[145]. “Das Volkslied Israels im Munde der Propheten,” in the Preussische Jahrbücher, LXXIII. (1893), 460 ff. See p. 465.
[146]. Driver, Introd. Lit. Old Test., p. 361, says that rhythm, the restrained flow of expression, separates poetry from prose.
[147]. Professor Sievers has announced “a discovery of the principles of Hebrew metre,” and his exposition will be welcome. See Sitzungsberichte der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 5 February, 1899.
[148]. Professional “readers” nearly always kill a poem by reading it as prose. Tennyson read his own verses almost in a chant. De Vigny, Journal d’un Poete, p. 70, says, “tout homme qui dit bien ses vers les chante, en quelque sorte.” Ronsard, Œuvres, ed. Blanchemain, III. 12 f., asks the reader of his Franciade one thing: “Be good enough to pronounce my verses well, and suit your voice to their emotion, not reading it, after the way of certain folk, as a letter, ... but as a poem, with good emphasis.” So Quintilian; but the elocutionist has no bowels of mercy.
[149]. Geography, Introd., I. ii. 7, translation of Hamilton.
[150]. Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I. 434.
[151]. Critische Dichtkunst, pp. 70 f.
[152]. Bruchmann, Poetik, pp. 161, 124, 22.
[153]. Aston, Japanese Literature, p. 13.
[154]. The younger Racine is startling with his assertion that “poetry is the daughter of nature, while verse is the work of art.” Mém. Acad. Inscr., XV. 307 ff., “De la poesie Artificielle....”