Amours, Odes, Elegies, and Eclogues." In 1610 he possessed in his library sixty-one Italian, one hundred and twenty French, and fifty English books, the figures probably indicating the distribution of his reading. In English literature his favorites seem to have been Spenser, Shakespeare and Michael Drayton, though various other poets are included in his library. Some further clues to his tastes in literature are found in his writings. Of Drayton's "Poly-Olbion" he says: "It is one of the smoothest pieces I have seen in English, poetical and well executed; there are some pieces in him I dare compare with the best trans-marine poems. "13 Another passage taken from Drummond's account of his conversations with Jonson is interesting because it suggests Drummond's knowledge and Jonson's ignorance of foreign languages. In a discussion of French literature Jonson had said that the best pieces of Ronsard were his odes. He had boasted also of plainly telling a certain French bishop that his translations were worthless. "All this," subjoins Drummond in his chamber afterwards, "was to no purpose, for he neither doth understand French or Italiens." Jonson himself in one of his epigrams admits the weakness of his French. The latter's judgment of Drummond's verses was that "they were all good, especially my 'Epitaph of the Prince,' save that they smelled too much of the schools . . . yett that he wished, to please the King, that piece 'Forth Feasting' had been his own." From such bits of conversation as these between Drummond and Jonson one may get many suggestions of their attitude toward the King, their interest in French literary tendencies, and their views on the theory of poetry. It is beyond the scope of this article to point out in Drummond's own verse definite traces of the influence of Continental literature. Undoubtedly such investigation would prove fruitful, for Drummond, after Spenser, is perhaps the most cosmopolitan of British poets. Thus, as Mr. Gosse points out, one of Drummond's songs is probably the only instance of the French fashion of alternating 12 I quote Masson's "Life of Drummond." 13" Notes of the Characters of Several Writers," Masson (p. 80). couplets with masculine and couplets with feminine endings. He imitated and adapted the Italian poets also, and was particularly indebted to the French poet Desportes. Except in his lyrics, Drummond wrote entirely in couplets. These, though more polished, resemble the couplets of Drayton rather than those of the later writers. They lack the urbanity and artificiality which characterize, for example, the lines of Waller. His "Tears on the Death of Moliades" is perhaps the best specimen of his versification as it is of his power as a poet. The poem contains one hundred and ninety-six lines, of which eighteen per cent are run-on, with five run-on couplets. In "Forth Feasting," wrtiten two years later (1616) to celebrate the King's return to Scotland, and evidently admired by James, the proportion of run-on lines is reduced to five per cent, with no run-on couplets, a percentage as low as in Pope or Dryden. Still, it must be remembered that the poet of Hawthornden is not to be thought of as a possible rival of Waller for the fame of having popularized the classical couplet. He was simply a writer who did not err with John Fletcher and Chapman on the side of freedom, nor with Donne and the satirists on the side of roughness, and was one of many others who in one way or another were working toward the later style. It must be remembered, too, that though Drummond gives no indication of his Scotch birth in his diction, and though he was on intimate terms with Jonson and Drayton, he was still outside the main stream of English literature. A true cosmopolitan, he seems to have gone as much to the poets of France and Italy for his models as to those nearer home. Drummond nearly completes the list of important writers with classical tastes in the first quarter of the century. A more extended investigation of the movement would trace it in the poetry of Sandys and Waller and their followers to the time of Dryden. In Sandys would be found merely a painstaking versifier with little or no poetic inspiration of one kind or another; but it could be shown that his translation of Ovid's "Metamor "For French influence on Drummond, see Modern Language Review (October, 1907). phoses" passed through eleven editions in the hundred years following his death, was praised by Pope, and was generally popular. In Waller, though his verse is less "correct" than that of either Beaumont or Drummond, the later style is fairly well developed, and studied conventionality of thought and phrase for the first time becomes conspicuous. My purpose here is accomplished, however, if I have shown that no study of the rise of classicism is complete that fails to take into account the work of the earlier satirists, who of the writers of this period were in subject and point of view most akin to those of the eighteenth century; the rugged intellectuality of Ben Jonson; the remarkable refinement, restraint, and regularity of Beaumont and Drummond; and finally, the influence of King James. Columbia University, New York City. ALLAN F. WESTCOTT. H RHYTHM IN PROSE It has long been an open secret that prose is not distinguished from poetry by lack of rhythm. Aristotle said it, Cicero after him; Stevenson and others have since re-discovered it. The difference between prose and verse is more subtle. "Prose," says Aristotle, "should contain rhythm, but not metre, else it will be verse." "The prose writer must never disappoint the ear by the trot of an accepted metre," says Stevenson. The rhythm of prose is distinguished, according to the ancient authority, by the employment of long, four-syllabled feet, called pæonics; according to Stevenson, by the incessant variation of the rhythmical pattern. Pater says of Dryden's prose that "it is vitiated by many a scanning line;" but the sin of falling into the trot of an accepted metre is more common than is generally suspected. Writers of English seem to be especially liable to it. "The French prose writer," says Stevenson, "would be astounded at the labors. of his brother across the channel and how a quarter of his toil is to avoid writing verse." It has been frequently pointed out how Dickens, for instance, in his earlier works. wrote long passages in a sort of bad blank verse. More recently a bit of prose by Thompson-Seton has been arranged by a mischievous critic as follows: So in this land of long, long winter night, Where nature stints her joys for six hard months, Vast lavish outpour. Chief among the sinners we are considering is the English Bible. It would be easy to cite a large number of lines in perfect dactylic measure, like: How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor. Wail of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river. No less frequent are lines in iambic metre, like: He casteth forth his ice like morsels, Who can stand before his cold? He giveth snow like wool. The sea and all that in them is, Who keepeth truth forever. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Death is swallowed up in victory; O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? It is often possible, while listening to an orator, to beat time in unison with the measured fall of his accents. Over and above this accentual beat one may observe a regular alternation of tone, which is of a different character in the preacher from what it is in the political orator, different in the scientific lecturer from the pleader before juries. The prose of famous orators contains a swing, as it is often called. You may feel it in Cicero, and you may hear it in Bryan. The late Robert G. Ingersoll had it in a marked degree, and some of his chants are still ground out from phonographic records. Especially noticeable are rhythm of accent and of tone in the discourse of one speaking a language unknown to us, but orators in English are sometimes capable of achieving for one an almost equal divorce of thought from sound. Everyone, even in ordinary conversation, chooses as far as possible rhythmical, in preference to unrhythimcal, combinations of syllables. Words of their own accord, when combined to express meanings, fall to some degree into rhythmical patterns; but we are not content with that. We lengthen, shorten, and slur syllables in order to please our sense of rhythm. Speakers with more musical ears do this to such an extent that their speech sounds smooth and regular, like blank verse. But we all do it more than we are aware, and it is surprising how much lengthening and compression language will undergo to |