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APPENDIX 1A(1)
ON THE USE OF TRISYLLABIC FEET IN IAMBIC VERSE.
The only feet of three syllables which can be employed in English Iambics, are either those which have the two first short, and the third long, or those which have all three short — the anapest, and the tribrachys. A certain use of these feet, in that kind of verse, has been allowed from the very beginnings of English poetry. This takes place either when the two first syllables in these feet are vowels or dipthongs, as in the following instance —
To scorn | delights | and live | xlabo- | rious days.(2)
or where the letter r, only, is interposed between the vowels, as in the following —
And ev- | ery flower | that sad | embroid- | erz/ wear.(3)
or where the consonant n comes between the vowels, and the vowel preceding this letter is so obscurely or rapidly pronounced, as to leave it doubtful whether it may be considered as forming a distinct syllable, as in this instance. [page 160:]
Under | the op- | en£n<7 xez/e- | lids of | the morn(4)
Sometimes the letter l, in a like position, gives the poet a like liberty, as in the following example.
Wafted | the trav- | eller the beau- | tious west.
In all these cases, the three syllables were, until lately, written with a contraction which shortened them into two, and it came at length to be regarded as a rule, by most critics and authors, that no trisyllabic foot should be admitted in Iambic measure, where such a contraction was not allowed, or where the two first syllables might not, by some dexterity of pronunciation, be blended into one. This was, in effect, excluding all trisylillabic feet whatever; but they are now generally written without the contraction, and in reading poetry it is not, I believe, usually observed.
There is a freer use of trisyllabic feet in Iambic verse, of equal antiquity with the former, but which was afterwards proscribed as irregular and inharmonious, and particularly avoided by those who wrote in rhyme. I allude to all those cases where the two first syllables will not admit of a contraction, or which is nearly the same thing, refuse to coalesce in the pronunciation. These may be called pure trisyllabic feet, and the following is an example of this kind.
Impos- | tor, do | not charge | most in- | nocent nature.(5)
In excluding liberties of this description, it is difficult to tell what has been gained, but it is easy to see what has been lost — the rule has been observed to the frequent sacrifice of beauty of expression, and variety and vivacity of numbers.
I think that I can show, by examples drawn from some of our best poets, that the admission of pure trisyllabic feet into Iambic verse is agreeable to the genius of that kind of measure, as well as to the habits of our language. I begin with those who have written in blank verse. The sweetest passages of Shakspeare — those which appear to have been struck out in the ecstasy of genius, and flow with that natural melody which is peculiar to him, are generally sprinkled with freedoms of this kind. Take the following specimen among a thousand others — part of the eloquent apostrophe of Timon to gold.
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies in Dian's lap! thou visible god
That solderest close impossibilities
And mak'st them kiss!(6)
Most of the older dramatists have done the same thing, — some more frequently than others, — but none appear to have avoided it [page 161:] with much care. I will next point to the most perfect master of poetic modulation perhaps in our language — a man to whom nature had given an exquisite ear, whose taste had been improved and exalted by a close study of the best models in the most harmoniousx tongues we know, and who emulated, in their own languages, the sweetness of the Latin and Italian poets. The heroic verse of Milton abounds with instances of pure trisyllabic feet. The following passage is certainly not deficient in harmony.(7) [page 162:]
And where the river of bliss, through midst of heaven,
Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream,
With these, that never fade, the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams.
Dryden(8) sometimes admits feet of this kind in his tragedies in blank verse, and many other dramatic poets, his contemporaries and successors, have taken the same liberty. In the celebrated work of Young, I find no instance of this sort, and it is not hard to tell the reason. Young was a profound and blind admirer of Pope, nor is it to be wondered at that he, who, at the recommendation of his friend, gave his days and nights to the study of Thomas Aquinas, as a system of divinity, should take that friend for a model in poetry. Young, in his Night Thoughts,(9) endeavoured to do that for which, of all things, his genius least fitted him — to imitate the manner of Pope; and the consequence was that he injured the fine flow of his own imagination by violent attempts at point and an awkward sententiousness. It was like sitting the Mississippi to spout little jets d’ eau and turn children's water-wheels.(10) He was probably afraid to use feet of three syllables, because he did not find them in the works of his master.(11) About this time, and for some years afterwards, the exclusion of pure trisyllabic feet from blank verse seems to have been complete. I find no traces of them in Thompson(12) and Dyer,(13) nor in the heavy writings of Glover(14) and Cumberland.(15) [page 164:] Akenside's(16) Pleasures of Imagination has been highly esteemed for the art with which the numbers are modulated, and the pauses adjusted. In this poem, as it was first written, I find no inn stance of the sort of which I am speaking — but when, in the maturity of his faculties, he revised, and partly wrote over the work, he seems to have been, in some measure, dissatisfied with that versification which the world had praised so much. In looking over this second draught of his work, I have noted the following deviations from his former practice.
Furies which curse the earth, and make the blows,
The heaviest blows, of nature's innocent hand
Seem sport — (17)
I checked my prow and thence with eager steps,
The city of Minos entered — (18)
But the chief
Are poets, eloquent men, who dwell on earth.(19)
Armstrong(20) has given us some examples of a similar license in versification, Cowper's Task(21) abounds with them, and they may be frequently found in the blank verse of some of our latest poets. [page 166:]
In accompanying me in the little retrospect which I have taken of the usage of our poets who have written in blank verse, I think the reader must be convinced, that there is something not incompatible with the principles of English versification, nor displeasing to an unperverted taste, in a practice, that in spite of rules and prejudices, is continually showing itself in the works of most of our sweetest and most valued poets, which prevailed in the best age of English poetry, and has now returned to us endeared by its associations with that venerable period. I will not here multiply examples to show how much it may sometimes improve the beauty of the numbers. I will only refer the reader to those already laid before him. I do not believe that he would be contented to exchange any of the words marked in the quotations which I have made, for tame Iambics, could it ever be done by the use of phrases equally proper and expressive. For my part, when I meet with such passages, amidst a dead waste of dissyllabic feet, their spirited irregularity refreshes and relieves me, like the sight of eminences and forests breaking the uniformity of a landscape.
If pure trisyllabic feet are allowed in blank verse, it would seem difficult to give any good reason why they should not be employed in rhyme. If they have any beauty in blank verse they cannot lose it merely because the ends of the lines happen to coincide in sound. The distinction between prose and verse is more strongly marked in rhymes than in blank verse, and the former therefore stands less in need than the latter, of extreme regularity of quantity, to make the distinction more obvious. Besides, the restraint which rhyme imposes on the diction is a good reason why it should be freed from any embarrassments which cannot contribute to its excellence. But whatever may be the reasons for admitting trisyllabic feet into Iambic rhyme, it is certain that most of our rhyming poets, from the time of Dryden, have carefully excluded them.(22)
Spenser's verse is harmonious — but its harmony is of a peculiar kind. It is a long-drawn, diffuse, redundant volume of music, sometimes, indeed, sinking into languor, but generally filling the ear agreeably. His peculiar dialect has been called the Doric of the English language. I would rather call it the Ionic. It delights in adding vowels and resolving contractions, and instead of shortening two syllables into one, it often dilates one syllable into two. It is not in Spenser, therefore, that we are to look for frequent examples of pure trisyllabic feet in Iambic verse. They have an air of compression not well suited to the loose and liquid flow of his numbers. Yet he has occasionally admitted them, and without any apparent apprehension that he was sinning against propriety, for by a little variation of phrase he [page 167:] might have avoided them. In turning over his Fairy Queen, I meet, without any very laborious search, the following instances:
Unweeting of the perilous wandering ways.(23)
The sight whereof so thoroughly him dismayed.(24) [page 168:]
That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and. wholesome smell.(25)
When oblique Saturn satex in the house of agonies.(26)
That Milton did not think the use of these feet in rhyme, incompatible with correct versification, is evident from the following passages in his Lycidas — no unworthy or hasty effort of his genius.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise.(27)
Oh, fountain Arethuse! and thou, honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius — (28)
To all that wander in that perilous flood.(29)
Cowley(30) employed pure trisyllabic feet in Iambics without scruple. Waller(31) and Denham(32) sometimes admitted them, but Dryden and his successors rigidly excluded them; or when in too great haste to do this, disguised them by some barbarous and almost unpronounceable elision. Pope, in one of his earlier poems, has an instance of this sort.
The courtier's learning, policy o’ th’ gown.(33)
Who, at this day, would attempt to pronounce this line as it is written? I have observed some instances of pure trisyllabic feet in Garth's Dispensary;(34) and a few even occur, at remote distances, to break the detestable monotony of Darwin's(35) Iambics. [page 170:]
Some of our latest modern poets in rhyme have restored the old practice, and, as I think, with a good effect. Will the reader forgive me for setting before him an example of this kind, from one of those authors — an admirable specimen of representative versification?
Alone Mokanna, midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon in some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds that hurrying by
Leave only her unshaken in the sky.(36)
Here the anapest in the third line quickens the numbers, and gives additional liveliness to the image which we receive of the rapid flight of the clouds over the face of heaven.
The liberty for which I have been contending, has often been censured and ridiculed. The utmost favour which it has, at any time, to my knowledge, received from the critics, is to have been silently allowed — no one has openly defended it. It has not been my aim to mark its limits or to look for its rules. I have only attempted to show that it is an ancient birthright of the poets, and ought not to be given up.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 159:]
l North American Review 9:426-431, 1819.
2 Milton, Lycidas 70-76:
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes;
But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,
And slits the thin spun life.
3 Lycidas 142-151:
Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies.
The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine,
The white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with jeat,
The glowing Violet.
The Musk-rose, and the well-attir’d Woodbine,
With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid Amarantus all his beauty shed,
And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 161:]
4 Lycidas 2 5-31:
Together both, ere the high Lawns appear’d
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove a field, and both together heard
What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev’ning, bright,
Toward Heav’ns descent had slop’d his westering wheel.
5 Comus 759-778:
I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,
And vertue has no tongue to check her pride:
Impostor do not charge most innocent nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance, she good cateres
Means her provision only to the good
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare Temperance:
If every just man that now pines with want
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pamper'd Luxury
Now heaps upon som few with vast excess,
Natures full blessings would be well dispenc’t
In unsuperfluous eeven proportion,
And she no whit encomber’d with her store,
And the giver would be better thank’t,
His praise due paid, for swinish gluttony
Ne're looks to Heav’n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Cramms, and blasphemes his feeder.
6 Shakespear, Timon of Athens, 4.3.382-390 :
O thou sweete King-killer, and deare diuorce
Twixt naturall Sunne and fire: thou bright defiler
Of Himens purest bed, thou valiant Mars,
Thou euer, yong, fresh, loued, and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thawe the consecrated Snow
That lyes on Dians lap. Thou visible God,
That souldrest close Impossibilities,
And mak'st them kisse; that speak'st with euerie Tongue
To euerie purpose: O thou touch of hearts,
Thinke thy slaue-man rebels, and by thy vertue
Set them into confounding oddes, that Beasts
May haue the world in Empire.
7 Milton, Paradise lost, 3.344-364:
No sooner had th’Almighty ceas’t, but all
The multitude of Angels with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heav’n rung [page 162:]
With Jubilee, and loud Hosanna's filld
Th' eternal Regions: lowly reverent
Towards either Throne they bow, and to the ground cast
With solemn adoration down they
Thir Crowns inwove with Amarant and Gold,
Immortal Amarant, a Flour which once
In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life
Began to bloom, but soon for mans offence
To Heav’n remov’d where first it grew, there grows,
And flours aloft shading the Fount of Life,
And where the river of Bliss through midst of Heavn
Rowls o’re Elisian Flours her Amber stream;
With these that never fade the Spirits elect
Bind thir resplendent locks inwreath’d with beams,
Now in loose Garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement that like a Sea of Jasper shon
Impurpl’d with Celestial Roses smil’d.
8 [John] Dryden & [Nathaniel] Lee, Oedipus: A tragedy, &c., 4. ed., London: Richard Bentley, 1692, p. 6. Manto loq.:
Under Covert of a wall:
The most frequented once, and noisy part
Of Thebes, now midnight silence reigns even here;
And grass untrodden springs beneath our feet.
9 For Young's versification compared with Bryant's, see p. 19, note 92. In the following extract, (Complaint, 1743, First night, pp. 12-13), Pensioner is even harsher if apostrophated than if crushed in: [page 163:]
If heard aright,
It is the Knell of my departed Hours;
Where are they? with the years beyond the Flood:
It is the Signal that demands Dispatch;
How Much is to be done? my Hopes and Fears
Start up alarm’d, and o’er life's narrow Verge
Look down —— on what? a fathomless Abyss;
A dread Eternity! how surely mine!
And can Eternity belong to me,
Poor Pensioner on the beauties of an Hour?
In Third night, p. 113, vv. 14-17, even Feels is what Bryant calls a pure trisyllabic foot:
Death is the Crown of Life;
Was Death deny’d, poor Man would live in vain;
Was Death deny’d, to live would not be life;
Was Death deny’d, even Fools would wish to die.
10 This conceit may be imitated from Young, First night, pp. 17-18:
A soul immortal, spending all her Fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous Idleness,
Thrown into Tumult, raptur’d, or alarm’d,
At ought this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles Ocean into Tempest wrought,
To waft a Feather, or to drown a Fly.
11 If Young found no trisyllabic feet in Pope, it is because he did not seek them. See pp. 6-7, notes 25-33; p. 92, note 13.
12 James Thomson, ‘The seasons: Spring” vv. 288-293, Poetical works, ed. J. L. Robertson, Oxford Univ. Press, 1908, p. 14:
Even Love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never-cloyed desire,
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
13 John Dyer, ‘The ruins of Rome’, vv. 26-32, Poems, ed. E. Thomas, London: T. Fisher Unwin, Mxciii [i.e. 1903], p. 31:
Deep lies in dust the Theban obelisk
Immense along the waste; minuter art,
Gliconian forms, or
Phidian, subtly fair,
O’erwhelming; as th’ immense leviathan
The finny brood, when near Ierne's shore
Outstretch’d, unwieldy, his island length appears
Above the foamy flood.
14 Richard Glover, ‘Leonidas” book 3, Poems, Chiswick: C. Whittingham, 1822, pp. 68-69:
The eastern world
Seven days and nights uninterrupted pass
To cover Thracia's regions. They accept
A Persian lord.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 162, running to the bottom of page 164:]
15 Richard Cumberland, ‘The sybil, or the elder Brutus’, Posthumous dramatick works, London: G. & W. Nicol, 1813, 1:12. Lucius Junius loq.:
An ugly reptile;
She will’d us not to speak of it — The Gods
Endure it not; Hercules was scar’d i’ th’ cradle, [page 164:]
And young Apollo, since he fought the Python,
Cannot abide to look upon a snake.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 164:]
16 Mark Akenside, Poems, London: J. Dodsley, 1772. In citing Akenside, it is necessary to distinguish ‘The pleasures of imagination’ (1744: four words in title) from ‘The pleasures of the imagination’ (the much rewritten work, 1757 & op. posth.: five words in title). For a trisyllabic foot preserved in the rewriting, compare TPOI, 1.25-30, p. 12,
Be present all ye Genii, who conduct
The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard,
New to your springs and shades: who touch his ear
With finer sounds: who heighten to his eye
The bloom of nature, and before him turn
The gayest, happiest attitude of things.
with TPOTI, 1.42-47, p. 111:
Be present all ye Genii, who conduct
Of youthful bards the lonely-wandering step
New to your springs and shades; who touch their ear
With finer sounds, and heighten to their eye
The pomp of nature, and before them place
The fairest, loftiest countenance of things.
For a trisyllabic foot introduced in the rewriting compare TPOI, 1.177-1 83, p. 18,
Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rowling his bright wave
Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade
And continents of sand; will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a scanty rill
That murmurs at his feet?
with TPOTI, 1.232-238, p. 128: [page 165:]
Who, that from heights aerial sends his eye
Around a wild horizon, and surveys
Indus or Ganges rolling his broad wave
Through mountains, plains, through spacious cities old,
And regions dark with woods; will turn away
To mark the path of some penurious rill
Which murmureth at his feet?
17 TPOTI, 2.557-569, p. 173:
But worse than these
I deem, far worse, that other race of ills
Which human kind rear up among themselves;
That horrid offspring which misgovern’d will
Bears to fantastic error; vices, crimes,
Furies that curse the earth, and make the blows,
The heaviest blows, of nature's innocent hand
Seem sport: which are indeed but as the care
Of a wise parent, who sollicits good
To all her house, though haply at the price
Of tears and froward wailing and reproach
From some unthinking child, whom not the less
Its mother destines to be happy still.
18 TPOTI, 3. 439-443, p. 198:
Strait where Amisius, mart of wealthy ships,
Appears beneath fam’d Cnossus and her towers
Like the fair handmaid of a stately queen,
I check’d my prow, and thence with eager steps
The city of Minos enter’d.
19 TPOTI, 4.101-104, p. 209:
But the chief
Are poets; eloquent men, who dwell on earth
To clothe whate’er the soul admires or loves
With language and with numbers.
20 John Armstrong, ‘The art of preserving health’, 1.293-295, Miscellanies, London: T. Cadell, 1770, 1:17:
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain
Of waters rushing o’er the slippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.
21 William Cowper, ‘The task’, Poetical works, ed. H. S. Milford, 3. ed., Oxford Univ. Press, 1926. Such trisyllabic feet as we found in book 1 are easily apostrophable; we cite four examples from book 2, each with some peculiarity in the arrangement. 2.57-61, p. 147; meteors elidable, th’ old apostrophated:
Fires from beneath, and meteors from above,
Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,
Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th’ old
And crazy earth has had her shaking fits
More frequent, and forgone her usual rest.
2. 145-145, p. 149; two apostrophes in one verse:
Storms rise t’ o’erwhelm him: or, if stormy winds
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And, needing none assistance of the storm,
Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there.
2. 271-277, p. 152; th’ an elision to the eye only:
And, sham’d as we have been, to th’ very beard [page 167:]
Brav’d and defied, and in our own sea prov’d
Too weak for those decisive blows that once
Ensur’d us mast’ry there, we yet retain
Some small pre-eminence; we justly boast
At least superior jockeyship, and claim
The honours of the turf as all our own!
2. 463-466, p. 156; pure trisyllabic foot:
He that negociates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns,
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 167:]
22 Saintsbury, Historical manual, pp. 84-85, notes the absence of trisyllabic feet from Dryden's couplets.
23 Edmund Spenser, The faerie queene 1.5.18:
As when a wearie traueller that strayes
By muddy shore of broad seuen-mouthed Nile,
Vnweeting of the perillous wandring wayes,
Doth meet a cruell craftie Crocodile,
Which in false griefe hyding his harmefull guile,
Doth weepe full sore, and sheddeth tender teares:
The foolish man, that pitties all this while
His mournefull plight, is swallowed vp vnwares,
Forgetfull of his owne, that mindes anothers cares.
24 Faerie queene 1.9.48-50:
The knight was much enmoued with his speach,
That as a swords point through his hart did perse,
And in his conscience made a secret breach,
Well knowing true all, that he did reherse,
And to his fresh remembrance did reuerse
The vgly vew of his deformed crimes,
That all his manly powres it did disperse,
As he were charmed with inchaunted rimes,
That oftentimes he quakt, and fainted oftentimes.
In which amazement, when the Miscreant
Perceiued him to wauer weake and fraile
Whiles trembling horror did his conscience dant,
And hellish anguish did his soule assaile,
To driue him to despaire, and quite to quaile,
He shew’d him painted in a table plaine,
The damned ghosts, that doe in torments waile,
And thousand feends that doe them endlesse paine
With fire and brimstone, which for euer shall remaine.
The sight whereof so thoroughly him dismaid,
That nought but death before his eyes he saw,
And euer burning wrath before him laid,
By righteous sentence of th’ Almighties law:
Then gan the villein him to ouercraw,
And brought vnto him swords, ropes, poison, fire,
And all that might him to perdition draw;
And bad him choose, what death he would desire:
For death was due to him, that had prouokt Gods ire.167
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 168:]
25 Faerie queene 2.12.51:
Thereto the Heauens alwayes Iouiall,
Lookt on them louely, still in stedfast state,
Ne suffred storme nor frost on them to fall,
Their tender buds or leaues to violate,
Nor scorching heat, nor cold intemperate
T' afflict the creatures, which therein did dwell,
But the milde aire with season moderate
Gently attempred, and disposd so well,
That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and holesome smell.
26 Faerie queene 2.9.52:
Emongst them all sate he, which wonned there,
That hight Phantastes by his nature trew;
A man of yeares yet fresh, as mote appere,
Of swarth complexion, and of crabbed hew,
That him full of melancholy did shew;
Bent hollow beetle browes, sharpe staring eyes,
That mad or foolish seemd: one by his vew
Mote deeme him borne with ill disposed skyes,
When oblique Saturne sate in the house of agonyes.
27 See note 2 above.
28 Milton, Lycidas 85-92:
O Fountain Arethuse, and thou honour’d floud,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown’d with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my Oat proceeds, [page 170:]
And listens to the Herald of the Sea
That came in Neptune's plea,
He ask’d the Waves, and ask’d the Fellon Winds,
What hard mishap hath doom’d this gentle swain?
29 Lycidas 182-185:
Now Lycidas the Shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
30 Abraham Cowley, ‘On the death of Mr. Jordan, second master of Westminster school’, Works, London: Henry Herringman, 1668, p. 6:
Hence, and make room for me, all you who come
Onely to read the Epitaph on this Tombe.
31 Edmund Waller, ‘0f the danger His Majesty (being prince) escaped in the road at Saint Andrew’, Works, ed. Fenton, London: I. Tonson, 1729, p. 8:
And now she views, as on the wall it hung,
What old xMusaeus so divinely sung:
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That she discerns, and favours that desire;
Which there provokes th’ advent’rous youth to swim,
And in Leander's danger pities him;
Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeks
To frame his story like that amorous Greek's.
32 John Denham, ‘Cooper's hill’, vv. 343-348, Poetical works, ed. T. H. Banks, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1 928, pp. 87-89:
Thus Kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made their Subjects by oppression bold:
And popular sway, by forcing Kings to give
More than was fit for Subjects to receive,
Ran to the same extreams; and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
33 Pope, ‘On silence’ (after Rochester), vv. 37-39:
The Country Wit, Religion of the Town,
The Courtier's Learning, Policy o’ th’ Gown,
Are best by thee express’d, and shine in thee alone.
34 [Samuel Garth], The dispensary, 6. ed., London: John Nutt, 1706, canto 3, p. 35:
My kind Companion in this dire Affair,
Which is more light, since you assume a Share;
Fly with what haste you us'd to do of old,
When Clyster was in danger to be cold:
With expedition on the Beadle call,
To summon all the Company to th'Hall.
Only a Cockney can make an Iambus out of to th'Hall.
35 [Erasmus Darwin], ‘The economy of vegetation’, 2.355-360, The Botanic garden, London: J. Johnson, 1791, pp. 90-91:
Led by the phosphor-light, with daring
Immortal xFranklin sought the fiery bed;
Where, nursed in night, incumbent Tempest shrouds
The seeds of Thunder in circumfluent clouds,
Besieged with iron points his airy cell,
And pierced the monster slumbering in the shell.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 170:]
36 Thomas Moore, ‘Lalla Rookh’, Poetical works, ed. A. D. Godley, Oxford Univ. Press, 1910, p. 378, vv. 130-137:
In vain xMokanna, midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon, on some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds that, hurrying by,
Leave only her unshaken in the sky —
In vain he yells his desperate curses out,
Deals death promiscuously to all about,
To foes that charge and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the Great Arch-Enemy.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
None.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:0 - JAG68, 1968] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - EAP: The Rationale of Verse — a preliminary edition (Greenwood)