Part 17 (1/2)

Abminable--unutterable--and worse Than fables yet have feigned.

_Id._

Wallowing unweldy--enrmous in their gait.

_Id._

Of unusual pa.s.sionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in the _Faerie Queene_, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross Knight:

But he, my lion, and my n.o.ble lord, How does he find in cruel heart to hate Her that him lov'd, and ever most ador'd _As the gd of my lfe?_[30] Why hath he me abhorr'd?

[30] Pray let not the reader consent to read this first half of the line in any manner less marked and peremptory. It is a striking instance of the beauty of that 'acceleration and r.e.t.a.r.dation of true verse' which Coleridge speaks of. There is to be a hurry on the words _as the_, and a pa.s.sionate emphasis and pa.s.sing stop on the word _G.o.d_; and so of the next three words.

The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is weakness. There is a n.o.ble sentiment--it appears both in Daniel's and Sir John Beaumont's works, but is most probably the latter's,--which is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words:

Only the firmest and the _constant'st_ hearts G.o.d sets to act the _stout'st_ and hardest parts.

_Stout'st_ and _constant'st_ for 'stoutest' and 'most constant'! It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line in _Hudibras_:

He that hangs or _beats out's_ brains, The devil's in him if _he_ feigns.

_Beats out's brains_, for 'beats out his brains'. Of heaviness, Davenant's _Gondibert_ is a formidable specimen, almost throughout:

With slence (rder's help, and mark of care) They chde that nise which heedless yuth affect; Stll course for use, for health they cleanness wear, And save in well-fx'd arms, all nceness check'd.

They thought, thse that, unarm'd, exps'd frail lfe, But naked nature valiantly betray'd; Wh was, though naked, safe, till prde made strfe, But made defence must use, nw danger's made.

And so he goes digging and lumbering on, like a heavy preacher thumping the pulpit in italics, and spoiling many ingenious reflections.

Weakness in versification is want of accent and emphasis. It generally accompanies prosaicalness, and is the consequence of weak thoughts, and of the affectation of a certain well-bred enthusiasm. The writings of the late Mr. Hayley were remarkable for it; and it abounds among the lyrical imitators of Cowley, and the whole of what is called our French school of poetry, when it aspired above its wit and 'sense'. It sometimes breaks down in a horrible, hopeless manner, as if giving way at the first step. The following ludicrous pa.s.sage in Congreve, intended to be particularly fine, contains an instance:

And lo! Silence himself is here; Methinks I see the midnight G.o.d appear.

In all his downy pomp array'd, Behold the reverend shade.

_An ancient sigh he sits upon!!!_ Whose memory of sound is long since gone, _And purposely annihilated for his throne!!!_

_Ode on the singing of Mrs. Arabella Hunt._

See also the would-be enthusiasm of Addison about music:

For ever consecrate the _day_ To music and _Cecilia_; Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below, Music can n.o.ble HINTS _impart!!!_

It is observable that the unpoetic masters of ridicule are apt to make the most ridiculous mistakes, when they come to affect a strain higher than the one they are accustomed to. But no wonder. Their habits neutralize the enthusiasm it requires.

_Sweetness_, though not identical with smoothness, any more than feeling is with sound, always includes it; and smoothness is a thing so little to be regarded for its own sake, and indeed so worthless in poetry but for some taste of sweetness, that I have not thought necessary to mention it by itself; though such an all-in-all in versification was it regarded not a hundred years back, that Thomas Warton himself, an idolater of Spenser, ventured to wish the following line in the _Faerie Queene_,

And was admired much of fools, _wmen_, and boys--

altered to

And was admired much of women, fools, and boys--

thus destroying the fine scornful emphasis on the first syllable of 'women'! (an ungallant intimation, by the way, against the fair s.e.x, very startling in this no less woman-loving than great poet). Any poetaster can be smooth. Smoothness abounds in all small poets, as sweetness does in the greater. Sweetness is the smoothness of grace and delicacy,--of the sympathy with the pleasing and lovely. Spenser is full of it,--Shakespeare--Beaumont and Fletcher--Coleridge. Of Spenser's and Coleridge's versification it is the prevailing characteristic. Its main secrets are a smooth progression between variety and sameness, and a voluptuous sense of the continuous,--'linked sweetness long drawn out'. Observe the first and last lines of the stanza in the _Faerie Queene_, describing a shepherd brus.h.i.+ng away the gnats;--the open and the close _e's_ in the one,