On the contrary to how many passages, both in hymn books and in blank
verse poems, could I (were it not invidious) direct the reader's
attention, the style of which is most unpoetic, because, and only
because, it is the style of prose? He will not suppose me capable of
having in my mind such verses, as
I put my hat upon my head
And walk'd into the Strand;
And there I met another man,
Whose hat was in his hand.
To such specimens it would indeed be a fair and full reply, that these
lines are not bad, because they are unpoetic; but because they are
empty of all sense and feeling; and that it were an idle attempt to
prove that an ape is not a Newton, when it is evident that he is not a
man. But the sense shall be good and weighty, the language correct and
dignified, the subject interesting and treated with feeling; and yet
the style shall, notwithstanding all these merits, be justly blamable
as prosaic, and solely because the words and the order of the words
would find their appropriate place in prose, but are not suitable to
metrical composition. The _Civil Wars_ of Daniel is an instructive,
and even interesting work; but take the following stanzas (and from
the hundred instances which abound I might probably have selected
others far more striking):
And to the end we may with better ease
Discern the true discourse, vouchsafe to show
What were the times foregoing near to these,
That these we may with better profit know.
Tell how the world fell into this disease;
And how so great distemperature did grow;
So shall we see with what degrees it came;
How things at full do soon wax out of frame.
Ten kings had from the Norman conqu'ror reign'd
With intermixt and variable fate,
When England to her greatest height attain'd
Of power, dominion, glory, wealth, and state;
After it had with much ado sustain'd
The violence of princes, with debate
For titles and the often mutinies
Of nobles for their ancient liberties.
For first, the Norman, conqu'ring all by might,
By might was forc'd to keep what he had got;
Mixing our customs and the form of right
With foreign constitutions he had brought;
Mast'ring the mighty, humbling the poorer wight,
By all severest means that could be wrought;
And, making the succession doubtful, rent
His new-got state, and left it turbulent.