744 POE 
appeal of recurring mufical tones was l^ft in the artifi¬ 
cial one of recurring accents. It is fuFfient to fee that 
only on this principle, can we explain how the ancients 
could make lines of feventeen fyllables agree with lines 
of twelve, a practice which no modern ear can admit in 
our own tongues. 
There is iomething of the mufical ftyle remaining in 
the clofe or rhyme of our verfe; the voice properly 
falling into a founding cadence, and we deepen or elevate 
the tone of the voice through whole pafiages. But ge¬ 
nerally our metre appeals not to the mufical fenfe of the 
ear, but only to our affociations of order and regularity. 
The two grand divilions of verfe are into rhyme and 
blank verfe. Our rhyme was once cenfured as tinkling 
and abfurd, compared with the ancient and fimple poetry ; 
as if there was not as much famenefs in the recurrence of 
found in the ending of Virgil’s heroics (when properly 
read,) as in our own verfe. 
Of late, rhyme has obtained many advocates, to the 
prejudice of blank verfe. Johnfon’s well-known remark 
on the fubjedt, is good ; rhyme is more pleafing, and 
blank verfe grander. But this critic neverthelels cer¬ 
tainly contemned blank verfe in his heart. Pope faid that 
Milton only w'rote in blank verfe becaufe he could not 
write in rhyme. Authorities abound on each fide. The 
moft obvious objection to rhyme is, that it cramps the 
thoughts; that, when a rhyme cannot be found, the con¬ 
ception is obliged to conform itfelf to the language, and 
hence is often fpoilt; or that unneceflary words are re¬ 
quired to fill up the verfe. That this is no exaggerated 
(uppofition, experience demonltrates. For the accotn- 
plifhed verfifiers, Pope and Byron, than whom no man 
had greater command of rhymes, abound in words which 
might be omitted without hurting the fenfe. But the 
facility which rhyme affords to the reader, its direft and 
unequivocal appeal to the ear, (even when uncultivated,) 
as well perhaps as its frequency, will ever render it a de- 
fired favourite. On trifling fubjedis, in odes, fongs, or in 
didadfic poems, we may fay in all works of beauty it is 
to be preferred ; for, as we have faid, beauty pleafes in a 
variety of modes, and rather by a number of images than 
by Angle and fimple thoughts; and thisaccords well with 
rhyme. Beauty alfo, having ftridl communion with the 
fenfe, demands harmony ; and we mud confefs that, when¬ 
ever pretty or elegant thought is concerned, Voltaire’s 
neat remark is true; we mean that which indicates that 
the trouble it gives, by exciting (irritant) the mind of 
the poet, renders him more attentive, confequently his 
thoughts more vivid. Not fo fublime w’orks. The firn- 
plicity and boldnefs of fublime images refufe all fetters : 
fublimity delights us even in profe; but who could put 
the fentiments of Anacreon or Moore’s fongs into profe. 
In the fublime, the thought is annihilated by the flighted: 
change ; one unneceflary word deftroys the grandeur of a 
whole fentence. Blank verfe, therefore, is proper in the 
epic : even its uncommonnefs helps to give fome height 
to the tale. What is common, habit makes fair; but 
whatever is common foon lofes its fublimity. 
But, if blank verfe be required in the epic poem, how 
perfeitly eflential is it to tragedy ! capable of uniting 
itfelf to all characters; now quaint and profaic, now foft 
and tender, now loud, dominant, and impetuous; now 
rational, refledfive, and majeftic; in one place flowing 
fmoothly on in a degree of feeling, in another broken 
and abrupt with paflion. The (tart, the groan, the paufe 
of agony, are the heights of the drama. Who would 
make them precurfors to the jingle of a rhyme, which re¬ 
calls the fpedlator to the art of the verfe, and breaks every 
illufion ? Dryden did fo; but a purer tafte has banilhed 
this practice from the ttage. We (hall retouch this 
fubjeCt underTragedy; but we have a few words more to 
fay on blank verfe. 
Blank verfe is by no means a uniform production. It 
is of many kinds. Shakefpeare’s verfe, taken as a whole, 
is very hnrfli and abrupt; Milton’s very magniloquent 
TRY. 
and mufical; Thomfon’s is as fmooth and refined as 
Pope’s heroics ; Lord Byron’s blank verfe is very often 
plain profe printed in decafyllabic lines, and whole trage¬ 
dies have been publifhed of late in the fame form by infe¬ 
rior authors. No art can teach how to build the lofty verfe 
of Milton : it is as various as the hues of the ohamelion. 
To read the long opening fentence of Paradife Loft mufi- 
cally, and at the fame time intelligibly, we muft embrace 
the whole of it, without any reference to the lines, which 
are mere land-marks to the meafure, no guides to the elo¬ 
cution of the verfe. But, whence defcribes fome of the 
beauties of Eden, the lines have a concluding cadence in 
the laft word, as regularly as the fame occurs in rhymo. 
Neither rhyme nor metre are abfolutely eflential to 
poetry. The Saxon method has a natural fource of plea- 
lure ; barbarous as if feems to refined ears, it has a recur¬ 
rence of fimilar articulated founds. This curious artifice 
for acquiring harmonious founds was alliteration. 
They have in each line three words beginning with the 
fame letters, if they are confonants; but, if vowels, one 
vowel may be an alliterative found with any other; a Am¬ 
ple rule, but very available for variety in effeCf, and in our 
opinion not unpleafing. 
But, befides aflumirig a melodious language, the ima¬ 
gination u(es a terfe and highly-concentrated ftyle. The 
only method of exprelfing ideal conceptions, is to liken 
them to a tangible objedt ; and thus the jimile comes to be 
ufed. By this figure, palfions and feelings, of which the 
degree or nature could be but feebly painted by common 
language, are rendered apparent to the lowed intelledi. 
But the fimile, from being thus often ufed, became not 
merely an illufcration, but a deiignation, of the fentiment 
it was applied to, and all inteiledfual movements were 
fpoken of by a metaphor ; this laft figure being nothing 
more than a (hort or concife fimilitude. 
The language of the imagination is wholly made up of 
metaphor. We find it ufed in common life by all perfons 
of ftroiig feelings and little information ; which (hows 
that the practice is perfectly natural, and alfo that it makes 
up for deficiencies in language, and tends to its perfection. 
Moreover it affords in poetry an excellent variety ; and 
further, this figure, together with fomeothers, is neceflary 
to diredt the attention to the beauty or excellence of the 
objeCts a poem treats of. If we were having a learned 
dilquifition on the nature of the (kies, it matters not how 
often we repeat the term (ky ; for, were we frequently to 
introduce fynonyms in its (lead, we fliould but render 
ourfelves obfcure. Not fo in poetical language: here we 
become fo abforbed in the beauty and grandeur of the (ley, 
that we recur always to thofe qualities ; we talk of the 
blue expanfe , the netted vault of heaven. The ufe of 
fuch terms, as they become eftabliflied, ferve as fo many 
modes of directing the attention to the grander qualities 
of Nature. We feek alfo words of a particular and ancient 
kind in poetry. There is towards every thing intrinfically 
beautiful, when uncommon, a facred feeling that extends 
even to a word. On the other hand, terms in common 
ufe, however powerful the emotion they exprefs, are dif- 
regarded. What a dire horror attends the idea of future 
perdition ; but nobody is moved by the word “ damna¬ 
tion’'’ which is fo common in fome foolifli plays at the 
minor theatres, becaufe^it is continually and unmeaning¬ 
ly uttered in the ftreets. The impropriety then of ufing 
common terms, and the dignity we can obtain by the 
adoption of words of rare occurrence, is clear. But this 
licenfe is too often abufed. The rule of fafety is never 
to introduce words except fuch as are abfolutely required, 
are very mufical, and generally underftood by perions of 
common information. Lord Byron has in his Childe 
Harold introduced fome of Spencer’s expreflions with good 
effedi. But the language of Spencer is a dangerous (hoal 
for modern poets. 
The next peculiarity of poetry is that it leads to hyper¬ 
bole, this being a natural confequence of its fublimity ; for 
the imagination, being always carrying nature to perfec¬ 
tion 
