HARRIS'S COMMENDATORY POEM ON FLETCHER.
I'd have a state of wit convok'd, which hath
A power to take up on common faith:—
This is an instance of that modifying of quantity by emphasis, without which our elder poets cannot be scanned. 'Power,' here, instead of being one long syllable—pow'r—must be sounded, not indeed as a spondee, nor yet as a trochee; but as—{Symbol: u-shape beneath line};—the first syllable is 1 1/4.
We can, indeed, never expect an authentic edition of our elder dramatic
poets (for in those times a drama was a poem), until some man undertakes
the work, who has studied the philosophy of metre. This has been found
the main torch of sound restoration in the Greek dramatists by Bentley,
Porson, and their followers;—how much more, then, in writers in our own
language! It is true that quantity, an almost iron law with the Greek,
is in English rather a subject for a peculiarly fine ear, than any law
or even rule; but, then, instead of it, we have, first, accent;
secondly, emphasis; and lastly, retardation, and acceleration of the
times of syllables according to the meaning of the words, the passion
that accompanies them, and even the character of the person that uses
them. With due attention to these,—above all, to that, which requires
the most attention and the finest taste, the character, Massinger, for
example, might be reduced to a rich and yet regular metre. But then the
'regulæ' must be first known;—though I will venture to say, that he who
does not find a line (not corrupted) of Massinger's flow to the time
total of a trimeter catalectic iambic verse, has not read it aright. But
by virtue of the last principle—the retardation or acceleration of
time—we have the proceleusmatic foot * * * *, and the 'dispondaeus' —
— — —, not to mention the 'choriambus', the ionics, paeons, and
epitrites. Since Dryden, the metre of our poets leads to the sense: in
our elder and more genuine bards, the sense, including the passion,
leads to the metre. Read even Donne's satires as he meant them to be
read, and as the sense and passion demand, and you will find in the
lines a manly harmony.