A Vision of Judgment.

every copy is good or bad as it resembles or differs and expletives. Neither the consonants in the from its original. In defence of his enterprise, Mr. Southey should not have contented himself with a bare exposition of the measures of his verse, but should have actually noted the cæsuras, accented the syllables, and divided the feet. In matters of rhythm and sound, the untried ear cannot always catch the precise meaning of the musician or poet, especially where an original air is turned into a variation; and this seems precisely the case between the modernized and original epic, the difference acknowledged by the Laureate being the variation alluded to.

"A table, exhibiting the varieties which Mr. S. has adopted, and their agreement or disagreement with the legitimate hexameter, should have been drawn out. Critical experience has long ago selected and established certain canons for the iambic, sapphic, alcaic, and other metres; and Greek or Latin verses constructed according to these laws invariably excel both in rhythm and melody. There are in the Vision of Judgment parts which may charm and delight, but they do so from no metrical effect. The reader (notwithstanding the Laureate's caution) soon finds himself in a tangled path, and gets bewildered for want of those guides which lead him smoothly through the Siege of Troy. But if he travel far with the Muse of modern epic, he will have little running, frequent haltings, some stumbling and jostling, and now and then find the good lady gaping, or sitting crosslegged in the midst of a barbarous rabble of monosyllabic particles.

"But it will be easier to show the comparative and probable sources of excellence or failure in the composition of the modern hexameter, by an analysis of the Greek and Latin languages, compared as to their literal and syllabic relations. To effect this, four separate tables have been drawn, contaming the component parts and totals of eight verses of hexametrical dimensions, taken severally from the Iliad, Æneid, Vision of Judgment, and from a poem by Schiller. The divisions are calculated to show the totals of words, syllables, consonants, vowels, diphthongs, letters, and variety of final syllables. It will be seen from this tabular exposition that the Greek and Latin are nearly analogous, except that the balance of polysyllables inclines to the former. The diphthongs are more and the consonants fewer, and the total of letters and words also is less with the Greek. The conclusion therefore is, that the euphony, and syllabic power of speech, must likewise be on the side of the Greeks.

"In the English scale, the number of monosyllables is five times as great as in either of the two ancient languages, and more than twice as great as in the German. The English consonants are very nearly double those of the Greek or Latin, and the total number of words bears nearly the same ratio both to the Greek and Latin, viz. two to one. By necessity of grammar, a large proportion of these words consists of monosyllables

German, nor the total of letters, is so numerous as in the English, and the same relation holds between the final varieties of these two languages. "It has been before remarked that the Teutonic hexameter may be rendered somewhat superior to the English. This superiority is in a great measure to be attributed to the smaller aggregate of consonants and monosyllables which distinguish the German vocabulary. But the unprejudiced reader will draw what inferences he pleases from the comparative powers of each language, and regulate his decision according to the apparent truth or falsehood of the whole of the argument and evidence.

"Excludat jurgia Finis.'

"In taking leave of this question, the Writer again assures Mr. Southey of his high regard both for the private and literary life of the Laureate of the present age. The pen which has traced these Remarks, if it be not that of a ready writer, would fain be considered as that of a humble critic, actuated by no other motives than those of friendly discussions, and a desire to preserve the Epic Muse of Greece and Latium free from the barbarities of modern imitation.

"It is against the metre - the metrical association and arrangement - against the innovation, not the innovator, that the writer protests; the merits or demerits therefore of the Vision of Judgment, as a poem, he leaves to abler reviewers and to posterity. It will be read and admired by a few persons, just as the attempts of other Hexametrists have been. The experiments of Trissino, Sydney, and Spenser, produced a short-lived sensation, which perished with the sympathetic caprice of the times. The reputation of Mr. Southey may, even in the Georgian age, produce a parallel effect; but, independent of the probable causes of the failure already stated, the poem itself, being an occasional one, is on that account, also, more liable to forgetfulness.

"Via trita, via tuta, is therefore as good a password for the aspirant who would climb Parnassus, as for the humble pilgrim who plods along the beaten path of Prose. There is no necessity, indeed no apology, for attempting to revive those misshapen forms of Poetry, those immodulata poemata,' which have long ago been laid to rest, shrouded in cobwebs and buried in the dust. Ennius may be pardoned his imaginary metempsychosis, his Somnia Pythagorea, and assumption of the title Alter Homerus,' but the world would be loath now-a-days to allow the same privileges to an English poet.

"Had there been any good chance of imitating the classic hexameter, surely he (who by distinction among our Poets was called 'divine') must have succeeded in the enterprise. Spenser, however, relinquished the hopeless task; and it is to be regretted that his example, in this respect at least, has not acted preventively upon his worthy successor.

"In the farrago of metrical trash which has been | must, however, be remembered, that the 'Vism extracted from the modern hexametrists of different of Judgment' is neither more nor less than i countries, what is there worthy of example or remembrance, either in the subjects or execution of their performances? Human nature is indeed so fickle in her intellectual operations, that the most absurd and impracticable speculations have ever found partisans ready to advocate their truth, and embark in the execution of them. But the career of such preposterous enterprises can neither be prosperous nor long. To wage war against the opinions of the wise and experienced, is to challenge the fate of poor Dick Tinto, who after all his illspent time and labor, found himself patronized by one or two of those judicious persons who make a virtue of being singular, and of pitching their own opinions against those of the world in matters of taste and criticism.' Ever since the Republic of Letters was established, innovators of one kind or other have endeavored to supplant the sterling writers, not only of Greece and Rome, but of every civilized country. But when ingenuity or imitation can be foisted upon true scholarship, as the representative of original genius, the taste of the public must either be sadly perverted to relish what is bad, or be already satiated with that which is good.

"There can now be little, or rather no honor conferred upon our own legitimate Muse, by an attempt to naturalize a bastard race of metre, which has been banished from the most enlightened countries of Europe. Within the last two centuries, literature, arms, and commerce have extended our vernacular tongue over a vast portion of the globe, and it is spreading still further. On this, if on no other account, it behoves the guardians of our native quarry to see that it maintains its proper excellence, and to recommend, as worthy of imitation, only such standard works of art or science, as may have received the repeated sanction of the scholar and critic. The arts are naturally imitative; they will, however, sometimes, from mistaken judgment or self-confidence, undertake to copy that which is inimitable. We cannot, under any coloring or disguise, mistake the Muse of modern hexameter for the original Calliope of Homer or Virgil.

poet's dream. Objections of a similar kind migi apply to Dante or Milton, and to the subjects r their great labors, and in short to all scriptura. themes. It would be difficult, perhaps, to dea mine in what manner the scenes of the Vision af Judgment could have been unobjectionably portrayed. But there is no reason why a gentleman and scholar, like Mr. Southey, (who cannot, any more than the rest of the world, be deemed infallible,) should be loaded with abuse which would have been hardly justifiable had he puslished a series of poems as licentious as many of recent notoriety. No wonder, therefore, that the offended pride of the Laureate turns in disgost from the counsel of such unworthy rivals. When the civilities of learning cease to be cherished, admonition will become nauseous, and criticism will lose half its usefulness. It is, however, to be hoped, that no dispassionate inquirer will be ranked, even by the Laureate, among the Dcery of the Georgian age. At all events, the Writer of the present remarks had rather accept an humble place among those whom King James has styled the docile bairnes of knowledge.' The Writer's stock in trade as a critic is poor and homely; & little recollection of the rules of prosody, accent, and rhythm, imprinted upon early memory by rod or ferula; an Etonian master and grammar-remnants of scanning and proving-an ordinary pair of ears, and lungs no better than those of other folks. These scanty materials have been exercised in the examination of the Vision of Judgment, and conclusions very different from those of its author have been deduced. And when the reader has perused the following eulogy by the Laureate upon the excellence of our blank verse, he will surely ask himself why that gentleman did not apply it in the composition of a poem, which, from the nature of its argument, embraced the terrible and sublime as well as the tender and pathetic. Take our blank verse for all in all, in all its gradations, from the elaborate rhythm of Milton, down to its loosest structure in the early dramatists, and I believe that there is no measure comparable to it, either in our own or any other language, for might, and majesty, and flexibility, and compass.' A host of authors might be brought in support of this panegyric upon English blank verse; but as it is against the modern hexametrists that the Writer has waged a somewhat long (though, as he trusts, a friendly) warfare, he will now draw his last shaft from the quiver of honest old Puttenham, and when he has shot it, will hang up his bow and shake hands with the Laureate.

"In the preface to the Vision of Judgment, Mr. Southey assures us that a desire to realize one of the hopes of his youth was one among the leading causes of his enterprise: to this motive might have been superadded the conscientious discharge of an official duty, and the public expression of his loyalty and attachment to the reigning sovereign. With these, or such like considerations, the imaginary apotheosis of our late revered monarch seems to have coöperated in the plan and ex ecution of a poem, which cannot fail of giving Now, peradventure, with us Englishmen, it be offence to many serious and well-meaning persons. somewhat too late to admit a new invention of To dive into the mysteries of heaven, and to feete and times, that our forefathers never used, pronounce upon the eternal condition of departed nor ever observed till this day, either in their measkings or others, is unquestionably a bold, if not ures or in their pronunciation, and perchance will a presumptuous undertaking. But when this is seem in us a presumptuous part to attempt; concarried on under the bias of political feelings, there sidering also it would be hard to find many men to is greater danger of its becoming erroneous, or like one man's choice, in the limitation of times digressing into what some might call impiety. It and quantities of words, with which not one, but

every eare, is to be pleased and made a particular judge; being most truly said that a multitude, or commonality, is hard to please and easy to offend. And therefore I intend not to proceed any further in this curiositye, than to shew the small subtility that any other hath yet done, and not by imitation, but by observation; not to the intent to have it put in execution in our vulgar Poesie, but to be pleasantly scanned upon, as are all novelties so frivo-ited one extract of sufficient length to show the lous and ridiculous as it.'"