English Critical Essays: Nineteenth Century

Criticism; English essays; English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Poetry

He made an instrument to know
    If the moon shines at full or no;
    That would, as soon as e’er she _shone, straight_
    Whether ’twere day or night _demonstrate_;
    Tell what her diameter to an _inch is_,
    And prove that she’s not made of _green cheese_.

                                 _Id._

Pronounce it, by all means, _grinches_, to make the joke more wilful.
The happiest triple rhyme, perhaps, that ever was written, is in _Don
Juan_:

    But oh! ye lords of ladies _intellectual_,
    Inform us truly,--haven’t they _hen-peck’d you all_?

The sweepingness of the assumption completes the flowing breadth of
effect.

Dryden confessed that a rhyme often gave him a thought. Probably the
happy word ‘sprung’ in the following passage from Ben Jonson was
suggested by it; but then the poet must have had the feeling in him.

      --Let our trumpets sound,
    And cleave both air and ground
      With beating of our drums.
    Let every lyre be strung,
    Harp, lute, theorbo, _sprung_
      _With touch of dainty thumbs_.

Boileau’s trick for appearing to rhyme naturally was to compose the
second line of his couplet first! which gives one the crowning idea of
the ‘artificial school of poetry’. Perhaps the most perfect master of
rhyme, the easiest and most abundant, was the greatest writer of
comedy that the world has seen,--Molière.

If a young reader should ask, after all, What is the quickest way of
knowing bad poets from good, the best poets from the next best, and so
on? the answer is, the only and twofold way: first, the perusal of the
best poets with the greatest attention; and, second, the cultivation
of that love of truth and beauty which made them what they are. Every
true reader of poetry partakes a more than ordinary portion of the
poetic nature; and no one can be completely such, who does not love,
or take an interest in, everything that interests the poet, from the
firmament to the daisy,--from the highest heart of man to the most
pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read with pen in hand,
marking what is liked or doubted. It rivets the attention, realizes
the greatest amount of enjoyment, and facilitates reference. It
enables the reader also, from time to time, to see what progress he
makes with his own mind, and how it grows up towards the stature of
its exalter.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

English Critical Essays: Nineteenth Century

Criticism; English essays; English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Poetry

He made an instrument to know
    If the moon shines at full or no;
    That would, as soon as e’er she _shone, straight_
    Whether ’twere day or night _demonstrate_;
    Tell what her diameter to an _inch is_,
    And prove that she’s not made of _green cheese_.

                                 _Id._

Pronounce it, by all means, _grinches_, to make the joke more wilful.
The happiest triple rhyme, perhaps, that ever was written, is in _Don
Juan_:

    But oh! ye lords of ladies _intellectual_,
    Inform us truly,--haven’t they _hen-peck’d you all_?

The sweepingness of the assumption completes the flowing breadth of
effect.

Dryden confessed that a rhyme often gave him a thought. Probably the
happy word ‘sprung’ in the following passage from Ben Jonson was
suggested by it; but then the poet must have had the feeling in him.

      --Let our trumpets sound,
    And cleave both air and ground
      With beating of our drums.
    Let every lyre be strung,
    Harp, lute, theorbo, _sprung_
      _With touch of dainty thumbs_.

Boileau’s trick for appearing to rhyme naturally was to compose the
second line of his couplet first! which gives one the crowning idea of
the ‘artificial school of poetry’. Perhaps the most perfect master of
rhyme, the easiest and most abundant, was the greatest writer of
comedy that the world has seen,--Molière.

If a young reader should ask, after all, What is the quickest way of
knowing bad poets from good, the best poets from the next best, and so
on? the answer is, the only and twofold way: first, the perusal of the
best poets with the greatest attention; and, second, the cultivation
of that love of truth and beauty which made them what they are. Every
true reader of poetry partakes a more than ordinary portion of the
poetic nature; and no one can be completely such, who does not love,
or take an interest in, everything that interests the poet, from the
firmament to the daisy,--from the highest heart of man to the most
pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read with pen in hand,
marking what is liked or doubted. It rivets the attention, realizes
the greatest amount of enjoyment, and facilitates reference. It
enables the reader also, from time to time, to see what progress he
makes with his own mind, and how it grows up towards the stature of
its exalter.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

English Critical Essays: Nineteenth Century

English Critical Essays: Nineteenth Century

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