

 particular poems composed upon that system, such as Col 

 lins's ' Ode to Evening,' may have been admired. 



The German probably, of all the languages of modern 

 Europe, admits the greatest variety of blank verse mea- 

 sures. From the practice of modern German poets, it would 

 appear that any species of verse which may be used in that 

 language with rhyme, may also be used without it. In the 

 German translations from Greek and Roman poets we find 

 every species of antient metre successfully imitated, and 

 of course without rhyme. That which approaches nearest 

 to, or rather is identical with, our ten-syllable blank verse, 

 is also much used, as in the following example : 



Per blinde Grcis erhub sich alsobald, 



Wahlt* eiuen'Text, t-rklart' ihn.wamlt' ihn an, 



Ertnahnte, warnte, strafte, triistele 



So herzlieli, (lass die ThriiDen mildiRlich 



Him niederflosseu in den grauen Bart. KosEtJARTEN. 



The expression ' blank verse' looks like a French phrase : 

 but we observe that French writers speak of it as one of 

 English invention. (See the article ' Vers Blancs' in tlio 

 Encyclopedie.) Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains ' blank' 

 here as meaning ' where the rhyme is blanched or missed;' 

 and he quotes as his oldest example of the use of the ex- 

 pression the following sentence from Shakspeare : ' The 

 lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt 

 for it.' According to Mr. Park, in a note 'to Warton's 'His- 

 tory of English Poetry,' vol. iv. p. 241, the poet Daniel, in 

 his 'Apology for Rhyme,' published in 1603, appears to 

 designate what we now call blank verse by the expression 

 single numbers. The Italians call blank verse verso sciolta, 

 that is, loosened or untrammelled verse. 



BLANKENBURG, a principality in the north of Ger- 

 many, belonging to the dukes of Brunswick, and lying in 

 the region of the Lower Harz ; it is bounded on the west 

 by the Hanoverian and Prussian dominions, on the north 

 and south by Prussia, and on the east by Prussia and 

 Anhalt. This principality contains about 144 square miles, 

 or somewhat less than the county of Rutland. In its 

 northern parts it is well cultivated, but the southern dis- 

 trict, which lies among the Harz mountains or adjacent to 

 them, is full of forests; it contains, however, valuable iron 

 mines and quarries, particularly of marble, and rears much 

 cattle. It is the personal property of the dukes of Bruns- 

 wick, into whose possession it came in the year 1590, as a 

 lapsed fief and earldom, and is estimated to produce a yearly 

 revenue of at least 20,0001. It was created a principality 

 of the German empire under the name of the principality 

 of Brunswick-Blankenburg, in the year 1707. It contains 

 two towns, four market villages, and fifteen other villages, 

 and about 12,000 inhabitants; and is now included in the 

 circle of Blankenburg as part of the Brunswick territory. 

 This circle, which has an area of about 1 94 square miles, 

 comprehends the three bailiwicks of Blankenburg, Hasscl- 

 felde, and Walkenried, in which are three towns, four 

 market villages, and twenty-three villages and hamlets, 

 with a population of about 19,000 souls. 



Blankenburg, the chief town, is situated on the Harz, at 

 an elevation of 732 feet above the level of the German 

 Ocean, and is crossed by the rivulet which bears the same 

 name as the town. The principal public buildings are a 

 gymnasium, a female school, school of industry, three 

 churches, a town-hall, an hospital, and a factory for the de- 

 posit of the iron, marble, and dye-earths raised in the sur- 

 rounding districts. Upon the Blankenstein, a rocky height 

 1038 feet above the level of the sea, and close to the town, is 

 situated the ducal palace of Luisenburg, in which there are 

 270 apartments, a large collection of paintings, and other 

 objects of note. Immediately below lies the ' Devil's Wall' 

 ( Teufelsmauer), a long and almost unbroken line of sand- 

 stone cliffs, of the wildest and most grotesque forms, on the 

 back of the Heidelberg group of hills ; they run from north- 

 west to south-east, and spread as far as Ballenstadt in, 

 Anhalt-Bernburg. About half a mile from the town also 

 stands the lofty and romantic Regenstein, on the summit 

 of which are the ruins of a spacious castle, entirely hewn 

 out of the rock, besides a number of caverns, and the 

 splendid colossal rock called the ' Rosstrappe.' Blanken- 

 burg contains about 400 houses, and 3200 inhabitants ; and 

 is between nine and ten miles from Halberstadt, in 51 47 r 

 N. lat., and 10 57' K. long. Much mining is carried on i 



NO. 2C8. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA.] 



VOL. IV. 3 T 



