"New reading! no: that is the paltry trick of a commentator, who endeavours to escape a difficulty by denying its existence. No, no; my edition will have none of these trivialities. Everything I print shall have a solid substance. I intend my edition to last. To the point, however; the difficulty vanishes at once if we suppose, as is most natural to believe, that Horace's Sapphics, were not composed of four lines but of three—the fourth line being really nothing but the Adonic termination to the third—like the tail to an Italian sonnet—or better still, like the lengthening of the concluding line in the Spenserian stanza: which has a magnificent swing and sweep in its amplitude, as if gathering up into its mighty arms the rich redundancy of poetic inspiration. Thus instead of
Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, u-orius amnis.
The verses read thus:—
Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, uxorius amnis.
And so throughout. Does not the sweep of this last line carry a fine harmony with it? Is it not incomparably superior to the mean, niggling, clipping versification as we usually receive it? There cannot be a question about it. And if you come to reflect, you will see how the error has crept in by the copyists being cramped for room, and writing the Adonic addition below, as if it were a new line. But it is no more a new line, than the additional syllables in Spenser are new lines; nevertheless, we often see printers forced to break a line into two. Here is an example," taking up a volume, "which occurs in Tennyson, whom I opened this morning." And he read aloud:—
"They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be
Queen o' the May."
"There," throwing the book down, "now suppose a few centuries hence all our literature to have perished, except half a dozen poets, some noodle of a commentator will imagine that 'Queen o' the May' is a separate verse, and will write learned twaddle on the versification of the English!"
An ample pinch closed this triumphant peroration; and Vyner holding his head slightly downwards to bring his nose in contact with his finger and thumb, looked up over that finger and thumb at Cecil, who had for some minutes ceased to hear what he was saying, having caught a glimpse of Blanche walking on the lawn with Captain Heath. Cecil disliked the Captain; and now a vague sentiment of jealousy hovered about his mind. No wonder, then, if he paid little heed to his host, and his host's observations on an idle point of philology. Of late he had become horribly bored by these consultations, and had often wished Horace and his amateur editor buried irrecoverably beneath the dust of Herculaneum; but never was his inattention so ill-timed as on that occasion!
"What are you looking at?" inquired Vyner, in a tone which his politeness could not completely subdue.
"Looking at? Nothing," said Cecil embarrassed. "I was reflecting——."