  Quid tentabam scribere versus erat.—Ovid. COWPER’S LETTER TO NEWTON.The following letter was written to Rev. John Newton, by William Cowper, in reference to a poem On Charity, by the latter:— My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there’s nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not;—by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before? I have writ “Charity,” not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the “Reviewer” should say to be sure, the gentleman’s muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the tastes and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, ’tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construction; she has baited her trap, in the hope to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; ’tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, although I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here another year. I have heard before of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and suchlike things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in, you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a EXAMPLE IN IRVING’S NEW YORK.The following remarkable instance of involuntary poetic prose occurs in Knickerbocker’s humorous history of New York, near the commencement of the Sixth Book:— The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet “piping time of peace,” he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty’s siren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady’s brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the livelong summer’s day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O’er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where wanton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the bright shield and ponderous lance, or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry. In D’Israeli’s Wondrous Tale of Alroy Why am I here? are you not here? and need I urge a stronger plea? Oh, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival! Our walls are hung with flowers you love; I culled them by the fountain’s side; the holy lamps are trimmed and set, and you must raise their earliest flame. Without the gate my maidens wait to offer you a robe of state. Then, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival. NELLY’S FUNERAL.In Horne’s New Spirit of the Age,—a series of criticisms on eminent living authors,—we find an admirable example of prose poetry thus noticed:— A curious circumstance is observable in a great portion of the scenes of tragic power, pathos, and tenderness contained in various parts of Mr. Dickens’s works, which it is possible may have been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not even subsequently conscious of it. It is that they are written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, and Shelley, and some other poets, have occasionally adopted. Witness the following description from The Old Curiosity Shop. And now the bell—the bell She had so often heard by night and day And listened to with solid pleasure, E’en as a living voice— Rung its remorseless toll for her, So young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, And blooming youth, and helpless infancy, Poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength And health, in the full blush Of promise—the mere dawn of life— To gather round her tomb. Old men were there Whose eyes were dim And senses failing— Granddames, who might have died ten years ago, And still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame, The palsied, The living dead in many shapes and forms, To see the closing of this early grave! What was the death it would shut in, To that which still would crawl and creep above it! Along the crowded path they bore her now; Pale as the new-fallen snow That covered it; whose day on earth Had been so fleeting. In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, She passed again, and the old church Received her in its quiet shade. Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words have been omitted—in and its; “granddames” has been substituted for “grandmothers,” and “e’en” for “almost.” All that remains is exactly as in the original, not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same to a comma. The brief homily that concludes the funeral is profoundly beautiful. Oh! it is hard to take The lesson that such deaths will teach, But let no man reject it, For it is one that all must learn And is a mighty universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, For every fragile form from which he lets The parting spirit free, A hundred virtues rise, In shapes of mercy, charity, and love, To walk the world and bless it. Of every tear That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, Some good is born, some gentler nature comes. Not a word of the original is changed in the above quotation, which is worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, meeting on the common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the two most unlike men in the literature of the country are brought into close proximation. The following similar passage is from the concluding paragraph of Nicholas Nickleby:— The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave, Trodden by feet so small and light, That not a daisy drooped its head Beneath their pressure. Through all the spring and summer time Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands, Rested upon the stone. NIAGARA.The same rhythmic cadence is observable in the following passage, copied verbatim from the American Notes:— I think in every quiet season now, Still do those waters roll, and leap, and roar, And tumble all day long; Still are the rainbows spanning them A hundred feet below. Still when the sun is on them, do they shine And glow like molten gold. Still when the day is gloomy do they fall Like snow, or seem to crumble away, Like the front of a great chalk cliff, Or roll adown the rock like dense white smoke. But always does this mighty stream appear To die as it comes down. And always from the unfathomable grave Arises that tremendous ghost of spray And mist which is never laid: Which has haunted this place With the same dread solemnity, Since darkness brooded on the deep And that first flood before the Deluge—Light Came rushing on Creation at the word of God. To any one who reads this we need not say that but three lines in it vary at all from the closest requisitions of an iambic movement. The measure is precisely of the kind which Mr. Southey so often used. For the reader’s convenience, we copy from Thalaba his well remembered lines on Night, as an instance:— How beautiful is Night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air, No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain Breaks the serene of heaven. In full orbed glory yonder Moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths. Beneath her steady ray The desert circle spreads, Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How beautiful is Night! INVOLUNTARY VERSIFICATION IN THE SCRIPTURES.The hexametric cadence in the authorized translation of the Bible has been pointed out in another portion of this volume. It is very noticeable in such passages as these, for example, from the Second Psalm:— Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. The anapÆstic cadence prevalent in the Psalms is also very remarkable:— That will bring forth his fruit in due season.—v. 6. Whatsoever he doth it shall prosper.—v. 4. Away from the face of the earth.—v. 5. Be able to stand in the judgment.—v. 6. The way of th’ ungodly shall perish.—v. 7. Couplets may be drawn from the same inspired source, as follows:— Great peace have they that love thy law: And nothing shall offend them.—Psalm, cxix. 165. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace Whose mind is stayed on thee.—Isaiah, xxvi. 3. When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, Ye know that the summer is nigh.—Matthew, xxiv. 32. UNINTENTIONAL RHYMES OF PROSERS.The delicate ear of Addison, who would stop the press to add a conjunction, or erase a comma, allowed this inelegant jingle to escape his detection:— What I am going to mention, will perhaps deserve your attention. Dr. Whewell, when Master of Trinity College, fell into a similar trap, to the great amusement of his readers. In his work on Mechanics, he happened to write literatim and verbatim, though not lincatim, the following tetrastich:— There is no force, however great, Can stretch a cord, however fine, Into a horizontal line, Which is accurately straight. Fondly do we hope, Fervently do we pray, That this mighty scourge of war May speedily pass away: Yet if be God’s will That it continue until— but here the strain abruptly ceases, and the President relapses into prose. In the course of a discussion upon the involuntary metre into which Shakspeare so frequently fell, when he intended his minor characters to speak prose, Dr. Johnson observed; “Such verse we make when we are writing prose; We make such verse in common conversation.” Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, from their habit of committing to memory and reciting dramatic blank verse, unconsciously made their most ordinary observations in that measure. Kemble, for instance, on giving a shilling to a beggar, thus answered the surprised look of his companion:— “It is not often that I do these things, But when I do, I do them handsomely.” And once when, in a walk with Walter Scott on the banks of the Tweed, a dangerous looking bull made his appearance, Scott took the water, Kemble exclaimed:— “Sheriff, I’ll get me up in yonder tree.” The presence of danger usually makes a man speak naturally, if anything will. If a reciter of blank verse, then, fall unconsciously into the rhythm of it when intending to speak prose, much more may an habitual writer of it be expected to do so. Instances of the kind from the table-talk of both Kemble and his sister might be multiplied. This of Mrs. Siddons,— “I asked for water, boy; you’ve brought me beer,——” is one of the best known. |
|
