[Footnote 1: Not a new paragraph in the first
issue.]
[Footnote 2: which]
[Footnote 3: The ‘Syrinx’ of Theocritus
consists of twenty verses, so arranged that the length
of each pair is less than that of the pair before,
and the whole resembles the ten reeds of the mouth
organ or Pan pipes ([Greek: syrigx]). The
Egg is, by tradition, called Anacreon’s.
Simmias of Rhodes, who lived about B.C. 324, is said
to have been the inventor of shaped verses. Butler
in his ‘Character of a Small Poet’ said
of Edward Benlowes:
’As for Altars and Pyramids in poetry,
he has outdone all men that way; for he has made
a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that besides
the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the
words did perfectly represent the noise that is
made by those utensils.’]
[Footnote 4: But a devout earnestness gave elevation
to George Herbert’s ingenious conceits.
Joshua Sylvester’s dedication to King James the
First of his translation of the Divine Weeks and Works
of Du Bartas has not this divine soul in its oddly-fashioned
frame. It begins with a sonnet on the Royal Anagram
‘James Stuart: A just Master;’ celebrates
his Majesty in French and Italian, and then fills six
pages with verse built in his Majesty’s honour,
in the form of bases and capitals of columns, inscribed
each with the name of one of the Muses. Puttenham’s
Art of Poetry, published in 1589, book II., ch. ii.
contains the fullest account of the mysteries and
varieties of this sort of versification.]
[Footnote 5: When the tyranny of French criticism
had imprisoned nearly all our poetry in the heroic
couplet, outside exercise was allowed only to those
who undertook to serve under Pindar.]
* * * *
*
No. 59. Tuesday, May 8, 1711.
Addison.
‘Operose
Nihil agunt.’
Seneca.
There is nothing more certain than that every Man
would be a Wit if he could, and notwithstanding Pedants
of a pretended Depth and Solidity are apt to decry
the Writings of a polite Author, as Flash and
Froth, they all of them shew upon Occasion
that they would spare no pains to arrive at the Character
of those whom they seem to despise. For this
Reason we often find them endeavouring at Works of
Fancy, which cost them infinite Pangs in the Production.
The Truth of it is, a Man had better be a Gally-Slave
than a Wit, were one to gain that Title by those Elaborate
Trifles which have been the Inventions of such Authors
as were often Masters of great Learning but no Genius.
