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ORTHOMETRY. |
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of feet is by any means necessary towards that variety which is required in the longest work. With the same rigour he pronounces upon the last syllables of verses: and commends Glover for closing his lines with a firm and stable syllable, which, he says, is necessary to support the dignity of the verse, and which Milton designedly neglected. The lines he means are, in Glover, such as these :
Rehearse, O Muse, the deeds and glorious death Of that fam'd Spartan, who withstood the power.
Leon. b. 1.
And of the contrary sort, in Milton, such as this :
Here swallow'd up in endless misery.
Paradise Lost, b. I.
A close of the line, which, had he thought it negligent, or wanting dignity, he would not have admitted so frequently, much less three times together, as in this instance :
And all who since, baptized or infidel, Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond.
Paradise Lost, b. 1.
The foregoing censure on Milton may warrant the mention here (though not exactly in chronological order) of Tyrwhitt's Essay on the Versification of Chaucery which contains much learned research into the nature and origin of our poetical measures; but which, in regard to the structure of our verse, advances some positions that are very questionable, to say the least of them ; as in this passage: "on the tenth or rhyming syllable, a |
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