For further discussion of the relations of classical and English prosody, and of accent and quantity in English, see Schipper, vol. i. pp. 21-27; A. J. Ellis: article in the Transactions of the Philological Society, 1875-1876; T. D. Goodell: article on "Quantity in English Verse," in the Proceedings of the American Philological Society, 1885; Edmund Gurney: The Power of Sound, pp. 429-439; J. M. Robertson: Appendix to New Essays towards a Critical Method, 1897; and the discussion in Part Three of the present volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Puttenham's treatise on English poetry, which followed Webbe's (1589), and was the most thorough treatment of the subject written in the Elizabethan period, also discussed the "reformed versifying," but with less respect. The chapter is entitled: "How if all maner of sodaine innovations were not very scandalous, specially in the lawes of any langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and Latine feete might be brought into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace inough." (Arber Reprint of The Arte of English Poesie, p. 126.) Puttenham seems to see the relations of quantity and accent somewhat more clearly than most of his contemporaries, and while he gives rules for adapting English words to quantitative prosody, he is disposed to think that "peradventure with us Englishmen it be somewhat too late to admit a new invention of feete and times that our forefathers never used nor never observed till this day" (p. 132).
[43] Campion's Observations are reprinted in Mr. Bullen's edition of his poems, and also in Rhys's Literary Pamphlets, vol. i. His attack on the customary English rimed verse was answered by the poet laureate, Samuel Daniel, who published in the same year (1602) his Defence of Ryme against a Pamphlet entituled Observations in the Art of English Poesie. "Wherein is demonstratively prooved that Ryme is the fittest harmonie of words that comports with our Language." Daniel struck at the root of all the principles of the classical versifiers,—the supreme authority of the classics. "We are the children of nature as well as they," he exclaims with reference to the ancients. "It is not the observing of Trochaiques nor their Iambiques, that will make our writings ought the wiser." And he expounds the English accentual verse-system with clearness and vigor. This essay of Daniel's may be said to mark the end, if it did not bring about the end, of the Elizabethan experiments in classical metres. For other contemporary criticism of the effort, see under the following section, on the Hexameter.
[44] On the history of the English hexameter, see the admirable account in Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. xv.
[45] Southey's effort was attacked by the Rev. S. Tillbrook, Fellow of Peterhouse, in a pamphlet entitled "Historical and Critical Remarks upon the Modern Hexameters, and upon Mr. Southey's Vision of Judgment." To this Southey replied in the second edition of his poem, saying to Mr. Tillbrook: "You try the measure by Greek and Latin prosody: you might as well try me by the Laws of Solon, or the Twelve Tables. I have distinctly stated that the English hexameter is not constructed upon those canons." He further appealed to the success of the hexameter in Germany, and concluded: "I am glad that I have made the experiment, and quite satisfied with the result. The critics who write and talk are with you: so I dare say are the whole posse of schoolmasters. The women, the young poets, and the docile bairns are with me." (Op. cit., Preface to the Present Edition, pp. xix, xxi.)
[46] For Kingsley's exposition of his theories, see the Letters and Memories, edited by his wife, vol. i. pp. 338-344. He declined to yield to "trocheism one atom. My ear always demands the equivalent of the 'lost short syllable.'" And again: "Every argument you bring convinces me more and more that the theory of our prosody depending on accent is false, and that it really is very nearly identical with the Greek.... I am glad to hear (being a lazy man) that I have more license than I wish for; but I do think that, with proper care, you may have as many spondees, without hurting the rhythm, in English as you have in Greek, and my ear is tortured by a trochee instead.... I must try for Homer's average of a spondee a line."