It will be perceived that the time of the first is too quick, and is inexact. Let us measure it :

How surely in this life's still chán | ging státe.

The verse we see is defective; its second foot is a pyrrhic. To give the verse its due quantity, the cæsura would have to fall after in. The next verse is correct in measure; but the pause is ungraceful. The third and fourth are both musical. Now, that the inferiority in the second verse is not owing solely to the cæsura's falling after the fourth syllable is proved by the fact that the third is in this respect its very counterpart. Let us therefore test the composition of this latter and see where the difference lies:

Doom'd in ǎ day | whose splén | dors sóon | ǎre pást.

It will be seen that a trochee occupies the first place. We thus discover, that when the pause is after the second foot, the verse is better if commenced with an accented syllable. The fourth verse is the best of all it has the grace of an additional caesura, which here falls after the first foot. And, by the by, culminate receives a secondary accent upon its final syllable, by reason of the repose :

To rise to cúl | mĭnáte || ănd sét | ǎt lást.

Thus it will be seen that we really have quantity in our measures, and that these are subject, as I have said, to similar rules, and are varied by similar licenses with the measures of the ancients.

It is the due regard to these particulars of rythm, and especially the due adjustment of the cæsural pause, which form the excellence of POPE's measure; and it is to the neglect or ignorance of these several points, that we are to ascribe the fault of most others who have attempted it. The cæsura is the stumbling block of the heroic verse; and therefore poets have abandoned the couplet of POPE and DRYDEN, and run their verses into one another, as we see in the Veiled Prophet of Mr. MOORE. This practice, which the FRENCH call enjambement, destroys the music of the heroic measure, though it confers an infinitely greater ease in composition. (1)

(1) The reader will find that I have exemplified this error in a considerable part of the continuation of the Vision, appended to this volume. It was owing to the nature of the subject. In that particular instance I should have had to sacrifice a higher merit than versification. I therefore abandoned it;

Of the Epistle to Satan I have only to say, that it was commenced in jest, but continued in earnest. I had thought merely to trifle; but the peril of my country, now threatened indirectly by a blow at one of the institutions of one of the States, as well as directly by other acts of wantonness or folly in her servants, has made me, in one or two places of the poem, severe, if not serious, I conjure every lover of his country, every one who would wish his children and his children's children to live with the same security, enjoying the same liberty, under the same laws that he himself does, I conjure him with my whole heart, to read it carefully both text and comment. But if he must neglect one or other,

let it be the text.

but not without a regret that is in no wise yet abated. I must add, that the occasional running of one verse into another is a positive grace. It is only the uniformity of the practice, or its being carried through too many consecutive lines that is displeasing. Further, I have no reference to blank verse.

EPISTLES.

I.

TO MILTON.

FROM this small planet, whose effulgent round
Great SATAN saw, what time, 'twixt Chaos' reign
And the far-shooting light of HEAVEN'S walls,
He hung, suspended on his sail-broad vans,
Over the abysm of nothing, ere yet, lit
Upon the backside of the cónfus'd world,
He trod the Paradise uncouth of Fools,
Saw glimmering, fasten'd by a golden chain
To the celestial vault; from this dull lamp,
Upon whose rim I with some millions more
Find breathing-space, and light, and heat, to thee,
Who haply long have pass'd the sea of pearl,
(But whether wafted in crystallin barge
By seraphs mann'd, or whirl'd along the flood

In the light chariot of the fiery steeds,
Is to thyself best known,) I humbly write,
Mov'd to the effort by an honest zeal,
With veneration mix'd, and love sincere.

Yet with no shade of awe do I approach,
As he of Rydal-Mount, who, with ostent
Of fear and genuflexion of the mind,
Works profanation to thy ensky'd muse,
Aiming, with wildfire made for children's sport,
To counterfeit thy thunder ;(1) not with awe ;

(1) “ Awe-stricken as I am by contemplating the operations of the mind of this truly divine Poet, I scarcely dare venture to add, that 'An Address to an Infant' exhibits something of this communion and interchange," etc. WORDSWORTH's Preface. (See Vis. of Rubeta, p. 392.)

Yet this very man, who professes to be awed by contemplation of the labors of a human mind, has dared to say:

"Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir

Of shouting Angels, and the empy real thrones

It is true, this is merely bombast; (and Mr. WORDSWORTH'S attempts at sublimity will, by the genuine critic, be almost always, if not always, found to be nothing more ;) yet is it not the less profane; "For," as I have elsewhere remarked upon the same passage,

"For fools rush in, where Angels fear to tread."

And, in citing this line from the great moral poet, be it observed that the very words, which enable me to correct with so much emphasis this fustian metre-monger, are the brightest refutation of his slanders of a mighty name; for this very line, whose brilliant antithesis is matched by its exquisite truth, is by the maligned POPE, by POPE the versifier, by ALEXANDER POPE, that factitious bard whose arts have poisoned the fountain-head of English poetry. What force in the expression! how every word is made to bear its exact tint! each divided and distinct from the other, yet all united by such imperceptible shades that the coloring is but one. For fools RUSH IN, where Angels fear to TREAD. Is not the whole picture painted visibly before us, on the canvass which never fades, on the canvass whose fabric no moth can injure, and whose brightness no dust can obscure? Yet this line was from the pen, this

For such, immortal spirit, to none I yield
That is, or has been, of the earth as I.
Respect, and admiration, these, thy due
Give I with all my heart; even more at times
Than I am wont to pay the CHIAN old,
Who sang the implacable THESSALIAN's wrath
And the lone wanderer of the rocky isle.
In proof whereof, behold, to please thy sense,
I slight the unison of tuneful rhyme,
Albeit I judge its modulations sweet
Only to suit thine ends thou didst reject,
Lauding the strain, that left from fetters free
Thy thoughts sublime, and made thy labors less,-
An ease, dear MILTON, ofttimes sore abus'd;
As, now thou art where all is harmony,
And hast the music of the spheres heard play,
Pursuing, without pause, the resonant fugue
Through the void infinite of heavenly space,
Harmonious thunder! thou must needs confess.

I write thy measure, and assume thy tone.
As children, on a summer holyday,
Launch on the bosom of some standing pool
Their tiny craft, to simulate the course
Of some huge ammiral. They, stooping by,
View with delight the fairy frigate glide

picture from the pencil, of a youth of nineteen! this brilliant piece, of fancy and truth combined, found its place in the cabinet of a didactic poem! I am no enthusiast, especially in admiration, yet I say without scruple that this single verse is worth any consecutive thousand of those of the author of the Excursion; and I confidently leave the question, for decision, to posterity.