RHYME.
Every language has powers, and graces, and music peculiar to itself; and what is becoming in one, would be ridiculous in another. Rhyme was barbarous in Latin and Greek verse, becausethese languages by the sonorousness of their words, by their liberty of transposition and inversion, by their fixed quantities and musical pronunciation, could carry on the melody of verse without its aid; and an attempt to construct English verses after the form of hexameters, and pentameters, and sapphics, is as barbarous among us. It is not true that rhyme is merely a monkish invention. On the contrary, it has obtained under different forms in the versification of most known nations. It is found in the ancient poetry of the northern nations of Europe; it is said to be found among the Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, and the Americans. This shews that there is something in the return of similar sounds, which is grateful to the ears of most part of mankind.
The present form of our English heroic rhyme in couplets, is a modern species of versification. The measure generally used in the days of queen Elizabeth, king James, and king CharlesI.was the stanza of eight lines, such as Spenser employs, borrowed from the Italian, a measure very constrained and artificial. Waller was the first who brought couplets into vogue;[8]and Dryden afterwards established the usage. Waller first smoothed our verse; Dryden perfected it. Pope’s versification has a peculiarcharacter. It is flowing and smooth in the highest degree; far more laboured and correct than that of any who went before him. He introduced one considerable change into heroic verse, by almost throwing aside the triplets, or three lines rhyming together, in which Dryden abounded. Dryden’s versification, however, has very great merit; and like all his productions, has much spirit, mixed with carelessness. If not so smooth and correct as Pope’s, it is however more varied and easy. He subjects himself less to the rule of closing the sense with the couplet; and frequently takes the liberty of making his couplets run into one another, with somewhat of the freedom of blank verse.