318 
enly in the fixth place, as was common 
among the ancients, but in any -other. 
This form of line is ufually fluent to ra- 
Pidity : it invites and favours a frequent 
ufe of compound words, which abound in 
Klepftock, and which, like every pecull- 
arity of a great matter of fong, ought in 
a vertion carefully to be retained. Such 
compounds, efpecially when they confit of 
two moncfyllables, would read harfh in 
Enelifh, in rhymed, or even in blank 
verfe ; and would appear to clog the iam- 
bic ttep with fpondaic ponderofity. Hex- 
ameter is therefore better adapted than the 
metres in ufe to transfer with faithful- 
nefs the manner of this writer. “Takethe 
paflage already produced in rhyme, as a 
fpecimen. 
So at the midnight hour draws nigh te the 
flumibering city 
Peftilence. Couch’don his broad-foread wings 
lurks under the rampart 
Death, bale-breathing. As yet unalarmed are 
the peaceable dwellers ; 
Clofe to his nightiy lamp the fage yet watches; 
and high friends 
Over wine not unhallow’d; in thelter of odor- 
ous bowers, 
Talk of the foul and of friendfhip, and weigh 
_ their immortal duration, 
But too foon fhall frightful Death, ina day of 
aiction, 
Pouncing, over them fpread; in a day of 
Moaning and anguifh— 
When with wringing of hands the bride for 
the bridegroom loud wails— 
When, now of all her children bereft, the 
defperate mother 
Furious curfes the day on which the bore, and 
was born—when 
Weary with hollower eye, amid the carcafes, 
totter 
Even the buriers—till the fent Death-angel, 
defcending, 
Thoughtful, on thunder-clouds, beholds all 
lonefome and filent, ; 
Gazes the wide defolation, and long broods 
over the graves, fixt. 
Perhaps fome other writer will throw 
this fine piéture into blank verfe fo well, 
as to convince the public, that the beau- 
ties of Klopftcck can be naturalized with- 
out ftrangenefs, and his peculiarities re- 
tained without affectation ; that quaint- 
nefs, the unavoidable companion of neolo- 
gif, is as needle(s to gemius, as hoftile to 
grace ; that hexameter, until it is fami- 
liar, muft_repeJ, and when it is familiar, 
may annoy; that it wanis a mufical or- 
derlinefs of found ; and that its cantering 
capricious movement oppofes the grave 
march of folemn majeliy, and better fuits 
Concerning Flexameters, and Klopfiock’s Meffiah. 
[Nov. 3, 
the ordinary fcenery of Theocritus thas 
the empyreal vifions of Klopftock. 
Yet thefe confiderations can all be en- 
feebled. The unufual in metre, as in 
ftyle, muft appear ftrange, affeéted or 
quaint at firtt, but with each fucceffive 
aét of attention this impreffion by its very 
nature diminifhes ; it arifing folely from 
want of habit. When the latent utility 
and adequate purpofe of innovation comes 
at length to be difcerned, the peculiarity 
commonly affords an additional zeft. The 
employment of hexameters would obey 
this general Jaw. Ute would render their 
cadence foothing. All fuppofed affocia- 
tion between metre and matter is in a 
great degree arbitrary, and is commonly 
accidental. ‘The firft claffical and popu. 
lar work produced in a g:ven meaiure des 
cides the reputedly appropriate exprefiion 
of that meafure. Double rhymes. which 
are thought to have a ludicrous effeét in 
Englith, are in every other modern lan- 
guage effential for fublime compcfi- 
tion. Anapaltic metre would have pafied 
for elegiac, if Shenftone, Beattie, and the 
plaintive poets, had not been interrupted 
in the u/e of it by the author of the Elece 
tion-bal!. Il Penferofo and Hudibras 
fcan alike: and hexameters may again, 
as of old, ferve both for an Iliad anda 
Margites. In fhort, the matter -not the 
form, conftitutes the eflence of a work of 
literary art ; and.where the matter is fine, 
the form will foon be fuppofed to have con- 
tributed to its {pirit, and to its beauty. 
The adoption of hexameter would afford 
that fort of delight which arifes from the 
contenip!ition of difficuity overcome. It 
would neceflarily introduce many novel- 
ties of ftyle: and variety is the grand re= 
cipe of gratification. It would banifh, 
fiom metricai reafons, half the eftablithed 
phrafes and hacknied combinations of the 
thymer’s digtionary. It would aroufe the 
inaufry of the compofers, who, not find- 
ing a ready made acquaintance of fubftan- 
tives and epithets well pair’d, and rhyth. 
mically drilled, would have to contrive 
frefh unions, and would often accomplifh 
happier matehes. While fome withering 
words would drop from the foliacous tree 
of our language; the light green leaves 
of many a new avd fairer fprout of ex- 
preffion would {pread abroad, and frefh 
bloffoms of digtion unrimple their rofeate 
petals. 
When Klopftock pubithed the firft five 
books of his Meffiah, h:xameter was af. 
failed by the critics as a moft unnatural 
coftume for the German Mute: the poet 
4 perfevered, 
