nouncing it; for performers in general are not corpulent, and we may consider that the lungs even of a corpulent one would have been able to utter a verse without beginning to feel exhaustion at the commencement of the fifth foot. How did actors utter other verses of which the fifth foot was a spondee?

Porson considered himself so disrespectfully treated in Hermann's preface and notes to the "Hecuba," that he chose to regard him, ever after, as a personal enemy. He used to allude to Wakefield and Hermann together, and appears to have been provoked at nothing, in the whole course of his literary career, so much as at their animadversions on his critical dogmata. He would speak of them as four-footed animals, and say that whatever he wrote in future should be written in such a manner that they should not reach it with their paws, though they stood on their hind legs to get at it.*

Hermann's criticisms drew from Porson the Supplement to his Preface, in which he amply vindicated all the metrical canons and opinions which he had before delivered, and vindicated them at the expense of Hermann, for though he is not named in the Supplement, yet almost every line of it, as Elmsley observes, contains an allusion to some blunder committed by Hermann either in his "Treatise on Metres," or in his edition of the "Hecuba." "Whoever wishes thoroughly to understand," he adds, " the preface to Mr. Porson's edition of the Hecuba,' ought to devote his days and nights' to the study of Mr. Hermann's edition of the same tragedy. Those persons who possess both editions

*Short Account of Porson, p. 6.

1797.]

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HERMANN ON GREEK METRES.

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will do well in binding them in one volume; adding, if they think proper, the Diatribe Extemporalis of the vehement and injudicious Wakefield, and the excellent strictures on Mr. Porson's Hecuba' and Mr. Wakefield's Diatribe,' which appeared in the Monthly Review' for 1799, and which are well known to be written by a gentleman to whom Greek literature," Mr. Elmsley is pleased to say, "is more indebted than to any other living scholar."*

Hermann, on the publication of the Supplement, could not but feel convinced how imprudent and presumptuous he had been, and how much he had been mistaken in his estimate of the powers of him whose hostility he had provoked. He became sensible of his errors, and repented them, and made his book on Greek and Latin metres a very different work from what it was at its first appearance. Of the first edition Elmsley remarked that it was "a book of which too much ill cannot easily be said, and which contains a smaller quantity of useful and solid information, in proportion to its bulk, than any elementary treatise, on any subject, which we remember to have seen." It was afterwards transformed into the Treatise so well known to scholars, which, though containing much that is visionary and fanciful, is yet admitted to be well worthy of perusal by all who are in pursuit of metrical knowledge.

"The generous Hermann," according to Kidd †, "was wont to do justice" to the Supplement to the the Preface, for its exactness of research and clearness of induction," in his lecture-room." Yet he is said, on

* Edinb. Review, vol. xix. p. 65.

† Tracts, p. lxxiii.

66

the same authority, to have had in contemplation a defence of the anapæst in the third place. The truth is, it would appear, that Hermann regarded Porson and his work, throughout the rest of his life, with mingled feelings of admiration and dislike. He could not but admit that Porson had immeasurably the advantage on the point on which he had been excited to vindicate himself, but he could but retain a sense of dissatisfaction at having been himself worsted in the encounter which he had provoked. Dr. Blomfield, in his strictures on Valpy's reprint of Stephens's "Thesaurus" in the Quarterly Review,"* took occasion to observe that "Hermann and his school never miss an opportunity of lavishing their censure on Porson, and on those English scholars whom they facetiously enough term Porson's disciples; while, on the other hand, it is a sufficient title to their esteem to flatter the German critics at the expense of the English." Mr. Edmund Henry Barker, who was one of the chief editors of the "Thesaurus," and who had procured, it seems, a panegyrical epistle from Hermann to prefix to it, resented Dr. Blomfield's censure of that critic and his followers, in a pamphlet entitled "Aristarchus Anti-Blomfieldianus," a pamphlet which called forth, in the pages of the "Quarterly," another article on the "Thesaurus" and on Hermann's "champion," written, not wholly, but probably in part, by Dr. Blomfield himself, and containing the following remarks, which it will not be unsuitable to our purpose to transcribe, that it may be seen what was the opinion of the learned world, in regard to Hermann, at the time when they were written:

* Vol. xxii. p. 340.

1797.]

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"Instead of defending Hermann," says the article, "Mr. Barker justifies our assertion by quoting at length several passages from his writings, in which he has spoken most slightingly and most unjustly of the scholars of this country, for the undisguised reason of their attachment to the name and the example of the late Professor Porson. As to the quarrel between Porson and Hermann (whom Mr. Barker styles these modern Goliahs'), it is perfectly well known to have originated in the attempt made by the latter to decry the edition of the Hecuba at the first publication; an attempt which was as conspicuous for the bad feeling which dictated, as for the utter failure which attended it; but which must always be regarded by scholars with some satisfaction, as being the means of calling forth from Porson that fund of accurate and clear observation which distinguishes the second edition of his Hecuba, and has given us more insight into the poetry of the scenic writers of Greece than all the volumes which ever preceded it. Porson unquestionably resented what he considered a rude, presumptuous, and unprovoked attack from the German, whose errors and whose ignorance he exposes in the happiest and most complete manner, without condescending to name him; but, in a note upon a verse of the Medea, he inflicts a severe chastisement by holding up to derision some of Hermann's blunders in caustic and taunting language; which, however it might have been deserved, we think that he would have better consulted his own dignity by suppressing. Hermann, who was then a young man, and had aspired to notice in a controversy with an adversary whose strength he had miscalculated, was deeply chagrined by his failure; and, we are sorry to say, appears never to have been able to lay aside his feelings towards Porson, which had their origin twenty-five years ago. Though he has subsequently profited as much, perhaps, as any one living, by the writings of Porson, though he has established a fame not only incomparably superior to that of which his early productions gave promise, but which is likely to be solid and durable, yet he cannot refrain from incessant attempts to pick faults in the criticisms of Porson, and from

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almost indiscriminate censure of all who look up to him as a guide. For this conduct he has neither provocation nor excuse; all Mr. Barker's research in reviews and other English publications has not succeeded in establishing the least proof of ill-will towards Hermann. The nature, indeed, of his philology, being too much founded on vague theory, and his habit of dogmatising on the obscurest topics of ancient metre, naturally occasion the frequent dissent of other scholars, and, it may be added, lead to a perpetual fluctuation in his own judgment; but, far from his being the object of personal dislike or jealousy, we see him everywhere noticed with the honour and deference due to an ingenious, learned, and most industrious scholar, who has contributed greatly to enlarge our knowledge of Greek literature:

"In almost all Professor Hermann's writings there are proofs of a warm and irritable temper, and of a readiness to take offence at the most trivial expressions; a foible which is the more to be regretted, as he appears to be a man of an honourable mind, and is certainly an object of great attachment, and even veneration, to the scholars who are his intimates. The feelings entertained by Hermann towards Porson are discovered from the writings of his pupils, particularly of Seidler and of Reisig, even more plainly than from his own. That they study to flatter the prejudices of their master by the condemnation of Porson, is too palpable in everything which they have written. The professor himself has lately made an ingenuous confession that he is disposed to disapprove the criticisms of our countryman Mr. Elmsley, (a gentleman who, by the by, is greatly his superior in every line of scholarship,) because he finds them commended by those who most respect the authority of Porson! This, we think, is quite conclusive; and while we repeat our high opinion of Professor Hermann's genius, learning, and industry, we must refuse the least credit to his judgment of contemporary scholars."*

Parr was greatly offended at the disrespectful men