decessors, nor had he much to teach those who came after him.

Byron (1788-1824) with that unsound judgment of themselves not uncommon amongst poets, believed the heroic couplet to be his fittest measure. He could use it with startling effect both in satire and in description: but he was too passionate to be either a true satirist, or a faithful imitator of Pope's polished rhythm. His Muse was essentially a little grandiose; hence he was apt to overstock his heroic verse with more fulness of power than it could carry. The opening lines of the "Curse of Minerva," though powerful and beautiful, will exemplify this stric

ture:

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not as in northern climes obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;

O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Aegina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance;
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

One thing Byron could teach his successors in the use of
the heroic couplet, the rhythmic value of pure Saxon
English. Into every part of the poems of his prime he
threw the whole intensity of his complex being, which no-
one has been able to reproduce with any satisfaction to his
readers, if of much to himself. His manner may be
caught, but not his Titanic passion; his tricks of style, not
the sonorous thunder of his rhythm.

In this kind of verse

he has some defects: he is apt to be turgid, he suffers from a stately monotony, he strains his metre to the cracking point, he is too majestic to be always felicitous. Yet he showed the power, which can be breathed into the heroic couplet by a man of extraordinary genius; he taught it to find its rhythm in simple Saxon words, and he sent it booming along with the organ-tones of the tempest-tossed

ocean.

In coming to a conclusion with William Morris (1834— 1896) we find ourselves in the company of a poet of quite a different kind. He too had an affection for the heroic couplet, in which some of his most striking poems are written. But he has used it with greater freedom than most of his predecessors, he has allowed the rhythm to follow not to hinder the sense; he has made it more flexible than Pope, while he is quite void of the full-voiced thunder of Byron. He has varied not merely the ictus of the line, but the quality of the feet, of which it is composed. Hence his metre is rarely monotonous save from a certain cloying sweetness, from which it is never wholly free. His narrative of the death of Medusa will sufficiently illustrate his manner of versification :

But from their seats rose up with curses vain
The two immortals, when they saw her fall
Headless upon the floor, and loud 'gan call
On those that came not, because far away
Their friends and kindred were upon that day.
Then to and fro about the hall they ran,
To find the slayer, were he god or man;
And when unseen from out the place he drew,
Upon the unhappy corpse, with wails, they threw
Their wretched and immortal bodies old:

But when the one the other did behold,
Alive and hideous there before her eyes,

Such anguish for the past time would arise
Within their hearts, that the lone hall would ring
With dreadful shrieks of many a hideous thing.

As may be seen from the foregoing passage, Morris's

E

manner is so strikingly different from Pope's, that the two poets seem hardly to be using the same metre. "The idle singer of an empty day" has contrived to lend it the ease of blank verse with the additional advantage of the tinkling of the rhyme, in which he shows himself to be a true son of Chaucer. He certainly found this measure suitable for vivid narrative, and he used it with an untrammelled freedom and a subtle harmony, of which he alone is master. He seldom wearies the patience of his reader, so admirable is his tune, so sustained the vigour of his imagination. His method may be commended to those who seek to try this difficult kind of versification, a careful study of which will fully repay the student.

This long examination of the methods of using a particular metre may have been tedious: that was inevitable in treating of so large a subject. But it will have served little purpose, if it has failed to justify the heroic couplet in certain kinds of poetry. It is essentially English; it is capable of harmonious and varied music in the hands of masters of craft. But it is almost as difficult to write well as blank verse itself. It is suited to satire, epic, epistle, mock heroic and the description of men and manners, though as irritating in tragedy as "the long Alexandrines sung through the nose" of the French theatre. It has one advantage it exercises a wholesome check upon those too expansive intellects, who run riot in blank verse, without ever pausing to remember, that poor prose cut up into segments of ten syllables is not of necessity poetry. A fuller study than was possible in the space, would have emphasized these conclusions, which have been carefully considered, but which are by no means intended to launch a crew of would-be poets upon a heroic sea, in which they would almost certainly founder. The heroic couplet needs a heroic mind to master its difficulties: but when these have been conquered and success won, it proves itself an impressive, pithy, and melodious medium for the conveyance of poetic thought to others.

another essay.

that some hardihood is required to enter upon yet His lyrics, poems, "prophecies," obiter dicta, the details of his life have been subjected to careful scrutiny; his writings may now be regarded as a field well harvested; the gleaners have diligently gathered every shoot of his thought and feeling, so far as he expressed himself in verse and prose. It is all a remarkable testimony to the living quality of his work.

But of his designs less is known. Comparatively few of them have been engraved and reproduced for the general public; very few are shown in public galleries, most of them are hidden in portfolios and are enjoyed only by the friends of private collectors.

As these designs flowed lava-like from the ardent soul of Blake for full fifty years, throughout his period of maturity, and especially after he had produced the lovely lyrics by which he is generally known, it is well to turn to them for further insight into the nature of a man so vivid, so rare, so startling in his independence of usage or convention.

And in considering both his poems and his designs, it is worth while to ponder awhile upon his visionary mystical nature, and that high-soaring imaginative faculty which sped his hand with eagerness, when it held pen, pencil, brush or burin.

To detail his life is needless here. For seventy years he lived poor, happy; ever a child, an idealist, a symbolist. Interesting as is the external record of his earthly sojourn, it is as nothing compared with his inner spiritual life. That alone concerned him. He regarded the phenomena of natural life as "faint shadows"; bodily luxuries or even comforts as enemies to be trodden underfoot. "I am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily and nightly," he declared; "I am in God's presence night and day, He never turns his face away." He ceased not to declare that man is a spiritual being adapted to a spiritual state, for a brief space "imprisoned in his five senses.' To him the real world was the spiritual or "imaginative." "All things exist in the human imagination." "The whole outward visible world, with all its Being, is a signature or figure of the inward spiritual world."

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His life became one long perfervid aspiration to escape the bonds of the flesh and to give rein to his imagination. This grew upon him, absorbed his thoughts, haunted his hours day and night, asleep and awake. Mr. Davidson, the poet, speaking of Blake's portrait, traces through an utterly reckless and abandoned face debauch of imagination, pursued for years without restraint, with no law or licence except the craving for cerebral excitement, even though followed in the loftiest region the human intelligence can attain." We will look at this face presently and consider for ourselves how far this violently censorious judgment may be warranted, a judgment which thrusts carelessly aside many of the facts and firmly held principles of Blake's history.*

For few sweeter lives have been lived than his; few so self-contained, chaste, earnest and steadfast in purpose. He was a child from the cradle to the grave-naive, simple, quick to anger and forgiveness, loving and lovable, with a

* Portraits of Blake and many of his designs were exhibited at the reading of this paper.