of ever getting its character ruined by any body's mistaking it for verse. But even when we let these modern hexameters go, as Greek, and merely hold them fast in their proper character of Longfellownian, or Feltonian, or Frogpondian, we must still condemn them as having been committed in a radical misconception of the philosophy of verse. The spondee, as I observed, is the theme of the Greek line. Most of the ancient hexameters begin with spondees, for the reason that the spondee is the theme; and the ear is filled with it as with a burden. Now the Feltonian dactylics have, in the same way, dactyls for the theme, and most of them begin with dactyls-which is all very proper if not very Greek—but, unhappily, the one point at which they are very Greek is that point, precisely, at which they should be nothing but Feltonian. They always close with what is meant for a spondee. To be consistently silly, they should die off in a dactyl. That a truly Greek hexameter cannot, however, be readily composed in English, is a proposition which I am by no means inclined to admit. I think I could manage the point myself. For example: Do tell! | when may we hope to make men of sense | out of the | Pun dits | Born and brought | up with their | snouts deep | down in the mud of the { Frog-pond? Why ask? who ever | yet saw | money made | out of a fat old | The proper spondee predominance is here preserved. Some of the dactyls are not so good as I could wish-but, upon the whole, the rhythm is very decent-to say nothing of its excellent sense. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION. CHARLES DICKENS, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of 66 Barnaby Rudge," says "By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his 'Caleb Williams' backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done." I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin-and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea-but the author of "Caleb Williams" was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention. There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis-or one is suggested by an incident of the day-or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or autorial comment, whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view-for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest-I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select ?" Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone-whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone-afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.. I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would—that is to say, who could― detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say-but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers-poets in especial-prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic intuition-and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought-at the true purposes seized only at the last moment-at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view-at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable at the cautious selections and rejections-at the painful erasures and interpolations-in a word, at the wheels and pinions-the tackle for scene-shifting--the step-ladders and demon-traps-the cock's feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninetynine cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio. common, I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner. For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repug nance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of an analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fan cied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select "The Raven" as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referible either to accident or intuition-that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance or say the necessity-which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste. We commence, then, with this intention. The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression-for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and every thing like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with any thing that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief onesthat is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating, the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the "Paradise Lost" is essentially prose-a succession of poetical excitements interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions -the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity, of effect. It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art the limit of a single sittingand that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as "Robinson Crusoe," (demanding no unity,) this limit may be ad 2 vantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit-in other words, to the excitement or elevation-again, in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect this, with one proviso-that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical, taste, I reached at once what I conceived_the_proper length for my intended poem-a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight, My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration-the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few. words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect-they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soulnot of intellect, or of heartupon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating "the beautiful." Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes-that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to, is most readily attained in the poem. Now the object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although |