Cowley has
often employed it in his odes. It adds a certain majesty to the
verse when it is used with judgment, and stops the sense from
overflowing into another line. Formerly the French, like us and the
Italians, had but five feet or ten syllables in their heroic verse;
but since Ronsard's time, as I suppose, they found their tongue too
weak to support their epic poetry without the addition of another
foot. That indeed has given it somewhat of the run and measure of a
trimetre, but it runs with more activity than strength. Their
language is not strong with sinews, like our English; it has the
nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff.
Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight; and pondere,
non numero is the British motto. The French have set up purity for
the standard of their language; and a masculine vigour is that of
ours. Like their tongue is the genius of their poets, light and
trifling in comparison of the English--more proper for sonnets,
madrigals, and elegies than heroic poetry.
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