_ hungera 
403, 
respecting a new kind of measure, in 
which a part of that work is sketched, 
and which I, at present, intend to come 
plete it in, 
IT am persuaded to think, that our 
commen heroic metre, which ought to 
combine every excellence of the lan- 
guage, is not allowed sufficient scope to 
enacs all the beauties and adv antages 
of which our versification is susceptible. — 
Tt is made to consist almost wholly of 
the short, or dissyllabic foot; that is, the 
lambus, trochee, &c. whilst the majestic 
sweetness of the trisyilabic, er longer 
measure, such as the amphibrach, ana- 
pest, &c. is excluded of right, and only ad- 
mitted by courtesy, as it were. And 
though the lines where these iatter mea- 
sures are used, are often produced as in- 
stances of the most enchanting melody, 
yet many Ww riters refrain from their USE 5 
and, if they cannot well reject a word $0 . 
formed, reour to the unwise expedient of 
eliciting a syllable by an ellipsis: as in 
€¢ What vary’d being peoples ewry star, 
Our envi'd sov’reign, and his altar breathes.”? 
r &c. 
So much genius has been craked 
since the time of sir John Denham, upon 
the fabric of the heroic or iambic line, 
that it were hopeless to attempt any 
thing new in its. stricture. Strength, 
variety, and sublimity, seem to favs 
been exhausted of their pewers for it, by 
Dryden, Milton, and Young; polish bind 
elegance can, since the days of Pope, 
yield nothing more; gaudy richness and 
juxuriance, even to satiety, have been 
culled for it by Thomson; and many of 
the Jesser poets have ubtained all that 
pure simplicity, from her humble con- 
fined. repositories, had . to bestow. 
Though the number. and variation of 
its béauties, as in the transposition of 
figures, are immense, yet each change 
has been already sounded: the performer 
may touch again the same chords, but 
they will vibrate on the ear with dimi- 
nished sweetness. 
Some Jate writers, knowing how use- 
less it was to add sweet syrups to honey, 
have, through a mistaken notion, offered 
to us the stale, if not sour, mead of an- 
tiquity; hoping thereby to deaden the 
relish. of a refined taste, or starve to 
a pampered appetite, 
We have one stro: ng instance ef the 
ascendancy of a peculiar mode of expres- 
sion over the cummon heroic measure, 
when applied to the delineation of a sub 
lime and deeply interesting subject; this’ 
Ag ophe: Ossian of Macpherson, whichis, 
New Measure for Heroic Poetry. 
[Dee. 15 
I believe, universally acknowledged te 
be more attractive in its present dress, 
than if the same sentiments and images 
had been:decked in all the suavity aud 
splendour of iambic measures. I do not 
attempt to state particularly whence 
this superiority is derived; it 1s enough 
for my present purpose, if it exist as a 
fact. 
An author, with the generality of 
readers, derives an advantage, as well as 
a disadvantage, in bringing forward 2a 
new work in heroie metre; whether it be 
in rhyme, or in blank verse. - The ade 
vantaze, | conceive, to be this: should a 
new work, in the style and harmony of 
its measures, approach to an equality 
with the best of former productions, it 
becomes, in some degree, associated with _ 
their beauties, (1 speak of the rhythm 
only) and, like an attendant in the suite 
of royalty, acquires'a dignity not intrine 
sically its own: it pleases, by presenting 
to the mind’s eye a picture reeny 
contemplated with pleasure, and of which 
a renewed glance, though but slight, is 
ever acceptable. 
On the otherhand, though niuch may 
be fresh in its manner or diction, yet it 
is not allowed the full merit of those 
charms that are inseparably attendant 
‘on agreeable novelty; whatever of new- 
ness may be exhibited, is, without much 
reflection, fancied’ to ‘have’ been beheld 
before. As its beautics are assimilated 
with those of ethers, so are they both 
i 
covered with the same venerable mantle 
of age. By having a general, or common 
point of resemblance to the productions 
of another, all its claims to novelty are, 
in that general resemblance, enveloped 
and forgotten. 
I know not of any beauties of the he- 
roic measure, that are not to be found 
in Mr; Barlow’s poem of the Columbiad ; 
yet would some of the nice, examiners of 
_the present time disrobe him of all, and 
lay them, as a sweet-smelling offering, at 
the shrine of our forefathers. They style 
the blushes of the rese old and affected, 
because the leaves of its parent were 
suffused with the same bloom twelve 
manths ago. With some every thing 
belongs to the present age, but the merits. 
of 7. irae 
From some such oobi ibeaibis as 
these, it appears to me to be more dee 
sirahia to attempt to combine the per= 
fection of the old numbers with a new 
movement and cadence, - fia to endca-_ 
