Q. Can you give any examples of this admixture of feet of which you speak? A. "Sōōn would the vine his wounds deplōre, And yield its purple gifts no more." "She tells with what delight he stood To trace his features in the flood." Q. Can you explain the mixture of feet to be found in these couplets? A. The first foot of the first verse is a trochee; while the third in the last verse is a pyrrhic. Q. What do you call the reducing of verses into their different feet? A. Scansion, or scanning, an exercise which tends much to improve one's skill and taste in poetry. CHAPTER X. OF POETIC PAUSES. Q. What do you mean by pauses as applied to poetry? A. Those rests of the voice which are necessary for preserving the harmony. Q. Does poetry, in reading, admit of any pauses which prose would not? A. Some say it does; but it may be safely asserted, that no pause should be made in poetry that in the slightest degree interferes with the sense, or would be altogether improper in prose. Q. What poetry is most harmonious A. That which is so constructed as to admit of pauses at something like stated and regular distances from each other, and in proper places of the verse. Q. Is it the poet, then, or the reader, that regulates the pauses? A. The poet principally; for, if he so constructs his verse as not to admit of pauses in their proper places without injuring the sense, no skill in reading will be able to render it harmonious. Q. How many sorts of poetic pauses are there? A. Two: Final and Casural. Q. What do you mean by the Final pause? A. That which takes place at the close of the verse, or when the sense is complete.' Q. What do you mean by the Cesural pause? A. That which takes place in the middle of a verse where the sense is incomplete, and which marks a mere suspension of the voice for the sake of harmony. Q. Can you illustrate both of these? A. "The time shall come, | when free, as seas or wind, | Q. When are heroic verses generally most harmonious? A. When so constructed that the cæsural pause takes place immediately after the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllable. Q. Can you give any examples of this? A. "And hence the charm | historic scenes impart; And watch the busy scenes of crowded life." Q. When is the harmony of verse impaired ? A. When the cæsural pause happens nearer the beginning than the fourth, or nearer the end than the sixth syllable. Q. Can you give an example? A. "As o'er the dusky furniture | I bend, Each chair | awakes the feelings of a friend.' Q. Does a verse never admit of more than one cæsural pause? "Yes; to thy tongue | shall seraph words | be given, A. No; for though each of the verses, if the pauses are judiciously placed, may be sufficiently harmonious in itself, yet too much sameness soon tires, or even disgusts. Q. When, therefore, are they so placed as to produce the most lasting pleasure? A. When they are most varied, especially within that range of position most favorable to the harmony of each verse individually. Q Have all the verses of any of the particular species of poetry exactly the same number of syllables? A. By no means; a verse may frequently, from the admixture of different feet, have either a syllable more, or a syllable less, than the requisite number; as, "How fleet | is ǎ glance | of the mind, Compared with the speed of its flight; And the swift-winged arrows of light." CHAPTER XI. OF PASTORAL AND DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. Q. What is the nature of Pastoral Poetry? A. It is that poetry in which the scenes and objects of rural life are celebrated or described. Q. What is the strict meaning of the word pastoral? A. As coming from the Latin word pastor, a shepherd, in strictness of meaning, it implies only what is connected with the care of sheep; but it is generally taken in a wider sense, to denote every thing connected with country life and occupation. Q. Whence does the great charm of pastoral poetry arise? A. From the tranquil scenes, and pictures of simple innocence, which it sets before the reader. Q. Into what error are writers of pastorals apt to fall? A. That of making the actors, in their different scenes, either too gross or too refined. Q. What do you understand by Descriptive Poetry? A. Poetry, the professed object of which is to give a correct delineation of objects, whether natural or artificial. Q. Is not all poetry, to a certain extent, descriptive? A. Most poetry abounds in descriptions, and is so far entitled to the appellation; while no poetry is altogether descriptive without possessing some other characteristics; and, therefore, the term is applied to such poetry only as has description for its chief object. Q. What is the chief excellence of descriptive poetry? A. Its possessing the power of exciting in the mind of the reader a correct and vivid picture of the object. described. Q. What is requisite for the writing of descriptive poetry? A. Acute observation, and great vividness of imagination, that we may at once observe, and be able to delineate, the most striking features of an object or a landscape. Q. Can you mention any poem that stands very high, and belonging to the descriptive class? A. Thomson's Seasons, a work which abounds with some of the most delightful delineations of nature. Q. In what light may we view poetry in which past events are described? A. As a species of descriptive poetry; and, when well executed, it possesses great power both of fascinating and pleasing the mind. Q. Can you mention any poetry of this class? A. The most of Sir Walter Scott's is of this sort, but particularly his Lady of the Lake, his Marmion, and his Lord of the Isles. Q. Are not pastoral poetry and descriptive very much allied to each other? A. They are certainly closely connected; but pastoral poetry is a display of rural life and manners; descriptive poetry, chiefly a picture of inanimate objects; though neither is exclusively confined to its own province. (See Montgomery's Lectures, p. 157167.) CHAPTER XII. OF DIDACTIC AND LYRIC POETRY. Q. What do you mean by Didactic Poetry? A. Poetry employed for the purpose of teaching some particular art or science, or other branch of knowledge, whether moral or intellectual. Q. Is this a pleasing vehicle of knowledge? A. If well executed, there can be but one opinion as to its pleasantness, but it may be doubted whether it be always a safe mode of acquiring accurate information. Q. What are its chief advantages? A. It at once pleases the fancy and assists the memory; and an obvious truth may often be expressed with greater brevity and force in verse than in prose. Q. What do you conceive to be its disadvantages? A. By taking possession of the imagination, it is apt to mislead the judgment, and make us ready to acquiesce in what is said by the poet, without inquiring into its truth. Q. Can you mention any poems of the didactic class? A. Virgil's Georgics, Pope's Essay on Criticism, Armstrong's Poem on Health, and some of Cowper's poems, are among the best and most popular of this class. Q. What is to be understood by Lyric Poetry? A. All poetry intended to be set, or that might be set to music, including chiefly songs and odes. Q. Was its meaning always so confined? A. No; for, in ancient times, it might be said to include poetry of all descriptions, as all poetic compositions were originally accompanied with music, either vocal or instrumental. Q. From what is the word lyric derived? 4. From the lyre, an important musical instrument among the ancients; and hence the lyre is generally an emblem of all poetry. Q. What, then, does a poet mean when he speaks of singing or tuning his lyre? A. Simply the writing of poetry; and he uses these expressions in a figurative manner, in reference to the inseparable connection which once subsisted between poetry and music. Q. What do you understand by a song? A. A short poem in regular stanzas, and fitted for being set to music and sung. Q. What is the nature of the ode? A. A poem somewhat irregular in its structure, and which may or may not be set to music; being generally a short but fervid flow of genius, displaying, in animated strains, all the various passions and feelings of the human heart. Q. Who are our principal writers of odes? A. Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, and Warton. |