1

opinion that Milton in Samson Agonistes "threw off the syllabic trammels of his early style, though he learnedly disguised his liberty by various artifices." It seems to me truer to say that Milton introduced into Samson Agonistes many rhythmical movements which are not to be found in Paradise Lost; but that he did so on the authority of Shakespeare's example, because dramatic verse evidently enjoys a larger liberty than epic,-still limiting, however, his own liberty more strictly than Shakespeare had done. We do not find in Paradise Lost

lines like these:

The worst of all indignities yet | on me | (S.A. 1341).

used as a rule

(w not being separated from But this hardly

Milton in his

Wilt thou, then, serve the Philistines with that gift? (S.A. 577). In Paradise Lost the trisyllabic foot is only when two vowels come together reckoned as a separating letter), or are each other by a single liquid consonant. warrants us in saying dogmatically that epic poem "bound himself" by a cast-iron rule; nor do I think we can decide with any confidence that, in Samson Agonistes, he “did not think it worth while to keep strictly to his laws of 'elision,' but that he approved of the great rhythmical experiments which he had made, and extended these.' If Milton in Paradise Lost merely refined and limited a usage which is common throughout English poetry, why should he be supposed to have invented for himself an experimental prosody?

Apart from the trisyllabic foot, additional syllables are found in Milton's blank verse, some of which are to be explained by ordinary usage, while others must be accepted on his own supreme musical authority. Of the former class the weak extra syllable at the end of the line is of course a survival or modification of the old feminine rhyme, which had become common in dramatic usage. Such is the line

Of rebel angels by whose aid aspir[ing] (P.L. i. 38), Here and there also there is an extra syllable, which has 1 Milton's Prosody, p. 68. 2 Ibid. p. 26.

to be accounted for by the occurrence of an emphatic pause, as

Of high collateral glor[y]: Him thrones and powers (P.L. x. 86). 1 Out, out, hyæn[a]! These are thy wonted arts (S.A. 748).

1

This again is a rhythmical effect found in our earliest poets, and extremely common in the dramatists and in the earlier stages of the language, which therefore requires no special explanation. But there are other lines, containing a hyper-metrical syllable, which can hardly be analysed on the theory either of a trisyllabic foot or of the operation of the cæsura; e.g.:

2

Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus (P.L. vii. 446). Shoots visible virtue even to the deep (P.L. iii. 568).

In both these lines the omission of the first syllable would leave a normal verse, except that in the one there would be a trochee in the first foot, and in the other an anapæstic movement in the second foot. In the former example we may get rid of the extra syllable by eliding, as Mr. Mayor suggests, the y in "starry"; but it is hardly possible not to lay a strong stress on such an important word as "shoots" in the second example. I can only suppose that Milton intended something symbolic by the rhythm—perhaps the expression of long-continued, though invisible, movement-and that, for this purpose, he used a quasi-Alexandrine. On the same principle he may have deliberately introduced an occasional discord, as in the line,

Burnt after them to the bottomless pit (P.L. vi. 866), which, though it contains ten syllables, cannot possibly be made harmonious by the standard of the accent. So again, in imitation of the Italian hendecasyllable, Milton more than once uses two successive trochees at the opening of a line, as :—

1 Mr. Bridges says (p. 8) this line is to be explained by elision. I cannot think he is right. The pause is too emphatic to allow the voice to run swiftly on from the word "glory" to "Him."

2 See vol. i. p. 330.

Úni vérsal reproach, far worse to bear (P.L. vi. 34).
Ín the visions of God. It was a hill (P.L. xi. 377),

and sometimes even the iambic opening followed by a trochee :

Inclínes hére to | continue and build up here (P.L. ii. 313).

Amóng daughters of men the fairest found (P.R. ii. 154).

All these departures from the normal type of the heroic line must be respectfully accepted by the reader in deference to Milton's supreme genius as a metrical musician, seeking by different artifices to vary the cadence of his verse.

But the question of "apt numbers and fit quantity of syllables" in the single line is only one element in the complex harmony of Milton's blank verse. A still more important factor is what he describes as "the sense variously drawn out from one verse to another"; and here what is chiefly worthy of remark is his consummate skill in the management of the cæsura. The cæsura is an effect inherent both in the Anglo-Saxon and French systems of versification. Dr. Guest, who has confounded the two systems, says: "There are three pauses which serve for the regulation of the rhythm, final, middle, and sectional." What he calls the "sectional" pause is an arbitrary distinction of his own, not specifically noticed by those writers on our prosody whose opinions on the subject are most valuable, as dating from times when the musical traditions of our poetry were still preserved. The origin of the cæsuras was evidently in a condition of things when verse and song were united: they marked the point in the verse where the singer paused-however imperceptibly to take breath. "They have," as Gascoigne says in his Instructions, "been first devised (as should seem) by the musician." 1 A very full account of the operation of the cæsura is found in Puttenham's Art of Poetry; and this is especially valuable, because, though inaccurate in some particulars, it shows what was the practice of English verse-writers at a time when the rhythms of

1 Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays, vol. ii. p. 9.

the language were beginning to be determined by new conditions :

If there be no cesure at all, and the verse long, the less is the maker's skill and hearer's delight. Therefore in a verse of twelve syllables, the cesure ought to be full right upon the sixth syllable in a verse of eleven upon the sixth, leaving five to follow. In a verse of ten upon the fourth, leaving six to follow. In a verse of nine upon the fourth, leaving five to follow. In a verse of eight just in the midst, that is upon the fourth. In a verse of seven either upon the fourth, or none at all, the metre very ill brooking any pause. In a verse of six syllables and under is needed no cesure at all, because the breath asketh no relief yet if ye give any comma it is to make distinction of sense, more than for anything else: and such cesure must never be made in the midst of a word, if it be well appointed. So may you see that the use of these pauses or distinctions is not generally with the vulgar poet, as it is with the prose writer, because, the poet's chief music lying in his rhyme or concord to hear the symphony, he maketh all the haste he can to be at an end of his verse, and delights not in many steps by the way, and therefore giveth but one cesure to any verse: and thus much for the sounding of a metre. Nevertheless he may use in any verse both his comma, colon, and interrogative point, as well as in prose. But our ancient rhymers, as Chaucer, Lydgate, and others, used these cesures either very seldom, or not at all, or else very licentiously, and many times made their metres (they called them riding rhyme) of such unshapely words as would allow no convenient cesure, and therefore did let their rhymes run out at length, and never stayed till they came to the end: which manner though it were not to be misliked in some sort of metre, yet in every long verse the cesure ought to be kept precisely, if it were but to serve as a law to correct the licentiousness of rhymers, besides that it pleaseth the ear better, and showeth more cunning in the maker by following the rule of his restraint.1

In this passage there are several points of great historical importance. (1) It is evident that Puttenham and his contemporaries were ignorant of the principle of Chaucer's versification, which, according to the pronunciation of his time, was as regularly iambic in its structure as their own, and as strictly measured by the number of

1 Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays, vol. i. p. 62.

(2) The opera

syllables in the line, and by the cæsura. tion of the musical cæsura was still so powerful, that Puttenham determines its position in the line by a purely mechanical calculation of the number of syllables. (3)

As the cadence of the metre was determined by the rhyme, the tendency of the metrical period was to close at the places which made the symphony: the poet or singer, as Puttenham says, "maketh all the haste he can to be at an end of his verse." (4) But since verse had ceased to be sung, the sense was beginning strongly to assert itself in the metre against the sound, and a new kind of cæsura, depending on the grammar (marked, as Puttenham says, by "the comma, colon, and interrogative point"), was recognised as affecting the rhythm.

From this stage the effects of the new influence in our poetry may be historically traced. The rhyming heroic metre passed through a regular course of development up to the time of Pope, in whose hands it received its final polish. By the natural genius of the metre the sentence came more and more to be confined within the limits of the couplet, but the musical ear of Pope discovered the necessity of avoiding monotony by the variation of the middle pause in each line. The rules he laid down for himself are detailed in a letter to his friend Cromwell, and are deserving of close attention from all modern writers on the subject:

Every nice ear must, I believe, have observed that, in any smooth English verse of ten syllables, there is naturally a pause, either at the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllables; as, for example, Waller :

At the fifth Where'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings,
At the fourth: Homage to thee and peace to all she brings.
At the sixth Like tracks of leverets in morning snow.

Now I fancy that, to preserve an exact harmony and variety, none of these pauses should be continued above three lines together without the interposition of another; else it will be apt to weary the ear with one continued tune--at least it does mine.1 1 Letter to Cromwell, 25th November 1710.

VOL. III

2 F