Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As darkly painted on the crimson sky
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chaf'd ocean's side? &c.

This is a very sweet and, at the same time, a truly American picture.

The original of the following stave, which is taken from one of Herbert's poems, was probably the elegiac stave, with the first and third verses doubled.

I made a nosegay, as the day ran by—
Here will I smell my remnant out and tye
My life within this band-

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,

And wither'd in my hand, &c.

In the original of the next stave, the first and third verses must have been tripled.

All gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice

A broken heart thou wert not wont despise,
But 'bove the fat of rammes or goats to prize
An offring meet.

For thy acceptance, O behold me right,
And take compassion on my grievous plight,
What odour can be, than a heart contrite
To thee more sweet, &c.

Ben Jonson.

The same fondness for jingle, which frittered our balletstaves into shapeless heaps of rhime, also affected our broken staves, though not to the same degree. The original of the following stave seems to belong to that class

of ballet-staves, which were formed by adding a couplet to some one of the ordinary combinations. In the present case, the couplet is subjoined to the ballet-stave of six. Its first verse is not only broken, but also takes internal rhime.

If thou beest born to see strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee-
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee;
And sweare,

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

Beaumont.

In the following stave, from Turberville, the fifth and sixth verses are broken, and the first section of the seventh verse rhimes with them.

If she had dained my good will,
And recompenst me with her love,
I would have been her vassal still
And never once my heart remove;
I did pretend, pretend,

To be her friend,

Unto the end, but she refusde

My loving heart, and me abusde.

The repetition in the fifth line is a peculiarity often found in the broken verse of the sixteenth century.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SPENSER-STAVES.

THE noble stanza which we owe to Spenser, is formed by adding an alexandrine to the ballet-stave of eight-such alexandrine rhiming with the last verse of the ballet-stave. By this banding of the rhime, Spenser's stanza has all that connexion of parts which science demands, and which is so seldom to be met with in our later combinations. The sweeping length of the alexandrine furnishes also an imposing compass of sound, that to many ears is singularly delightful, and must, I think, convey to every one an impression of grandeur and of dignity.

When to these advantages of structure are added the associations, which Spenser's genius conferred upon it, we may understand the enthusiasm, that sees so many excellencies in Spenser's stanza, and pronounces it to be the most beautiful, as well as the most perfect of English combinations. Warton's notice of this stanza is almost the only exception to the eulogies of our critics; and his unfavourable judgment will the less surprise us, when we remember the loose notions he entertained on the subject of versification,* and that he has, in this very criticism,

* He, more than once, runs the verses of our older poets one into the other, and sometimes makes the fragment of a line stand for the whole. In other cases, he writes a long passage continuously-apparently unaware that it divides itself into beautiful and scientific stanzas. Many of these oversights Price has not corrected.

confounded our common ballet-stave of eight with the ottava rima of the Italians. His objection to the multiplicity of rhimes-because our language does not " easily fall into a frequent repetition of the same termination"may be met by the criticism of Beattie, who maintains that our language, " from its irregularity of inflexion, and number of monosyllables, abounds in diversified terminations, and consequently renders our poetry susceptible of an endless variety of legitimate rhimes." The advantages of variety may be best estimated, by considering at what cost they have, in many cases, been purchased; and when we call to mind how many poets have used this stanza, that it has embodied the happiest inventions of Shenstone and Thomson, of Beattie and of Byron, we may well doubt, if the difficulties of its construction be quite so formidable, as Warton apprehended.

The popularity of this stanza soon gave rise to numerous imitations. All of them were formed on one or other of two principles; either, as in Spenser's stanza, by adding an alexandrine to some well-known combination (generally to one of the ballet-staves), or by the substitution of such alexandrine for the last verse of the stanza. Such imitations I would class (together with Spenser's own stanza) under the general title of Spenser-staves—thus giving to these peculiarly English combinations the name of the great English poet, who first brought the principle into notice, on which they have been constructed.

The first class of Spenser-staves may best open with the stanza, which gave rise to all the others—the magnificent stanza, which the Faery Queen has immortalized. It is hard to choose, where choice is distracted by such varied excellence; but the following well-known imitation of the Italian has claims upon our notice, as affording the means, not only of comparing the two languages in a point wherein our own is generally thought deficient—I mean

in point of harmony-but also of comparing the capabilities of the two favourite stanzas.

Eftsoons they heard a most delicious sound
Of all that mote delight a dainty ear,
Such as at once might not on living ground
(Save in this Paradise) be heard elsewhere;
Right hard it was for wight that did it hear
To rede what manner music that mote be,
For all, that pleasing is to living ear,
Was there consorted in one harmony-
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters all agree.

The joyous birds, shrouded in chearful shade,
Their notes unto the voice attemper'd sweet;
Th' angelical, soft trembling voices made
Toth' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the hoarse murmur of the waters' fall,
The waters' fall, with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call—
The gentle, warbling wind low answered to all.

a

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Phineas Fletcher, in his very singular poem, entitled The Purple Island, has used a Spenser-stave, fashioned on the ballet-stave of six verses.

The cheerful lark, mounting from early bed,
With sweet salutes awakes the drowsy night,
The earth she left and up to heav'n is fled,
There chants her Maker's praises out of sight-
Earth seems a mole-hill, men but ants to be,
Teaching proud men, that soar to high degree,
The further up they climb, the less they seem and see.
Canto IX.

Giles Fletcher, "the Spenser of his age," as Quarles termed him, has left us another kind of Spenser-stave in the poem which celebrates Christ's Triumph upon Earth.