[100]. The decision of this is all the more remarkable that Scaliger does not, as unwary moderns might expect, make verse the form of Poetry, but the matter. Feet, rhythm, metre, these are the things that Poetry works in, her stuff, her raw material. The skill of the poet in its various applications is the form. A very little thought will show this to be the most decisive negation possible of the Wordsworthian heresy—anticipated by many sixteenth-century writers, from Italy to England, and though not exactly authorised, countenanced by the ancients, from Aristotle downwards—that verse is not essential in any way.
[101]. One cannot help thinking that this distinction, which is quite contrary to those entertained by Aristotle and Quintilian, must have been influenced by the cadences of the modern languages—Italian and French—with which Scaliger was familiar. In both, but especially in French, the actual “measuring-off” of syllables was the be-all and end-all of metre, the easements provided in English and German by syllabic equivalence being in French refused altogether, in Italian replaced only by the more meagre aid of syncope and apocope.
[102]. As, even throughout the neo-classic age, very orthodox neo-classics admitted, especially in the “Musæus v. Homer” case.
[103]. Varietas poetices κομητικὴ, sicut Cypassis Corinnæ. The text has κομωτικὴ, which I do not find.
[104]. Spingarn, p. 172. “Disinterested treatment” of practical problems, such as poems certainly are, “wholly aside from all practical considerations,” sometimes leads to awkward results.
[105]. Mr Spingarn (p. 94) apparently states that he “formulated” them, but the gist of the next two pages fully corrects this slip or ambiguity; and he has himself pointed out with equal decision and correctness that the French assumption contained in the phrase, Unités Scaligériennes, is unfounded.
[107]. Vienna, 1570. My copy is the second enlarged and improved issue, which appeared at Basle five years later. I have also the companion edition of Petrarch (Basle, 1582), and the Opere Varie Critiche, published, with a Life, by Muratori, in 4to (Lione, 1727). Besides these he wrote an “exposition” of Dante, which was lost, and he is said, by Muratori, to have been never tired of reading, and discovering new beauties in, Boccaccio. Bentley, Diss. on Phal., ed. 1817, p. liii, defending Castelvetro against Boyle, says that “his books have at this present time such a mighty reputation, that they are sold for their weight in silver in most countries of Europe.” I am glad that this is not true now, for the Poetic by itself weighs nearly 3 lb. But Europe often makes its valuations worse. I have seen, though not bought, a copy for a shilling in these days.
[108]. See the curious remarks of Salviati, printed from MS. by Mr Spingarn (op. cit., p. 316). Salviati thinks that Castelvetro too often wrote to show off subtlety of opinion, and to be not like other people.
[109]. Op. Var., p. 83 sq.