A PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO
ENGLISH VERSIFICATION.
PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO
English Versification.
VERSE," &c.
JOHN HOGG, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1877.
PREFACE.
I am anxious at the first outset that the objectof this work should not be misunderstood.It does not assume to be a handbook for poets,or a guide to poetry. The attempt to compilesuch a book as is implied by either of thosetitles would be as absurd as pretentious.
A Poet, to paraphrase the Latin, is created,not manufactured. Cicero's "nascimur poetæ,fimus oratores," is, with some modification, evenmore to the point. In a word, poetical geniusis a gift, but education and perseverance willmake almost any man a versifier.
All, therefore, that this book aims to teach isvithe art of Versification. That art, like Logic,is "ars instrumentalis, dirigens mentem intercognitionem rerum." As Logic does not supplyyou with arguments, but only defines the modein which they are to be expressed or used, soVersification does not teach you how to writepoetry, but how to construct verse. It may bea means to the end, but it does not pretend toassure its attainment. Versification and Logicare to Poetry and Reason what a parapet is toa bridge: they do not convey you across, butprevent you from falling over. The differenceis that which exists between τεχνη and ἐπιστήμη.
This definition is rendered necessary by theDogberry spirit which is now abroad, and whichinsists that "to be a well-favoured man is thegift of fortune,"—fortune in the sense of wealth,I presume,—"but to write and read comes bynature;" in fact, that to be "a poet" a manneeds to be advantageously placed in the world,but that any one can "write poetry."
viiWith this conviction, I have discarded the titleof a guide for "Poets," feeling that there ismuch real poetry that is not in verse, and avast deal of verse that is not poetry; and thattherefore "a hard and fast line" was of thefirst importance to mark the boundary of myundertaking. Poetry is far less a question ofmanner than of matter, whereas versification ispurely a question of form. I will even ventureto say that some of our noblest poems are inprose; and that many great poets have beenbut inferior versifiers. But what these last wrotehas possessed qualities compared with which themere mechanism of their verse is as nothing.The poet gives to the world in his sublimethoughts diamonds of the purest water. Itwould be idle to quibble about minor p