my versification, not only the triplets and alexandrines which some have objected to, because they have been rarely used in heroic poetry since the time of Dryden, but the double rhymes which have been disused since the days of Milton.

It has been said of the triplet, that it is only a temptation to add a needless line, to what ought to be comprised in two. This is manifestly a half-sighted objection; for at least the converse of the proposition may be as true; namely, that it comprises, in one additional line, what two might have needlessly extended. And undoubtedly compression is often obtained by the triplet, and should never be injured by it; but I take its true spirit to be this;-that it carries onward the fervour of the poet's feeling; delivers him for the moment, and on the most suitable occasions, from the ordinary laws of his verse; and enables him to finish his impulse with triumph. In all instances, where the triplet is not used for the mere sake of convenience, it expresses continuity of some sort, whether for the purpose of extension, or inclu

the highest points of his art, the Essays accompanying the works of a great living poet (Mr. Wordsworth). Every lover of poetry, and especially every critical reader of it, ought to make himself intimate with them.

sion; and this is the reason why the alexandrine so admirably suits it, the spirit of both being a sustained enthusiasm. In proportion as this enthusiasm is less, or the feeling to be conveyed is one of hurry in the midst of aggregation, the alexandrine is perhaps generally dropped. The continuity implied by the triplet, is one of four kinds it is either an impatience of stopping, arising out of an eagerness to include; or it is the march of triumphant power; or it "builds the lofty rhyme" for some staider shew of it; or lastly, it is the indulgence of a sense of luxury and beauty, a prolongation of delight. Dryden has fine specimens of all. Of the impatience of stopping :-a description of agitation of nerves:—

"While listening to the murmuring leaves he stood,
More than a mile immersed within the wood,

At once the wind was laid--the whispering sound
Was dumb-a rising earthquake rock'd the ground:
With deeper brown the grove was overspread,

A sudden horror seized his giddy head,

And his ears tinkled, and his colour fled."

Theodore and Honoria.

Of the sense of power :

"If joys hereafter must be purchased here,
With loss of all that mortals hold so dear,

Then welcome infamy and public shame,
And last, a long farewell to worldly fame!
'Tis said with ease; but oh, how hardly tried
By haughty souls to human honour tied !

Oh, sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride!".

Hind and Panther.

Of elevation and proportion:

“Our builders were with want of genius curst;
The second temple was not like the first;
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,
Our beauties equal, but excel our strength:
Firm Doric pillars found your solid base,
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.”

Epistle to Congreve.

Of continuity of enjoyment:—

"The fanning wind upon her bosom blows,

To meet the fanning wind the bosom rose;

The fanning wind and purling stream continue her repose."

Cymon and Iphigenia.

This last verse, which is two syllables longer than an alexandrine, and is happily introduced in this place, is peculiar to Dryden, and was taken by him from the lyric poets of his day. So was the alexandrine itself, and the triplet.

If Dryden had had sentiment, he would have been as great a poet natural, as he was artificial. The want, it must be owned, is no trifle! It is idle, however, to wish the addition of these cubits to human stature. Let us be content with the greatness his genius gave him, and with our power to look up to it.

Pope denounced alexandrines in a celebrated couplet, in which he seems to confound length of line with slowness of motion; two very distinct things, as Mr. Lamb has shown in one of his masterly essays.

"A needless alexandrine ends the song,

Which like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

And yet, in his no less celebrated eulogy upon the versification of Dryden, he has attempted an imitation of his master's style, in which he has introduced both alexandrine and triplet.

"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full majestic line,

The long resounding march, and energy divine."

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How comes it then, that he rejected both from his own poetry? The reason was, that he acted by a judicious instinct. He felt, that variety and energy were not what his muse would deal in, but beauties of

a different sort; and he wisely confined himself to what he could do best. It is true, it seems strange that he should exalt Dryden's variety at the expense of Waller's smoothness. It looks like dispraising himself. But then he felt that he had more in him than Waller; and that if he had not Dryden's variety, neither had he his carelessness, but carried the rhyming heroic to what he thought a perfection superior to both, and justly purchased by the sacrifice of Dryden's inequality. Inferior indeed as Pope's versification is to Dryden's, upon every principle both of power and music, nobody can deny that it admirably suits the nicer point of his genius, and the subjects on which it was exercised. Dryden had a tranchant sword, which demanded stoutness in the sheath. Pope's weapon

was a lancet enclosed in pearl.*

Let it not be thought (as it has too often been unthinkingly asserted), that remarks of this kind are

* We may see the difference exemplified in a couplet from their respective translations of Homer, neither of them, it must be confessed, worthy of the great broad hand of the old Greek but the two passages, especially the words marked in italics, are singularly characteristic of the writers. It is in the scene of the quarrel with Agamemnon, where Achilles, with his sword half out of the sheath,