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2 86 ORTHOMETRY. |
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poetry; and he reduces them to two, as being * essential, and giving character and name to two different species of verse, viz. the iambic and the trochee, of which he gives this strange account, that it " is but an iambic turned over and over."
Campion might have shown, even from his own poetry, that our language can receive other numbers than he has enumerated; but his book contains little that is new or extraordinary, except that the poetical part is all in blank verse, and that he wishes to discard entirely from our poetry what he is pleased to call " the fatness of rhyme;" which brought forth an answer from a writer of a superior order to Campion, both in verse and prose.
This was Samuel Daniel, who, in 1603, wrote a Defence of Rhyme, against Campion's " Observations," " wherein is demonstratively proved, that rhyme is the fittest harmony of words that comports with our language." This is, indeed, asserted; but in proofs and demonstration, he falls as short as his antagonist. Of him he says : " This detractor is a man of fair parts, and good reputation, and therefore the reproach forcibly cast from such a hand may throw down more at once than the labours of many shall in long time build up again. We could well have allowed of his numbers, if he had not disgraced our rhyme, which both custom and nature doth most powerfully defend ; custom that is above all law, nature that is above all art. Our rhyme is likewise number and harmony of words, consisting of an agreeing sound in the last syllables of several verses, giving both to the ear |
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