English Critical Essays Part 18

_Unsuperfluousness_ is rather a matter of style in general, than of the sound and order of words: and yet versification is so much strengthened by it, and so much weakened by its opposite, that it could not but come within the category of its requisites. When superfluousness of words is not occasioned by overflowing animal spirits, as in Beaumont and Fletcher, or by the very genius of luxury, as in Spenser (in which cases it is enrichment as well as overflow), there is no worse sign for a poet altogether, except pure barrenness.

Every word that could be taken away from a poem, unreferable to either of the above reasons for it, is a damage; and many such are death; for there is nothing that posterity seems so determined to resent as this want of respect for its time and trouble. The world is too rich in books to endure it. Even true poets have died of this Writer's Evil.

Trifling ones have survived, with scarcely any pretensions but the terseness of their trifles. What hope can remain for wordy mediocrity?

Let the discerning reader take up any poem, pen in hand, for the purpose of discovering how many words he can strike out of it that give him no requisite ideas, no relevant ones that he cares for, and no reasons for the rhyme beyond its necessity, and he will see what blot and havoc he will make in many an admired production of its day,--what marks of its inevitable fate. Bulky authors in particular, however safe they may think themselves, would do well to consider what parts of their cargo they might dispense with in their proposed voyage down the gulfs of time; for many a gallant vessel, thought indestructible in its age, has perished;--many a load of words, expected to be in eternal demand, gone to join the wrecks of self-love, or rotted in the warehouses of change and vicissitude. I have said the more on this point, because in an age when the true inspiration has undoubtedly been reawakened by Coleridge and his fellows, and we have so many new poets coming forward, it may be as well to give a general warning against that tendency to an acc.u.mulation and ostentation of _thoughts_, which is meant to be a refutation in full of the pretensions of all poetry less cogitabund, whatever may be the requirements of its cla.s.s. Young writers should bear in mind, that even some of the very best materials for poetry are not poetry built; and that the smallest marble shrine, of exquisite workmanship, outvalues all that architect ever chipped away. Whatever can be so dispensed with is rubbish.

_Variety_ in versification consists in whatsoever can be done for the prevention of monotony, by diversity of stops and cadences, distribution of emphasis, and r.e.t.a.r.dation and acceleration of time; for the whole real secret of versification is a musical secret, and is not attainable to any vital effect, save by the ear of genius. All the mere knowledge of feet and numbers, of accent and quant.i.ty, will no more impart it, than a knowledge of the 'Guide to Music' will make a Beethoven or a Paisiello. It is a matter of sensibility and imagination; of the beautiful in poetical pa.s.sion, accompanied by musical; of the imperative necessity for a pause here, and a cadence there, and a quicker or slower utterance in this or that place, created by a.n.a.logies of sound with sense, by the fluctuations of feeling, by the demands of the G.o.ds and graces that visit the poet's harp, as the winds visit that of Aeolus. The same time and quant.i.ty which are occasioned by the spiritual part of this secret, thus become its formal ones,--not feet and syllables, long and short, iambics or trochees; which are the reduction of it to its _less_ than dry bones.

You might get, for instance, not only ten and eleven, but thirteen or fourteen syllables into a rhyming, as well as blank, heroical verse, if time and the feeling permitted; and in irregular measure this is often done; just as musicians put twenty notes in a bar instead of two, quavers instead of minims, according as the feeling they are expressing impels them to fill up the time with short and hurried notes, or with long; or as the choristers in a cathedral r.e.t.a.r.d or precipitate the words of the chant, according as the quant.i.ty of its notes, and the colon which divides the verse of the psalm, conspire to demand it. Had the moderns borne this principle in mind when they settled the prevailing systems of verse, instead of learning them, as they appear to have done, from the first drawling and one-syllabled notation of the church hymns, we should have retained all the advantages of the more numerous versification of the ancients, without being compelled to fancy that there was no alternative for us between our syllabical uniformity and the hexameters or other special forms unsuited to our tongues. But to leave this question alone, we will present the reader with a few sufficing specimens of the difference between monotony and variety in versification, first from Pope, Dryden, and Milton, and next from Gay and Coleridge. The following is the boasted melody of the nevertheless exquisite poet of the _Rape of the Lock_,--exquisite in his wit and fancy, though not in his numbers.

The reader will observe that it is literally _see-saw_, like the rising and falling of a plank, with a light person at one end who is jerked up in the briefer time, and a heavier one who is set down more leisurely at the other. It is in the otherwise charming description of the heroine of that poem:

On her white breast--a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss--and infidels adore; Her lively looks--a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes--and as unfix'd as those; Favours to none--to all she smiles extends, Oft she rejects--but never once offends; Bright as the sun--her eyes the gazers strike, And like the sun--they shine on all alike; Yet graceful ease--and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults--if belles had faults to hide; If to her share--some female errors fall, Look on her face--and you'll forget them all.

Compare with this the description of Iphigenia in one of Dryden's stories from Boccaccio:

It happen'd--on a summer's holiday, } That to the greenwood shade--he took his way, } For Cymon shunn'd the church--and used not much to pray. } His quarter-staff--which he could ne'er forsake, Hung half before--and half behind his back; He trudg'd along--not knowing what he sought, And whistled as he went--for want of thought.

By chance conducted--or by thirst constrain'd, The deep recesses of a grove he gain'd:-- Where--in a plain defended by a wood, } Crept through the matted gra.s.s--a crystal flood, } By which--an alabaster fountain stood; } And on the margent of the fount was laid-- Attended by her slaves--a sleeping maid; Like Dian and her nymphs--when, tir'd with sport, To rest by cool Eurotas they resort.-- The dame herself--the G.o.ddess well express'd, Not more distinguished by her purple vest-- Than by the charming features of the face-- And e'en in slumber--a superior grace: Her comely limbs--compos'd with decent care, } Her body shaded--by a light cymar, } Her bosom to the view--was only bare; } Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied-- For yet their places were but signified.-- The fanning wind upon her bosom blows-- } To meet the fanning wind--the bosom rose; } The fanning wind--and purling stream--continue her repose. }

For a further variety take, from the same author's _Theodore and Honoria_, a pa.s.sage in which the couplets are run one into the other, and all of it modulated, like the former, according to the feeling demanded by the occasion:

Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves he stood-- More than a mile immers'd within the wood-- At once the wind was laid. --The whispering sound Was dumb. --A rising earthquake rock'd the ground.

With deeper brown the grove was overspread-- } A sudden horror seiz'd his giddy head-- } And his ears tinkled--and his colour fled. }

Nature was in alarm.--Some danger nigh Seem'd threaten'd--though unseen to mortal eye.

Unus'd to fear--he summon'd all his soul, And stood collected in himself--and whole: Not long.--

But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and accent, apart from emotion, nothing can surpa.s.s the account, in _Paradise Lost_, of the Devil's search for an accomplice:

There was a place, Nw nt--though Sn--not Tme--frst wrought the change, Where Tgris--at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf--sht under ground--till part Rse up a fountain by the Tree of Lfe.

_In_ with the river sunk--and _wth_ it _rse_ Satan--invlv'd in rsing mst--then sought Where to lie hd.--Sea he had search'd--and land From Eden over Pntus--and the pol Maetis--_up_ beyond the river _Ob_; Dwnward as far antarctic;--and in length West from Orntes--to the cean barr'd At Darien--thence to the land where flws Ganges and Indus.--Thus the rb he ram'd With narrow search;--and with inspection deep Consder'd every creature--whch of all Mst opportune mght serve his wles--and found The serpent--subtlest beast of all the field.

If the reader cast his eye again over this pa.s.sage, he will not find a verse in it which is not varied and harmonized in the most remarkable manner. Let him notice in particular that curious balancing of the lines in the sixth and tenth verses:

_In_ with the river sunk, &c.

and

_Up_ beyond the river _Ob_.

It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of Milton, that it exhibits too constant a perfection of this kind. It sometimes forces upon us too great a sense of consciousness on the part of the composer. We miss the first sprightly runnings of verse,--the ease and sweetness of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses weight into heaviness.

Thus much concerning the chief of our two most popular measures. The other, called octo-syllabic, or the measure of eight syllables, offered such facilities for _namby-pamby_, that it had become a jest as early as the time of Shakespeare, who makes Touchstone call it the 'b.u.t.terwoman's rate to market', and the 'very false gallop of verses'.

It has been advocated, in opposition to the heroic measure, upon the ground that ten syllables lead a man into epithets and other superfluities, while eight syllables compress him into a sensible and pithy gentleman. But the heroic measure laughs at it. So far from compressing, it converts one line into two, and sacrifices everything to the quick and importunate return of the rhyme. With Dryden, compare Gay, even in the strength of Gay,--

The wind was high, the window shakes; With sudden start the miser wakes; Along the silent room he stalks,

(A miser never 'stalks'; but a rhyme was desired for 'walks')

Looks back, and trembles as he walks: Each lock and every bolt he tries, In every creek and corner pries; Then opes the chest with treasure stor'd, And stands in rapture o'er his h.o.a.rd;

('h.o.a.rd' and 'treasure stor'd' are just made for one another)

But now, with sudden qualms possess'd, He wrings his hands, he beats his breast; By conscience stung, he wildly stares, And thus his guilty soul declares.

And so he denounces his gold, as miser never denounced it; and sighs, because

Virtue resides on earth no more!

Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of _syllables_;--by the _beat of four_ into which you might get as many syllables as you could, instead of allotting eight syllables to the poor time, whatever it might have to say. He varied it further with alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions precisely a.n.a.logous to those in music, and rendered it altogether worthy to utter the manifold thoughts and feelings of himself and his lady Christabel. He even ventures, with an exquisite sense of solemn strangeness and licence (for there is witchcraft going forward), to introduce a couplet of blank verse, itself as mystically and beautifully modulated as anything in the music of Gluck or Weber.

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awaken'd the crowing c.o.c.k; Tu-whit!--Tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing c.o.c.k, _How drowsily he crew._ Sir Leoline, the baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff b.i.t.c.h; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, _Fur for the quarters and twelve for the hour,_ Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud: Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

_Is the nght chlly and dark?

The nght is chlly, but nt dark._ The thin grey cloud is spread on high, It covers, but not hides, the sky.

The moon is behind, and at the full, And yet she looks both small and dull.

The night is chilly, the cloud is grey;

(These are not superfluities, but mysterious returns of importunate feeling)

_'Tis a month before the month of May, And the spring comes slowly up this way._ The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle-gate?

She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heav'd were soft and low, And nought was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest mistletoe; She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel!

It moan'd as near as near can be, But what it is, she cannot tell.

On the other side it seems to be Of the huge, broad-breasted, ld oak tree.

The night is chill, the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

(This 'bleak moaning' is a witch's)

There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek-- There is not wind enough to twirl _The ne red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as ften as dance it can, Hanging so lght and hanging so hgh, On the tpmost twg that looks up at the sky._

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!

Jesu Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak, And stole to the other side of the oak.

What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a robe of silken white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone: The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck and arms were bare: Her blue-vein'd feet unsandall'd were; And wildly glitter'd, here and there, The gems entangled in her hair.

I guess 'twas _frightful_ there to see _A lady so richly clad as she-- Beautiful exceedingly._

The principle of Variety in Uniformity is here worked out in a style 'beyond the reach of art'. Everything is diversified according to the demand of the moment, of the sounds, the sights, the emotions; the very uniformity of the outline is gently varied; and yet we feel that _the whole is one and of the same character_, the single and sweet unconsciousness of the heroine making all the rest seem more conscious, and ghastly, and expectant. It is thus that _versification itself becomes part of the sentiment of a poem_, and vindicates the pains that have been taken to show its importance. I know of no very fine versification unaccompanied with fine poetry; no poetry of a mean order accompanied with verse of the highest.

As to Rhyme, which might be thought too insignificant to mention, it is not at all so. The universal consent of modern Europe, and of the East in all ages, has made it one of the musical beauties of verse for all poetry but epic and dramatic, and even for the former with Southern Europe,--a sustainment for the enthusiasm, and a demand to enjoy. The mastery of it consists in never writing it for its own sake, or at least never appearing to do so; in knowing how to vary it, to give it novelty, to render it more or less strong, to divide it (when not in couplets) at the proper intervals, to repeat it many times where luxury or animal spirits demand it (see an instance in t.i.tania's speech to the Fairies), to impress an affecting or startling remark with it, and to make it, in comic poetry, a new and surprising addition to the jest.

Large was his bounty and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send; He gave to misery all he had, _a tear_; He gain'd from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) _a friend_.