A PLAN FOR
WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME,
IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
RESPECTED SIR,
In a morning paper justly celebrated for the acuteness of its reporters, and their almost prophetic insight into character and motives—the Rhodian length of their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their inferences, beyond the drawing of Moux’s dray horses,—there appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph.
“Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall emaciated being, in a brown coat, indicating his age to be about forty-five, and the raggedness of which gave a great air of mental ingenuity and intelligence to his countenance, was introduced by the officers to the Lord Mayor. It was evident from his preliminary bow that he had made some discoveries in the art of poetry, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but the Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had already submitted his project to several of the leading Publishers, referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the unfortunate Votary of the Muses withdrew, declaring by another bow, that he should offer his plan to the Editor of the Comic Annual.”
The unfortunate above referred to, Sir, is myself, and with regard to the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a £10 one, if the qualification depends on my pocket—but for the idea of addressing myself to the Editor of the Comic Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gentlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true, in common with Hervey, and Herschell, and Galileo, and Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus,—my invention concerning a whole hemisphere, as it were, in the world of poetry—in short, the whole continent of blank verse. To an immense number of readers this literary land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from one sole reason,—the want of that harmony which makes the close of one line chime with the end of another. They have no relish for numbers that turn up blank, and wonder accordingly at the epithet of “Prize,” prefixed to Poems of the kind which emanate in—I was going to say from—the University of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members of society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, the Chase, or the Seasons,—the Winter especially,—without rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in question, but with a limited enjoyment; as certain persons can admire the architectural beauties of Salisbury steeple, but would like it better with a ring of bells. For either of these tastes my discovery will provide, without affronting the palate of any other; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank verse will not suffer in the least, but each line will “do as it likes with its own,” and sound as independently of the next as “milkmaid,” and “water-carrier.” I have the honour to subjoin a specimen—and if, through your publicity, Mr. Murray should be induced to make me an offer for an Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family Library, it will be an eternal obligation on,
Respected Sir, your most
obliged, and humble servant,
* * * * * * *
A NOCTURNAL SKETCH.