.

were not Pherecratian, he wonders And so on, down to that every body else is not as blind as

Per universa æternitatis sæcula. himself. The lines occur in the Epithalamium of Catullus, which appears What taste! As for the beautiful sadly to have puzzled the poor proso- Morning Hymnit is a poor thing, about dian. He complains (p. 232), “ that as, poetical as a Methodist canzonet, it is not entirely consistent with itself, and what Lyne is ignorant of, written the stanza being for the most part, for rhyme. but sometimes not, composed of five

Jam lucis orto side-ré Pherecratic trimeters, of which the

Deum precemur suppli-cés first four are irregular, having a dac- Ut in diurnis acti-bus, tylic cadence, and the fifth more ex- Nos servet a nocenti-bus, act.” In reality the first four are

Linguam refrænans tempe-ret, Glyconics, and the fifth only Pherecra

Ne litis horror inso-net, &c. tian.

Having so happily got through the The poets of the age, in which this dactylic verses, he next falls foul of hymn was committed, rhymed, as the Iambics. Here he lays down, that the Spaniards do, by a similarity of vowel. Cretic, Amphibrach, and Bacchius, may Thus sideré and supplicés, (the accent be admitted into any place in the falling on the last syllable) rhyme just Iambie of comedy, wbich is just as as bana and espada in true as if he had said they might be

Rio verde, rio verde, admitted into a place at the corona

Quantos cuerpos en ti se bana tion. Every line in which they appear De Cristianos y de Moros, to exist, must of necessity be corrupt; Muertos par la dura espada. but he is not satisfied even with these auxiliaries, for his firstexample (p. 208) So. Pope Damasus, in his hymn on of the comic tetrameter is

Saint Agatha’s day, Quid est | is neti- | -bi vide- / -turdix- | -i

Ethnica turba rogum fugiéns, equidem ůbi mi- | -hi osten- | -disti

Hujus et ipsa meretur opem. il- | -lico.

An attentive perusal of the Latin &quidem ŭbi mi! five short syllables verses of that time, might, I think, in a foot. I recommend the discovery throw some light on the origin of to the curious in strange scanning some of our metres, but this is no Throw out mihi, and the line is right place for such a disquisition.

He then discovers that as a tri- Our author is so enraptured, howbrach, or proceleusmatic, may follow ever, with the breviary, that we have a dactyl, (which by the way a proce- it again as an example of the lambic leusmatic can never do, as it is con- dimeter brachycatalectic. Listen to fined to the first foot) and precedes an the sweet music. anapæst, there may be eight short syllables in succession in an iambic

1. Vitam præsta puram, line. By the combination of these

2. Iter para tutum, three feet we might have nine short

3. Ut spectantes Jesum, successive syllables, thus ovou lovu i

Semper collætemur.

5. Sit laus Deo patri ; ul. But I doubt whether such a

6. Summo Christo decus ; line exists. Hermann, I know, holds

7. Spiritui sancto that an entire trimeter of tribrachs, 8. Tribus honor unus. except the last foot, is allowable ; à . delicious combination, for which you Lines 1, 3, 4, consist entirely of may remember he was greeted with long syllables. Line 2 ends with a a smart line, constructed after his own spondee. Line 6 has a spondee in even model, by a Porsonian.

place, and 7 and 8 defy scansion; so that The dimeter and trimeter Iambics the fifth line is the only Iambic in this are fine classical verses, used by the well chosen example! This stuff also first poets of Rome, and therefore we was written without regard to ancient get as samples two bald affairs from metres. The lines were probably inthe Romish Breviary, abeautiful Morn- tended for Trochaic and Spīri | tū1 | ing Hymn, and another on the conver- Sāncto, Vītăm prēstă | pūrăm, and sion of Saint Paul, beginning with Trībúshönor | ūnŭs were all excelEgregie Doctor Paule mores instrue, lent trochees in the mouths of the

9

est ;)

singers. If meant for Iambic, all you Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium,
have to do is to alter the arsis, and
sing Spirī | tủi | săncto 1.&c. But, in or, who hear that part of it,
fact, the ancients had no such verse as Tantum ergo sacramentum
the lambic dimeter brachycatalectic.

Veneremur cernui;
At least no example of it is extant in Et antiquum documentum
the classics that have come down to us.

Novo cedat ritui;
This being so well dispatched, we

Præstet fides supplementum

Sensuum defectui. next have an imperfect tetrameter Iambic acephalous, being a “ noble sung to the divine music of Sebastian hymn on the death of Christ.” Bach, will agree with me, that it is, Pange lingua gloriosi lauream certaminis. muddy attempts at imitating the clas

without comparison, superior to the But heafterwards admits, that the verse sical poets, which shock the reader of may be a trochaic, (as indeed it is,) taste in almost every service in the and divisible into two, (which also is Breviary. In the rhymed hymns, we true enough,) not, however, as he pardon an unclassical word or phrase

, asserts, into á Trochaic and Iambic, as not expecting fine Latinity; in the but into Trochaics of different denomi- others, of more pretension, we are disnations. As the verse is classical, he gusted at having that pretension every might, I think, have taken an exam

moment frustrated. This, I confess

, ple from a Roman poet, (as, for in- is a digression, but I am only wading stance, from Catullus,

after my guide. Jussus est inermis ire, purus ire jussus We next get to Trochaics, in which

department we have a clever, and uninstead of this noble hymn, which is expected discovery. “In Catullus,"

,
nothing but a string of barbarous La- quoth our prosodian,(p. 216,)“

we find

two sorts of mixed trochaics in the tinity, where a continual straining at

Epithalamiun of Julia and Manlius," final assonance is observable. I give the last line as a specimen of the bar

a poem with which he has already

shown such intimate acquaintance. barity of the hymn,

Here they are, with his original scanUnius trinique nomen laudet universitas ; ning: and then add Lyne's observation, (p. Flāmmě- \ -īm vidě- / -õ vě- -cire. 214.)

Un guēn-1-tātěglå-1-brisma-1-rite. “ The author of this was Saint Am. This passes the bounds of reasonable brose, or Saint Austin, contemporaries stupidity. The lines are glyconics

, in the fourth century, as some say; with a redundant syllable, cut off in or Claudianus Mamercus, as Sidonius the next line Apollinaris insists; it is quoted here Flamme- / -um video | veni- / -re from the Roman Breviary; and both Ite, &c. i. e. r'ite. this and those before, especially the and the other line is of the same kind. Morning Hymn, written, I believe, by Pretty mixed trochaics ! Saint Ambrose, the author of many We then arrive at the lyric verses, hymns in that metre, are too beautiful and first of Choriambics. Here also to need commendation.”

he is a discoverer of a fact hitherto unToo beautiful to need commendation ! suspected. After counting up (p.217.) Why, they are scarcely common lan- six species of choriambic verse, he inguage. The sacredness of the subjects forms us that Prudentius has thrown on which they treat, makes us feel all of them together into one ode or some respect for them; but, consider- stanza in the order Lyne has arranged ed in a literary point of view, they are them. Now, no Latin poet has ever neither grammar nor metre. So far written an ode containing six varieties from agreeing with Lyne, that their of metre, and, on turning to Prudendignity is spoiled by the addition of tius, you will find that he has only rhyme, I am decidedly of opinion, three choriambics together, not six. In that when the authors of the Hymns this department the choriambic tetrain the Breviary consulted their own meter, (as ears, and did not endeavour to write Omne nemus cum fluviis I omne canat | in metres which they could not ma- profundum,

Claudian.) nage, they succeeded best ; and those is omitted, though the Epichoriambic who read the

(No 5. in this arrangement) is only a

harsh yariety of that metre, I was gamuffins under his command than going to make some remarks on the that which forms the elite of this structure of choriambics here, but I am chapter. Here we have an iambic unwilling to trespass too much on your monom. aceph. or, if you please, a trospace.

chaic monom. Cat. in Occidi-an iamThen follows the class of Hendeca- bic monom. Acat, in Quid illud estsyllabics, where he is as luminous aş trochaic monom. hypercat. in Homiin the former departments. Seneca, it nem sta illico-an anapæstic dipodia in appears, makes the second foot of the Ad te ibam guidnamest-all fine names, Sapphic, a dactyl : he might as well but unfortunately mere fragments of have said he made it a justice of peace. comic verse. With the same judgment He cannot scan the line he quotes, he raises an iambic trim. hypermeter Quæque ad hesperias jacet ora metas.

---an iambic tetram. hypercat-a tro,

chaic trim. and tetram. hypercat.Hesperias is a trissyllable,

its two last grandand learned titles for some corrupt vowels coalescing, as in omnia, alveo, lines extracted from a miserable edi&c. in Virgil. Why did not he tell tion of Terence," printed in 1560, us that Virgil concludes his lines with Lugduni, apud Mathiam Bonhome, a a dactyl, and quote

most useful edition," says this great -Quin protinus omnia, judge, with a most elegant phrase of

panegyric, which I advise him to as proof? It would have been as wise. make much whoever has it.” (p. 227.) This section of Hendecasyllabics, i. e. As every reader, of any prosodial verses of eleven syllables, he most ap- knowledge, well-knows that no such propriately concludes with the lesser lines are in Terence, I shall not take alcaic, a line containing ten. For the the trouble of copying his examples ; honour of the Emerald Isle, I am happy suffice it to say, that they are all mere to say, that this bull comes from Eng- corruptions of the text, and scanned land.

most barbarously. For instance, we The Anapæstic is next on the carpet, have, p. 226. and he takes care to shew, by his first sentence, that he knows nothing about

Agě da | věnțām nē grå- | -vere, &c. it. He calls it a lyric verse, and says, with a false quantity in it. Even for that it at first consisted of four ana- a trochaic tetrameter, (for which a good pæsts, (p. 220.) Now, in fact, as I example might be given,) he contrives thoughtevery dabbler in prosody knew, to blunder on a couple of corrupt read, it consisted primarily of two anapæsts, ings, which are of course no examples which constitute the anapæstic base, at all. from which you can make dimeters, Again, (p. 225,) we have another trimeters, tetrameters, metres of every recruit in an anapæstic tripodia. “ DIco-efficient, taking care only of the sy- cảm non ědě- 1-pol scio." Ædepol! napheia, of which this learned Theban This is ignorance with a vengeance, knows nothing. No Latin poet ever And the Anapæstic Tripodia! Even wrote lines necessarily consisting of by his own scanning it is a glyconic, four anapæsts ; for the three or four and when scanned correctly, a Dimeexceptions in Seneca and Ausonius are ter Iambic. not worth noticing; but, for the con- In the same spirit of enlistment, he venience of printing, they are so ex- divides the minor Ionic Tetrameter inhibited in editions. "If it were equally to two parts, and counts the fragment convenient to the size of the page, they as one species, and the entire line itmight have appeared as decameters, self as another, just to augment his had that structure of verse pleased the list. For this division, he had, I confess, eyes of the compositor.

the authority of some unprosodial ediBut it is in the succeeding chapter, tors; but when hedivides the Pbalæcian the miscellaneous department, he is Pentameter (p. 225.) into three kinds most eminent. He is peculiarly am- of verse, the glory is entirely his own. bitious to be able to exhibit a larger It is a pity that he never read Boethiassortment of metres than any former us, whom

he quotes, or he would have prosodian ; and, to effect this purpose, seen that Si quis Arcturi sidera nescit, he has pressed lines of all shapes and and, Mergat que seras æquore flamsizes into his service. Falstaff never mas, are only two lines, not four--that had a more heterogeneous body of raw they are of the same metre, the name Von. X.

a

do so.

a

of which he did not know,—and that how it should be scanned. But when
Boethian lambic, and Boethian Tro- he displays such astonishing ignorance
chaic, penthemimers, owe their origin as to exhibit
to his own fertile imagination.

Ego mū- | -liěr ē- | -go, &c.
Nor can I allow him to pass the
Molossic or Carcine, as distinct species with the first of mulier, and the first
of verse. The Molossic is only a spe of ego long, I do not know what to
cies of Hexameter. Indeed he calls it say, and stop in amazement, though I
Hexameter in p. 198; though in p. stítí leave a fine harvest of blunders
228 he bids us scan it with four mo- unnoticed.
lossi ;-that is, we have a six foot

And yet he is so well satisfied with line, consisting of four feet. Again, himself, that it is a pity to laugh at I must congratulate Ireland on the him. It is manifest that he thinks English origin of our author. The himself a much deeper scholar in procarcine is only a foolery that can be sody than I. Vossius, (p. 231.) and applied to all kinds of verse, and is not and boasts most lustily of his superior worth enumerating. En passant, I diligence as a verse collector, (p. 195may remark, that somebody has been 231.) But, of the seventy-five verses writing, in a late number of the New he has raked together, I must inform Monthly Magazine, on the subject of him twenty-nine are to be struck out,' Carcines most ignorantly, as I could as being identical with other linesdemonstrate, if it were worth while to or wrong scanned-or corrupt-ornon

sensical ;-and that, nevertheless, he I am getting tired, like my read- has omitted at least a dozen legitimate ers, of exposing this ignorant far- species of verse.t rago, so shall only cull a few more po- I have taken the trouble of examinșies, and conclude. The third foot of ing this book, and pointing out its inthe major ionic tetrameter, we are credible errors, merely to shew, that told, (p. 223,) may be a second epi- if we wished to retort the sneers which trit, which is merely impossible. The some unfair critics in England heap example he quotes from J. C. Scali- upon us, we have ample means in our ger, gives us a dichoree in that place, power. I confidently assert, that in though our worthy metrographer has Scotland there is no Latin teacher who been so unfortunate as to scan him could be so ignorant as to publish a wrong. But it is with Catullus's Gal- book abounding with such "inistakes liambi, (the metre of that-fine poem and false quantities ; or, if he did, that the 'Atys, which I perceive by your the Reviews of the country would not Magazine the Hon. Mr Lambe has so panegyrize it. Unfair, indeed, it would cruelly doggrelized,) that he makes be to value the literature of England the saddest work. He lays down, that by the production of this unfortunate it consists of half a dozen random feet, pedagogue. But is it not equally una which happen to suit the first line; fair in her critics not to extend to us and soon finding that his ridiculous a similar allowance ? canon cannot proceed through three

I am, Sir, lines correctly, he flounders through

Yours sincerely, a number of attempts at scanning, and

AUGUSTINUS then gives it up in despair, confessing St Andrews, that it contains still more varieties.- Sept. 13, 1821. This is pitiable. He has not an idea

* He has, for instance, no less than 8 trimeter Iambics, given as varieties, on account of their containing different feet. By following this plan to its extent, he would have beaten out all competitors in number, for the comic tetrameter would have given him 98,750 varieties ; and, if his own rule (p. 230,) was right, over half a million. This would be a fine

body to march into the field. + Carey has 58, exactly a dozen more than Lyne's real metres. I cannot mention Dr Carey's prosody without strongly recommending it. No scholar, in fact, should be without it. But it would be much improved if a less egotistical style were adopted, if the barefaced puffing of his own books were suppressed, and his

own good-for-nothing poetry struck out. They who take the trouble of turning in his third edition, (London, 1819,) to pp. x. xiv. xix. 31. 37. 52. 55. 113. 140. 148. 150. 172. 187. 207. 222. 223. 227. 297. (one of the grandest specimens extant of the puff-direct,) 355.

337. or any Jedediah Buxton, who will count how often the pronoun I occurs in the book, will be satisfied that I do not recommend an unnecessary alteration.

THE VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF COLUMBUS SECUNDUS.

CHAPTER XV.

Leith Races.
To whisky plooks, that brunt for ouks

On Town-guard sodgers' faces,
Their barber bauld his whittle crooks,

And scrapes them for the Races.
• Come, hafe a care,” the captain cries ;

“ On guns your bagnets thraw ;-
6 Now mind your manual exercise,

• And marsh down raw by raw.'
And as they march he'll glowr about,

Tent a' their cuts and scars :
'Mang them fell mony a gausy snont
Has gush't in Birth-day wars,
Wi' blude that day.

ROBERT FERGUSON. 0, ve inhabitants of Leith !-ye bai- place of docking the tails of horses, lie-admirals and admiral-bailies !-ye confine yourselves to your own docks, maltmen and skippers,-merchants wet dry, and be content to travel and traffickers of every description ! six miles with your superiors, the good -and, chief of all, ye change-keep- town of Edinburgh, to see the fun ers, and dealers in porter, ale, and which was formerly at your doors. * British spirits, wholesale and retail ! Leith Races were (I am sorry I can—why did you allow the honest town not use the present tense) held annuof Musselburgh to run away with ally in the month of July, on the seayour Races, and transport all the shore, to the eastward of the town, the wealth and beauty which annually time of running being accommodated decorated your barren sands, to the to the recess of the tide. They lasted Links of these cunning provincials ? a week, and Edinburgh on these occaNo more shall the sweet sounds of the sions was very full of company. The drum and fife,--the charming noise splendour of the equipages sported of the rowley-powley,--the roar of at this time, and the number of veanimals wilder than yourselves,-the hicles of every description called into tambour of the ground and lofty requisition for Leith Races, gave the tumbler, and the organ of the rope streets an unusually gay appearance. dancer, draw your attention from Almost every citizen who could ride, prices-current, the scarcity or plenty on that week exhibited his horsemanof pot-ashes or linseed, and the course ship; and every animal who had the of exchange ! No more shall the fla- slightest claim to the character of a vour of aquavitæ and ale from a thou- horse, was obliged to shew his paces sand bottles, sweeten your tarry and on the Sands of Leith. Farm-horses, nily atmosphere, and make your pub- brewers'-horses, and even those unforicans glad! Your races are for ever tunate creatures whose destiny it is to un; you must give up all pretensions drag coals to the city, were required o the science of horse-flesh, and in to act as saddle-horses for their mas

Why is the town of Edinburgh called good,—the burgh of Linlithgow termed uithful,—and Musselburgh denominated honest, in their public deeds, as if these qua. ities were single and incompatible with one another ? Does not goodness imply the ossession of honesty and faithfulness; and do not honesty and faithfulness entitle to he appellation of good ? It is so in general society, and with regard to individual moals ; but perhaps our ancestors, in characterizing the population of cities or towns, hought that apparent goodness did not require the nice observance of honesty,—that ownright honesty made professions of good quite unnecessary, and that faithfulness engagements superseded both the one and the other. Or, (but I merely throw it out

a conjecture,) may not some of our witty princes have thus titled the places above. hentioned sarcastically, to notify that they were miserably deficient in the qualification mplied in the name ? That is, that Edinburgh was the reverse of good,--the Musselurghers the antipodes of honcsty,--and the burgh of Iinlithgow every thing but faithEil.com I must write a Dissertation on this subject.