has passed will be found to be not unlike those through which Narrative Poetry has passed; and, in any particular country, the Prose Fiction of a period will be found to exhibit the characteristics seen also in the contemporary Narrative Poetry.

Perhaps, however, in studying more closely the relation thus suggested between the two kinds of literature, it is better to use the general phrase, "Narrative Poetry," instead of the special word, "Epic." For, though Epic Poetry is a term synonymous at times with Narrative Poetry, there are many varieties of Narrative Poetry which we distinguish from what we call peculiarly the Epic. There is the metrical Fable, as in Gay and Lafontaine; there is the light, amorous or humorous story in verse, as in Lafontaine again, and parts of Prior; there is the Ballad; there is the long, romantic or pathetic tale, or the comic tale of real life, as in Chaucer's "Canterbury Pilgrimage" and the rest of his poetry; there is the satirical burlesque or mock-heroic, as in Butler's "Hudibras ;" there is the pastoral or idyllic phantasy, as in the poetry of William Browne or the "Princess" of Tennyson; and there is the sustained heroic and allegoric romance, as Spenser's "Faery Queene." These, and still other forms of metrical narrative that could be named, we distinguish from the Epic proper, notwithstanding that in some of them

as in the tales of Chaucer, the idyls of Tennyson, and Spenser's great allegoric romance— we have specimens of poetic genius which we should hardly subordinate to the poems actually called Epics. Now, so it is in Prose Fiction. Though Prose Fiction corresponds to Narrative Poetry, the correspondence is that of two wholes which severally consist of corresponding parts. For each variety of Narrative Poetry there is, or there might be, a corresponding variety of Prose Fiction. We have the Fable in prose; we have the light, amorous or humorous story in prose; the short prose legend answers to the Ballad; of romantic or comic prose tales of considerable length, but not reaching the dimensions of the Novel, most modern languages are full; and we have also the prose burlesque, the prose pastoral or idyl, and the prose allegoric romance. Subtracting these, we have, or we might have, as the variety of Prose Fiction answering specially to the Epic proper, that serious and elaborate kind of composition, styled more expressly the Novel, of which worthy specimens are so rare, and in which, as in the Epic, the aim is to give, as Baron Bunsen says, "a poetic representation of a course of events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it delineate the general history of a people (the Iliad as type), or narrate the fortunes of a chosen

we may

hero (the Odyssey as type)." Bearing all this in mind, bearing in mind that Narrative Poetry itself consists of numerous varieties, and that Prose Fiction contains, or may contain, varieties as numerous and exactly corresponding, repeat our former assertion in a somewhat modified shape, and say that the capabilities of any form of Prose Fiction are the same as those of the equivalent form of Narrative Poetry, whatever that may be, excepting in as far as the substitution of prose for verse implies necessary abatements or differences.

the matter of impor

Verse or Prose, then tance lies in that alternative. What can Verse do in narrative fiction that Prose cannot? —and, on the other hand, are there any compensating respects, in which, in the same business, Prose has the advantage of Verse?

In the interest of these questions, I might first point out that it is not so easy as it seems to say what is merely prose, and what is decidedly verse. Where the printer helps us, by dividing and arranging lines according to their metrical structure, and by leaving wide margins and intervals, we recognize verse at once; but beyond that point, and in among densely-packed prose itself, there may be snatches, and even considerable passages, which are good unrhymed verse to the ear,

and have all the effect of such, though, for lack of the printer's help, the fact is not perceived, and though the author himself, not writing with a view to certain mechanical arrangements, may hardly have intended it. Conventionally, indeed, as soon as we get a little way clear out of rhyme, we draw a broad mechanical line, and then at haphazard call all on one side of this line verse, and all on the other side prose; although in nature and in all natural effect the transition may be far more gradual, and much of what we call prose is really verse, acting as such on the mind, though latent and unaccredited.

Setting aside this consideration, however, and accepting the ordinary conventional distinction between verse and what we call prose, but which the ancients more significantly called oratio soluta, or "loosened speech,"-a distinction which would be perceptible, although the penman or the printer were to neglect those mechanical arrangements which indicate it, in the main, so conveniently, let us proceed with our questions.

What can Verse do, or what has Verse been found to do, in the business of narrative fiction, which Prose cannot do, or has not been found to do so easily? I cannot profess here to exhaust this question; but a few hints may serve our immediate purpose.

Versification itself is an art, mastery in which wins independent admiration, and is a source of independent intellectual pleasure; and, cæteris paribus, a work delivered over to the human race in verse has a greater chance, on this account, of being preserved, treated as a classic, and read again, or at least spoken of as if it were. Verse embalms and conserves the contained meaning, whatever may be its intrinsic merit. When, however, a writer who has attained the art of verse by following a constitutional tendency to it, or who has recourse to it in any particular instance from a knowledge of its efficacy, does take the trouble of throwing a fictitious narrative into the form of verse, it is almost obvious that he sets out with a predetermination that the matter shall be of a rich or serious kind, about the very best in its order that he is able to produce; and also, that in consequence of the lower rate at which he must proceed, and the greater care and ingenuity which he must use, the matter, even without such predetermination, will tend to elevate and refine itself, when it is once in flow. Hence, in general, though not universally, high, serious, and very heroic themes of poetic interest beg, and almost claim, by right of fitness and precedent, to be invested with the garb of verse; leaving to prose