Mr. Seward! Mr. Seward! you may be, and I trust you are, an angel; but you were an a.s.s.
Ib.
Every reader of _taste_ will see how superior this is to the quotation from Shakspeare.
Of what taste?
Ib. Seward"s cla.s.sification of the Plays:--
Surely Monsieur Thomas, The Chances, Beggar"s Bush, and the Pilgrim, should have been placed in the very first cla.s.s! But the whole attempt ends in a woeful failure.
HARRIS"S COMMENDATORY POEM ON FLETCHER.
I"d have a state of wit convok"d, which hath A _power_ to take up on common faith:--
This is an instance of that modifying of quant.i.ty by emphasis, without which our elder poets cannot be scanned. "Power," here, instead of being one long syllable--pow"r--must be sounded, not indeed as a spondee, nor yet as a trochee; but as--[Symbol: u-shape beneath line];--the first syllable is 1 1/4.
We can, indeed, never expect an authentic edition of our elder dramatic poets (for in those times a drama was a poem), until some man undertakes the work, who has studied the philosophy of metre. This has been found the main torch of sound restoration in the Greek dramatists by Bentley, Porson, and their followers;--how much more, then, in writers in our own language! It is true that quant.i.ty, an almost iron law with the Greek, is in English rather a subject for a peculiarly fine ear, than any law or even rule; but, then, instead of it, we have, first, accent; secondly, emphasis; and lastly, r.e.t.a.r.dation, and acceleration of the times of syllables according to the meaning of the words, the pa.s.sion that accompanies them, and even the character of the person that uses them. With due attention to these,--above all, to that, which requires the most attention and the finest taste, the character, Ma.s.singer, for example, might be reduced to a rich and yet regular metre. But then the "regulae" must be first known;--though I will venture to say, that he who does not find a line (not corrupted) of Ma.s.singer"s flow to the time total of a trimeter catalectic iambic verse, has not read it aright. But by virtue of the last principle--the r.e.t.a.r.dation or acceleration of time--we have the proceleusmatic foot * * * *, and the "dispondaeus" -- -- -- --, not to mention the "choriambus", the ionics, paeons, and epitrites. Since Dryden, the metre of our poets leads to the sense: in our elder and more genuine bards, the sense, including the pa.s.sion, leads to the metre. Read even Donne"s satires as he meant them to be read, and as the sense and pa.s.sion demand, and you will find in the lines a manly harmony.
LIFE OF FLETCHER IN STOCKDALE"S EDITION. 1811.
In general their plots are more regular than Shakspeare"s.--
This is true, if true at all, only before a court of criticism, which judges one scheme by the laws of another and a diverse one. Shakspeare"s plots have their own laws or regulae, and according to these they are regular.
MAID"S TRAGEDY.
Act I. The metrical arrangement is most slovenly throughout.
"Strat". As well as masque can be, &c.
and all that follows to "who is return"d"--is plainly blank verse, and falls easily into it.
Ib. Speech of Melantius:--
These soft and silken wars are not for me: The music must be shrill, and all confus"d, That stirs my blood; and then I dance with arms.
What strange self-trumpeters and tongue-bullies all the brave soldiers of Beaumont and Fletcher are! Yet I am inclined to think it was the fashion of the age from the Soldier"s speech in the Counter Scuffle; and deeper than the fashion B. and F. did not fathom.
Ib. Speech of Lysippus:--
Yes, but this lady Walks discontented, with her wat"ry eyes Bent on the earth, &c.
Opulent as Shakspeare was, and of his opulence prodigal, he yet would not have put this exquisite piece of poetry in the mouth of a no-character, or as addressed to a Melantius. I wish that B. and F. had written poems instead of tragedies.
Ib.
"Mel". I might run fiercely, not more hastily, Upon my foe.
Read
I might run more fiercely, not more hastily.--
Ib. Speech of Calianax:--
Office! I would I could put it off! I am sure I sweat quite through my office!
The syllable _off_ reminds the testy statesman of his robe, and he carries on the image.
Ib. Speech of Melantius:--
--Would that blood, That sea of blood, that I have lost in fight, &c.
All B. and F."s generals are pugilists, or cudgel-fighters, that boast of their bottom and of the _claret_ they have shed.
Ib. The Masque;--Cinthia"s speech:--