[185]. “Essai de Rythmique Comparée,” in Le Museon, X. 299 ff., 419 ff., 589 ff.
[186]. Used to explain the actual origin of rhythm by Müller and Schumann, Zeitschr. f. Psychol. u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane, VI. 282 f., quoted by Meumann, Untersuchungen, etc., pp. 10 f.
[187]. See Hoffmann’s similar theory, quoted below.
[188]. The old mistake of confounding literal chronology with evolution. As if the Avesta were primitive!
[189]. So M. de la Grasserie asserts in an ingenious account of the retrograde process by which in modern times poetry has retraced its old evolution, passing from verse back through rhythmic prose to prose outright. The only use which he now concedes to verse is in ... the opera. In all other fields,—epic, drama, lyric,—he thinks it is dead as King Pandion.
[190]. Die Entstehung der arabischen Versmasse, Giessen, 1896.
[191]. A remarkable passage. See the translation of Roberts, p. 149.
[192]. Evelyn’s Diary, 24 February, 1664-1665: “Dr. Fell, Canon of Christ Church, preached before the king ... a very formal discourse, and in blank verse, according to his manner.”
[193]. The whole passage is interesting with its fling at poetry, not, however, to be taken as a serious indictment: Table Talk, ed. Arber, p. 85: “’Tis a fine thing for children to learn to make verse; but when they come to be men, they must speak like other men, or else they will be laugh’t at. ’Tis ridiculous to speak, or write, or preach in verse.” Again, “’Tis ridiculous for a Lord to print verses, ’tis well enough to make them to please himself, but to make them publick is foolish. If a man in his private chamber twirls his bandstrings, or plays with a rush to please himself, ’tis well enough; but if he should go into Fleet Street,”—and so on. He thinks there is no reason why plays should be in verse; but he rescues the old poets who were forced to write verse “because their verse was sung to music.”
[194]. Untersuchungen zur Psychologic und Aesthetik des Rhythmus, Leipzig, 1894; reprinted from Vol. X. of Wundt’s Philosophische Studien.