“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,”
have sounded in that shape? Should we recognize, do you think, those
“Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty,”
done up in long Alexandrines or in such hexameters as those of Master Abraham Fraunce, which moved Ben Jonson to dub him a fool:
“Now had fiery Phlegon his dayes revolution ended,
And his snoring snout with salt waves all to be-washed,”
or even in Sidney’s or Spenser’s, which were, in truth, little better? No doubt Virgil and Shakspere, being great poets, would have subdued what they worked in to their own artistic uses. Yet all the same let us be thankful to the humbler artisans who furnished to their hands pipes fit for them to play on, and to make such music as the world shall never tire of hearing. It should be added that the likeness between the English and the Latin reformer does not extend to the degree of refinement attained by each. In this respect Surrey is much the more advanced. Ennius never got over the barbarism of excessive alliteration which seems to mark the early metrical efforts of all peoples.
“Sicut si quando vincleis venatica velox”;