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It is not merely that, though Scott had a great liking for and much proficiency in 'eights, that metre is never so effective for ballad purposes as eights and sixes; nor that, as Lockhart admits, Glenfinlas exhibits a Germanisation which is at the same time an adulteration; nor even that, well as Scott knew the Perthshire Highlands, they could not appeal to him with the same subtle intimacy of touch as that possessed by the ruined tower where, as a half-paralysed infant, he had been herded with the lambs.
But the iambics of the common poets are, on account of their likeness to ordinary conversation, very often in such a very low style, that sometimes it is hardly possible to discover any metre, or even rhythm in them. And it may easily be understood that there is more difficulty in discovering the rhythm in an oration than in verses.
It seems possible that Hagbard's story has been contaminated with a distorted account of the Volsung Signy, civilised as usual by Saxo, with an effect of vulgarity absent from the primitive story. In a recently published pamphlet by Mr. W.W. Lawrence and Dr. Evidence from metre and form is all in favour of this view, and the poem bears the interpretation without any straining of the meaning. Dr.
"Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them." If a line is felt as "metrical," i.e. divided into approximately equal time-intervals, the particular label employed to indicate the nature of the metre is unimportant. It may be left to the choice of each student of metre, provided he uses his terms consistently.
Almost every one has a sense of harmony, and old and young loved to watch the musical motion of Dorcas Fox, whatever she might be doing, whether she queened it at the "Thanksgiving Ball," and from heel-and-toe, pigeon-wing, or mazy double-shuffle, evolved the finest and subtlest intricacies of muscle, or whether, on the Sabbath, walking behind her parents to meeting, she married the movement to the solemnity of the day, and, as it were, walked in long metre.
Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves.
Then this art is wholly irresponsible it grows, obeying no rules, even as the flowers? In obedience to the laws of some irregular metre so delicate and subtle that its structure escapes our analysis, the flowers bloom in faultless, flawless, and ever-varying variety. We can only say these are beautiful because they are beautiful.... That is begging the question.
Edited, with an introduction and notes, by the author of Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George I., &c. Mr. Fleay thinks that Dick of Devonshire was written by R. Davenport. "The conduct of the plot," he observes, "the characterisation, the metre, the language are very like the City Nightcap." The reader must judge between us.
They catch all the phrases of the true poet. They imitate his metrical forms as a mimic copies the gait of the person he is representing. Now I am not going to abuse "these same metre ballad-mongers," for the obvious reason that, as all The Teacups know, I myself belong to the fraternity. I don't think that this reason should hinder my having my say about the ballad-mongering business.
Just then some one knocked at the door, and in response to Mr. Cabot's unwilling "Come in," Ben's head appeared. "Beg pardon, Mr. Cabot, but Mr. Van Metre wants you out here." Pickering lunged past Ben. "Don't stop me," he cried crossly, in response to Ben's "Well, old fellow."
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