24 Prosscr Hail Fryc 



and as such it ignores and confounds the labor and the achieve- 

 ment of a century. What wonder that the genre for which the 

 couplet was particularly suited should have perished and that 

 poetical satire is dead! The astonishing thing is that now, when 

 men's minds are at last beginning to change, none of our teeming 

 young poets has as yet perceived the possibility of a revival. 



But to return to Dryden's conception of poetic excellence. In 

 addition to rhyme poetry must possess mellitluousness. Of all 

 things harshness was most to be reprehended as "Gothic" and 

 barbaric. "Well placing of words for the sweetness of pronun- 

 ciation," says Dryden, "was not known until Mr. Waller intro- 

 duced it." His own translation of the first line of the Iliad like- 

 wise he modestly commends for its smoothness, though it is com- 

 posed of monosyllables, 



"Arms, and the man I sing, who forced by Fate."^ 



Without stopping to discuss the quality of this particular verse, 

 we may venture to admit the general contention that poetry ought 

 to be well sounding and that the words ought to be disposed to 

 help the pronunciation and to tickle the ear without injuring the 

 sense, in their natural order withal, and in accordance with the 

 idiom of the language, without violation of grammar or logic. 

 But here it is necessary to make a distinction. The mellifluous- 

 ness of Dryden and his followers is not to be confounded in the 

 modern manner with melodiousness. There are two kinds of con- 

 fusion to which modern poetry is particularly liable. On the one 

 hand it is inclined to 'imitate the illusion of painting by a system- 

 atic evocation of visual detail, "vizualization," so as to produce 

 a sort of verbal or linguistic mirage ; on the other hand, that of 

 music by a style of composition in which words are treated rather 

 as notes than ideas.- But for that mellifluousness, that charm of 

 sound proper to language as such, irrespective of purely metrical 

 and musical effects, it has small concern. Not infrequently, in- 

 deed, where the musical prepossession is absent, it seems perfectly 



^Dedication of the Acucis. 



'Cf. R. L. Stevenson. .S7_v/c' /;/ Literature : Its Teehuical Elements, the 

 latter half. 



24 



