tively then the construction of the Alcaic stanza, as commonly practised by Horace (allowing for the liberty of the final syllable of a line to be made long, which is only stealing from the natural interval of breath between two consecutive lines), will be represented by the scheme (or as, say, in determinants, the square matrix)—

which (as is apparent) has a pure algebraical or tactical deep-seated harmony of its own. Denoting the lines of curvilinear threads of connexion (or say lines of force) in the transverse direction. I have spoken above of beats and jars, -the former term (for which perhaps congruence would be a useful substitute) may be used to denote the relation of two sounds which forcibly recall each other in a legitimate or agreeable, the latter in an illegitimate or disagreeable connexion, clash being reserved as the generic term to include the other two. The source of the illegitimacy which exists seems to lie in a tendency to misdirect the ear by breaking up the rhythm. Thus, ex. gr., like sounds occurring in the 4th place of two tolerably contiguous lines, or in the 4th and 8th of the same or neighbouring lines, are in general objectionable in octosyllabic metre. Two like sounds in adjoining places, or when one of the couple is in the first place, rarely produce a jar. I believe it will turn out that the complete discussion of the theory of beats and jars depends on a refined doctrine of numerical ratios, the quantities which form the terms of the ratios being the quantities of time into which the line or lines in which the clashing elements occur, is or are divided by those elements reckoned as appertaining to the anterior portion of each such line. 'As a general rule it may be stated that the nearer the homologous quantities are to a ratio of equality without being actually equal, the better (just as in music a fifth is a better interval than a twelfth), and when the ratio is given, the smaller the common measure of the terms the better. The case of equal ratios belongs to a special theory. Also, it is obvious that on a distinct ground very strongly congruent elements must not lie too close to one another.

symbols by single letters, and reading the square upwards, the scheme assumes the type L M N N, which is homœomorphic with the upper two lines of the square. And again, using a, ß, y to denote the duads AB, CC, DD respectively, and counting only as one the repeated uppermost horizontal line, we obtain the complete combination system—

αβ

αγ

βγ

Compare this remark with notes to XXXVI. and LXIV. as evidence of the strong mathematical bias of Horace's mind, wherein perhaps is to be sought the secret of the peculiar incisive power and diamond-like glitter of his verse. Had Athens been Cambridge, and Orbilius Colenso (whose private pupil at the University I was long before the far-famed Zulu was heard of), I have little doubt that Horace might have come out the Numa Hartog or Pendlebury of his year.

The annexed trifling translations from the German, or most of them, were done about the same time as the first and superseded form of the Horace-translation which precedes. I have not cared to incur the trouble and loss of time necessary to recast them according to my present more severe notions of a translator's duty of fidelity to his original.

Of the three first pieces, 'The Ideals' is, I believe, the most fairly open to censure on this ground. The last stanza of this, if I remember right, was an afterthought, and did not appear in Schiller's original edition of the poem-it seems to me only appended as sonorous ballast,

to give greater weight and solemnity to the close, and I do not hold myself responsible, as a translator, for its emptiness or little worth of meaning. I heard with inexpressible rapt emotion, but yesterday, the manly colloquy between Wallenstein and Max (the Temptation scene), at the Harrow Speeches, and could hardly believe I was listening to the imitated accents of the author of the mawkish personification of Endeavour in 'The Ideals.' Schiller and Dryden, let me add Byron-who shall read your earlier and your later works, and say that a Poet is born and not made? We all know, too,

the story of Alfieri's self-culture. All the world over, Art beats Nature.

II. THE IDEALS.-Schiller.

AH! wilt thou faithless from me sever!

Ah! wilt thou thus inexorably,

With all thy fancies fade for ever,

With all thy pains and pleasures, fly?*

* For a precedent (not known to me when I ventured upon 'inexorably') for the use of a final assonant tribrach, cf. Byron's Hebrew Melodies' :

'But we must wander witheringly,

In other lands to die,

And where our fathers' ashes be
Our own may never lie.'

Any one happening to object to thus inexorably' may substitute for it with averted eye.' The terminal sound in witheringly or inexorably accords with the terminal sound i (in it) of the diphthong i (in fie), but not with what ought to be the pure vowel in me, which only by a vice of pronunciation not uncommon in

Nor yet a little linger near me,

Oh! thou my youth's fresh aureate prime,
In vain the waves still onward bear thee,
On to the boundless Sea of Time!

Quenched now the suns serenely glowing,
Whose light, life's orient path illumed;
And quelled th' inebriate heart, o'erflowing
Whilst yet its loved Ideals bloomed!
For ever fled, once prized so holy,

The faith in that, my spirit dreamed,

By the rude Real turned to folly,

What once so fair, so heavenly seemed!

England can drawl itself out to resemble the vowel sound in 'it.' I am told by a great scholar (a principal ornament of Owen's College in Manchester) that been in rapid colloquy in the phrase 'I have been,' for example, almost invariably becomes bin. Honest Italian singing-masters find it especially difficult to make their English pupils maintain the purity of the vowel sounds. The greater number of them give it up in despair from the outset. Fashionable drawing-room Italian must be fun indeed to the exquisite Italian ear, but the Italians are a grave people and know how to keep their countenance, which they must do if they would keep their pupils. To return to the 'assonance' of 'inexorably' with 'fly'-why is it so faint, so infinitesimal? For a reason depending on a theory which, as far as I know, I have been the first to enunciate, viz. that the common definition of a diphthong, 'a complexion or coupling of vowels when the two letters send forth a joint sound, so as in one syllable both sounds be heard' (Ben Jonson), is quite defective, if not absolutely erroneous. Between a coupling of sounds and a diphthongal sound the interval is as wide as between a mechanical mixture and a chemical combination. The two marks of sound which connote a diphthong are neither of them sounded: they do but indicate the two limits from one of which to the

As when, enamoured of his creature

Pygmalion hugged his statue bride,
Till through each pallid marble feature
Sensation poured its glowing tide;
So I, in fond delirium often

Wooed nature with a lover's zest,
Till she to warm, to breathe, to soften,
Relented on this poet-breast;

And all its fervid transports meeting
She who was dumb, an utterance found,

Gave back my lips' ecstatic greeting,

And felt my heart's impassioned sound.
Then lived each tree, each flower flashed feeling,
With silver fall, each fountain sang;

E'en soulless things, sensation stealing,
With echoes of my spirit rang.

other the voice passes continuously in uttering the diphthong; it is the filling-up of the interval so symbolised which constitutes the diphthongal sound; and accordingly it is not every two vowel symbols which can be conjoined to represent a diphthong, but only such two as admit of a continuous uninterrupted passage of the breath from one limit to the other. A diphthong is a sound of an essentially different nature from a vowel or any combination of vowels. However rapidly two vowels are made to succeed each other, they will remain two vowels still, and never blend into a diphthong. The nearest analogue to the diphthong is the slur in vocal music. In general (I do not say always), a diphthong cannot be reversed as such; i.e. in the act of reversal it becomes a vowel syllable; but this is not surprising, seeing that we are equally unable to reverse the two initial sounds of a word like praise; if we attempt to do so, the word becomes a dissyllable (repays).