This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of English
literature--a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthy
American contribution made in many years. It embodies opinions
thoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thorough
scholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not in
any sense the mere putting forth of a theory.
Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become
traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our
older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear
style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for
its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book
to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own
suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely
as analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as really
governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very
skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in
supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to
literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in
this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction
of thought.
[**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be
sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
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