I formed my

domination and reputation of the heroic. opinion of Prior in these respects a very long time ago: before I had any definite intention of treating this subject systematically, and indeed before I had much noticed the prose documents which show that he paid conscious and theoretical, as well as empirical, attention to prosody. And the more I have studied both the subject and the poet since, the more convinced I have been on the matter. He does not, of course, rank as a prosodic influence with Chaucer, or Spenser, or Milton, even with Dryden and Pope. But he occupies a position different from others and only possible at a peculiar stage of prosodic history—that of a man who, as prosodic civilisation advances, takes care that one good custom shall not corrupt it, that room shall be found for different sorts and aspects, different spirits and administrations.

CHAPTER IV

Continued poverty of the subject. Dryden.

PROSODISTS

Continued poverty of the subject-Dryden-Mulgrave,

Roscommon, etc.

THE remarks which were made in the corresponding
chapter of the last Book apply to the present almost
equally. Although it will not exactly be, as that was,
a capitulum unius hominis, there will hardly be as much
to say of any one person as there was there of Joshua
Poole or rather of "J. D." This must be, of course, all
the more surprising in that the other J. D., John Dryden,
is of this time, and that in him we have an example of
the poet-critic hardly exceeded by any in history: a con-
summate practitioner in certain kinds of prosody, and a
man quite obviously interested in the particular subject,
who is constantly approaching it, who expressly laments
the lack of "an English Prosodia," and who had thought
of supplying it. But something sealed his lips; and
even when he talks about "numbers," compliments Mr.
Waller on his achievements, and so on, he never tells us
exactly wherein "the sweetness of numbers" consists.
know "in a sort of way"; but it is only in a sort of way.
He thinks Chapman's Homer characterised by "harsh
numbers, improper English, and a monstrous length of
verse," and supposes that when Mulgrave and Waller read
it "with incredible pleasure and extreme transport" (as

We

1 Dedication of Examen Poeticum (Ker's Essays of Dryden, ii. 14). 2 Observe that, as noticed above, he himself by no means eschewed the "monstrous" fourteener, though, of course, he did not use it continuously.

some of us also do), it must have been the Homer that
delighted them, and not the Chapman. But decasyllables
alone will not satisfy him, even when they are fairly
stopped; for he thinks Sandys' Ovid "prose." He
says that he might descend to the mechanic beauties
of heroic verse," and tells us3 elsewhere that he "has long
had by him the materials" (which, unluckily, he never
worked up) "of an English Prosodia containing all the
mechanical rules of versification." So that as Jonson
disappointed us in the first half of the century, so does
he in the second. Yet we get some hints from him.
He objects, in the passage last quoted, to elision, which
he calls cæsura, and hints (saying he had "given them
to his friends") at the reason of the sweetness of
Denham's famous lines, which one may guess to have
been the strong cæsura in the proper sense, and the
antithesis. He frankly thinks that we are
are "ignorant
what feet ought to be used in Heroic Poetry"; says he
borrowed the idea of using the Alexandrine from Spenser ;
and has other tantalising glimmers which never come to
a light. That he thought "thousands" of Chaucer's
verses such that "no pronunciation could make them other
than short of half a foot or even a whole one," is a well-
known example of practically blameless ignorance.

Roscommon,

If such a man as Dryden, with his practice in poetry Mulgrave, and his interest in criticism, can give us nothing more etc. definite than this, we are not likely to get very much from Roscommon and Mulgrave on the one hand, or from Rymer and Dennis on the other. Nor do we. Mulgrave of the many titles, in his Essay on Poetry, talks of "harmonious numbers," and says that the language "must soft and easy run," but that is about all, and it does not do us much good. The "unspotted" Roscommon in 1 Ibid. (Ker, pp. 9, 10).

2 Discourse of Satan (Ker, ii. 110). 3 Dedication of the Æneis (Ker, ii. 217). and fullest, but provokingly general.

This last passage is the longest Its most valuable remark of a strictly prosodic character is that quoted above on Milton-that what you elide you must not pronounce. (For more on this and the whole, v. sup. p. 360, at the opening of the present Book and of the chapter on Dryden.) But the text had perhaps better be given at the close of this chapter.

his On Translated Poetry is a little more precise, and talks about "accents on odd syllables," of "vowels and accents regularly placed"; but this does not take us much further. Rymer ran down Shakespeare, and Dennis held him up; but neither in any place grapples at all closely with actual questions of prosody; though we are sure that their standard of "harmony" would have been pretty much the same as that of the two noble lords.

The fact seems to be that, till the very end of this time, there were two checks operating against the production of any definitely prosodic treatise. It was practically impossible, considering these general views about "harmony," "sweetness," etc., that anybody should take a complete view of the subject, and include even Elizabethan, much more older poetry, in his survey.

But, on the other hand, there was not as yet a sufficient supply of the new verse to serve as a basis of study; and that verse, as preferred and validated, was exceedingly monotonous in kind. Its producers, yet once more, were too much occupied in producing it to discuss it, and it was only after Dryden's death that Bysshe, greatly daring, took upon himself the office of législateur du Parnasse anglais. To tell the truth, we need not regret the absence of treatises at this time. They might have been curious; but they might also have been disgusting.1

1 To Prior justice has been already done, and he is as much of the next Book as of this. The Dryden passages referred to above are as follows:

"You may please also to observe, that there is not, to the best of my remembrance, one vowel gaping on another for want of a casura, in this whole poem: but, where a vowel ends a word, the next begins either with a consonant, or what is its equivalent; for our W and H aspirate, and our diphthongs, are plainly such. The greatest latitude I take is in the letter Y, when it concludes a word, and the first syllable of the next begins with a vowel. Neither need I have called this a latitude, which is only an explanation of this general rule, that no vowel can be cut off before another when we cannot sink the pronunciation of it; as he, she, me, I, etc. Virgil thinks it sometimes a beauty to imitate the licence of the Greeks, and leave two vowels opening on each other, as in that verse of the Third Pastoral,

Et succus pecori, et lac subducitur agnis.

"But nobis non licet esse tam disertis, at least if we study to refine our numbers. I have long had by me the materials of an English Prosodia, containing all the mechanical rules of versification, wherein I have treated, with some exactness, of the feet, the quantities, and the pauses. The French and

Italians know nothing of the two first; at least their best poets have not practised them. As for the pauses, Malherbe first brought them into France within this last century; and we see how they adorn their Alexandrines. But, as Virgil propounds a riddle, which he leaves unsolved

Dic, quibus in terris, inscripti nomina regum
Nascantur flores, et Phyllida solus habeto-

so I will give your Lordship another, and leave the exposition of it to your acute judgment. I am sure there are few who make verses, have observed the sweetness of these two lines in Cooper's Hill

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

And there are yet fewer who can find the reason of that sweetness. I have given it to some of my friends in conversation; and they have allowed the criticism to be just. But, since the evil of false quantities is difficult to be cured in any modern language; since the French and the Italians, as well as we, are yet ignorant what feet are to be used in Heroic Poetry; since I have not strictly observed those rules myself, which I can teach others; since I pretend no dictatorship among my fellow-poets; since, if I should instruct some of them to make well-running verses, they want genius to give them strength as well as sweetness; and, above all, since your Lordship has advised me not to publish that little which I know, I look on your counsel as your command, which I shall observe inviolably, till you shall please to revoke it, and leave me at liberty to make my thoughts public. In the meantime, that I may arrogate nothing to myself, I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin, and Spenser in English, have been my masters. Spenser has also given me the boldness to make use sometimes of his Alexandrine line, which we call, though improperly, the Pindaric, because Mr. Cowley has often employed it in his Odes. It adds a certain majesty to the verse, when it is used with judgment, and stops the sense from overflowing into another line. Formerly the French, like us, and the Italians, had but five feet, or ten syllables, in their heroic verse; but, since Ronsard's time as I suppose, they found their tongue too weak to support their epic poetry, without the addition of another foot. That indeed has given it somewhat of the run and measure of a trimeter; but it runs with more activity than strength: their language is not strung with sinews, like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight; and Pondere, non numero, is the British motto."