ble modern trochee, nashun. The former has a tremulous vibration of tone that often gives an inexpressible charm to the music of the line in which it may occur. I envy not that reader's ear who can prefer the heavy, monotonous march of our modern verse to the lighter and less regular, but more natural movement of our ancient metres. Shenstone has remarked, with that delicacy of taste for which he was so much distinguished, that there is a great beauty in the judicious use of dactyles in English heroic verse. He thought that Pope introduced it far too sparingly, and quotes from the "Windsor Forest" the second line of the following couplet, as an instance of its agreeable effect.

Swift trouts diversified with crimson stains,

And pikes, the tyrants of the watery plains.

Shenstone justly observes (though not perhaps precisely in these words, for I quote from memory) that the substitution of a trochee, such as the word liquid, would utterly destroy the finer harmony of the line. It would be easy to multiply examples in support of Shenstone's criticism, but I shall content myself with adding the following from the " Rape of the Lock."

Our humbler province is to tend the fair,

Not a less pleasing though less glorious care.

Though our modern poets have already destroyed so many beautiful dactyles, it will be long, I hope, before they turn the noble word glorious into glorus!

Besides the defects in the versification of Chalkhill that I have shown to be apparent and not real, there are a few peculiarities that are not to be defended with equal ease. I allude to the occasional inaccuracies of his rhyme. But if Chalkhill has sometimes deformed his verses with extremely imperfect rhymes, he is kept in countenance not only by the best writers of his time, but by one of the most correct of modern versifiers-namely, Pope himself. He who on the advice of Walsh, "the Muse's judge and friend,"

devoted his chief energies to the task of surpassing all his predecessors in point of accuracy, did not scruple to make use of such rhymes as thought fault-draught thought—skull fool-turn born-imbrued blood-fiend friend-speak take-debate that—join line-compelling Helen-fellow prunnella, and innumerable others of the same nature. I do not place any stress upon such trivial matters, but there are critics who would condemn in other poets what may pass unnoticed in the works of their own idol. Pope has himself observed, that poetry is an especially useful study to a foreigner desirous of speaking the language in which it may be written with accuracy and grace.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

What better teach a foreigner the tongue?

No Englishman, however, who has an ear or judgment of his own, could listen with gravity or patience to the sound of such words as we have just quoted from Pope, if they were enunciated in exact correspondence to the rhyme. Poor Kirke White's first volume of poems, which he had sent to the editor of the Monthly Review, with such feverish anxiety, was condemned by the savage and senseless Aristarchus, because boy and sky were used as corresponding terminations; and yet the same profound and impartial critic had doubtless seen rhymes greatly more imperfect in the works of Pope, without questioning for a moment that author's genius. It would be absurd, indeed, to judge of a poet's merits exclusively by his accuracy as a rhymester; but when an author's "absolute faultlessness"* (an expression applied by Lord Byron to the works of Pope) is too positively and frequently insisted upon, the attention of more sober critics is forced towards errors that would otherwise have escaped them entirely, or have been

* What does even Pope himself say on this point?
"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be."

regarded with indifference. A humourous poem might be written by a punster, like Hood, upon the imperfect rhymes of Pope

such as, groves loves (loaves),-waste past (paste),-care shear (share),-take speak (spake),-wear star (stare or stair),— alone town (tone),-desert heart (hurt),-frost coast (cost),adores powers (pores or pours),—joy tye (toy),—trod showed (shod),—track take (tack),—join line (loin),—worn turn (torn), -song tongue (tong),-extreme phlegm (phleme),-come doom (dumb),-food flood (flued),—pour shower (shore), or shower pour (power),-flood stood (stud),-bound wound [a hurt], wound [bandaged],-compare war (wear or were),-streams. Thames (themes),—rest least (lest),—strow bough (bow [bo]),— suffice prize (price),—adores powers (pores or pours),—fool skull (school), &c. &c. &c. The above rhymes are taken faithfully from the pages of Pope, and without going through a very large portion of his productions.

Hazlitt has remarked, that Steele (in the Tatler) was the first writer, who used the antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which Burke was so fond of, in which the adjective is in seeming opposition to the substantive, as "dignified obedience," "proud submission," &c. &c. But this was not the case. The poem before us has several examples of them. In the first two or three pages we have "cruel fortunate," dumb eloquence,"

" "silent

murmurs," &c. &c. There are some curious illustrations also of Pope's favorite rule of making the sound an echo to the sense. Here is an instance.

He had a man-like look, and sparkling eye,

A front whereon sate such a majesty,
As awed all his beholders; his long hair

After the Grecian fashion, without care

Hung down loosely on his shoulders, black as jet.

This description reminds me of Hamlet's remarks upon his father's picture.

See, what a grace was seated on this brow :
Hyperion curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars to threaten and command, &c.

There are many other passages that recal the great dramatic

poet.

Thy cruel augury

Wounds me at heart; can thy art cure that wound?
Sylvanus? No, no medicine can be found

In human skill to cure that tender part.

When the soul's pained, it finds no help of art.

This must bring to the reader's recollection a sentiment in Macbeth.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? &c.

There is a passage in Lear, not unlike the following:

But how he might secure his Florimel,

That thought most troubled him; he knew full well
She was the white was aimed at.

Thealma and Clearchus.

See better, Lear: and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.

King Lear.

The commentators explain that the word blank here is a term borrowed from archery; the white of a target is that part of it which the arrow is chiefly aimed at. The same expression is used in the Taming of the Shrew. The following lines are very similar to a passage in Shakspeare.

At the sight

She frowned upon him, and with angry look,

A title that but ill became the book

Wherein her milder thoughts were writ.

The passage I allude to is the following, which occurs in the second part of HENRY THE FOURTH.

Yea, this man's brow, like to a title leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.

The poem of Thealma and Clearchus breaks off very abruptly, and I shall follow its example by bringing this article to an immediate close. At the end of the fragment (for such it is, though a very long one) honest Izaac Walton, with the quaintness and simplicity in keeping with his character, appends the following note:

"And here the author died, and I hope the reader will be sorry."