HERE are three poems-two of which have been, for the last half-century, the admiration of Germany; and the third, as far as we can judge from translation, seeming to us to have a rightful claim to be admired—presented to the English public. We are not sure that their chance of attention may not be increased by the fact that they are written in what is called hexameter verse. At the time that the "Luise of Voss first appeared in Germany, the metre, though often adopted, could not be said to be naturalised in German literature; it, however, has made its way, and some popular poems have been written in it. In English the experiment has also been made, with less perfect success.

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To discuss the subject of metre would be beside our present purpose. We may, however, state, that we see no reason to think that verses, equally pleasing to the ear, may not be framed on the principle of introducing dactyles into rank and file, instead of iambics. In English, it is less easy to do so than in German, as we have lost the inflected forms both of nouns and verbs; but to frame the line in English is no very difficult accomplishment. In so framing it, accent, not quantity, must be chiefly attended to, though we think the latter cannot be safely neglected. When Southey made the words "westernmost Withsop the concluding dactyle and spondee of one of his lines, he, no doubt, regarded the first syllable of his dactyle as equivalent to a long syllable, because on it the accent fell; the second, notwithstanding its cluster of consonants, he would say was short, as being unaccented, and in the same way would deal with the last, disregarding the fact of its secondary accent, which, in combination with the position of the vowel before two consonants (the last circumstance sufficient in itself to make the syllable long in Latin or Greek), does something to interfere with the dactylic movement. The line may be constructed on the principle of accent alone, and be a line of verse; but to be a line of musical verse, quantity must also be regarded.

Whether, however, the movement of the line be dactylic or iambic, is a matter of comparative unimportance. The question which the writer of English hexameters has to ask himself is one wholly different; it is this, whether a succession of lines, in each of which there are six beats. -no matter whether the lines, like the closing Alexandrine of the Spenserian stanza, consist of six iambics, each of two syllables, or, like the dactylic hexameter, of an uncertain number of syllables still measured by six beats. can be produced so as not to be displeasing to the ear. Our objection is not to the dactylic hexameter, as such, but to a succession of lines of six feet. Let any one make the attempt to string a number of iambic Alexandrines together, without interposing lines less fatiguing to the breath of the reader, and thus enable himself to judge of the effect. If the dactylic hexameter is more tolerable in such an experiment, the cause, perhaps, will be found to consist in this, that the dactyle and spondee, with which each line closes, are the only parts of the line that approach metre, and thus the four first feet which we cannot well distinguish from interposed prose-give some relief. The length of the line is the objection. In the Spenserian or iambic hexameter, it breaks into two lines, equally divided. In the dactylic hexameter, the two last feet are too distinctly separated from the rest, to give it this advantage. While we think, then, that there is nothing absolutely to prevent the construction of such verses in English, we think that the effect of even two such lines in English would be unhappy, and to increase the number would be to increase the discord. The particular objection which we have stated, in no way applies to imitations of the classical elegiac metre-the combination of hexameter and pentameter. In Greek and Latin poetry, the inconvenience which we have mentioned, of the latter part of the verse being too distinctly marked, was felt, and the attention of the poet was directed to the arrangement of the four first

OCEAN.

These extracts are sufficient for our present purpose. The two first lose something by being separated from the series of which they form a part. The whole series may be regarded as one poem, and each particular sonnet a stanza, or little more. The key-note is to be looked for beyond itself; and of many such stanzas all that can be said, all that can be desired is, that they assist the progress of the poem, without disturbing the general vein of sentiment. Take Wordsworth's series of sonnets on the River Duddon; some are of singular beauty, some of no other beauty than their appropriateness for the place which they occupy gives mere indications of Place-but without which the plan of the work would be often unintelligible, or, if intelligible, exhibit the defect of imperfect execution. In the same way his series of ecclesiastical sonnets. Points of Time

must be indicated; but whole centuries may pass without presenting, in the poet's way of viewing his subject, such topics as he may wish to bring prominently forward, or as he finds harmonising with his theme; and in such circumstances it is unreasonable to expect more than such a selection of incidents as may enable him to come to what he wishes to exhibit in fuller detail, without the appearance of abruptness. We remember that, in one of the editions of Shakspeare's poems, which we knew in our boyhood(Dublin, Ewing)-several of his sonnets were so printed as to appear parts of one poem. We know not on what authority this was done; but we believe that in Mr. Browne's modern edition something of the same kind of arrangement is adopted. In these cases it is only an editor's commentary; and, if a theory is to be sustained,

is a thing to be regarded with distrust, except some distinction of type guards the reader from confusing the editor's arrangement with what is properly the author's work. Poems may, with a little dexterity, be so re-arranged as to exhibit anything but what the author intended. Our impression however is, that many of the sonnets of Shakspeare are portions-stanzas of larger poems, and that, regarded in this way, the beauty of particular passages is more fully brought out. We however think, that by such criticism it is idle to expect the discovery of the incidents of his life; and that the expectation of this which seems to have led to the minute examination of every phrase, arises in a false conception of what poetry is, and ever must be. Shakspeare was not bound, any more than the humblest ballad-singer, to swear to the truth of a song. The truth of nature, of feeling, of sentiment, we have a right to expect, but to read such poems for the verification of facts-with a view to establish scandals against Queen Elizabeth, or to impeach the character of some innkeeper's wife-is, we think, to read them amiss.

Modern writers were fond of following the example set them by Wordsworth, and which he adopted from the Italians. Among the poems of the late Sir Aubrey de Vere, is more than one series of sonnets, in this way illustrating a single subject, each

part wrought out in separate detail. There is one of twenty-two such stanzas on the Lord's Prayer, parts of which are.exceedingly affecting, and many passages of which are conceived in winged words, which we can well imagine sustaining the contemplative spirit in its efforts to realise a better world. These poems might, we think, be usefully detached from the volume of which they form a part, and printed separately. The Shadow of the Pyramid," by Robert Ferguson, is another poem in which this form is adopted a visit to Egypt suggests the poem, in which the fates of the country, from earliest antiquity to our own days, are shadowed out. We do not think Mr. Ferguson has taken entire advantage of the form in which his poem is cast, as the advantage of that form is, that while each sonnet must be regarded as a part of the entire, it has also an individual life of its own; and if separated from the rest, has its own unity and distinct meaning. It is best, when considered in subordination to the whole; but it is not a part of the whole in the sense in which a limb is part of the body. Mr. Ferguson's sonnets run too much into each other; each successive one assumes that you are familiar with that which precedes, and we have some difficulty in finding one which we can detach from the series.

But Mr. Cochrane and his own poem have led us away from our proper subjects the poems which he has translated; and first, of the "Luise'

of Voss, as being the first of these domestic narrative poems, and that out of which the others may be said to have grown.

The "Luise" of Voss has been for more than half a century before the German public, and has continued to have some popularity. Of Voss himself let us state the facts of his life, or rather such part of them as we can give in a sentence. He was born at Lommerdorff, and sent to Penzlin, in the Duchy of Mecklenburgh; there he remained till his fourteenth year, where he was well-grounded in Latin, and had taught himself some Greek and Hebrew. His father was a farmer, but by the seven years' war reduced to entire destitution. The son made his way to New Brandenberg, where he was admitted into the free school. This gave him food and shelter, but no provision was made for clothing the young student. He gave lessons to school-fellows less destitute than himself, and was thus enabled to dress himself. A book-club was got up, and a sort of gymnasium for debate and mutual instruction. Klopstock's works were among the books, and Voss began the fabrication of German Hexameters. He continued to live on, partly as private tutor, and partly in the sort of charity which at that time, in Germany, it was not felt humiliating, in one who was called a "poor scholar," to receive; and in 1772 we find him at Gotlinger, attending Heyne's lectures. He was admitted, through Heyne's exertions, to a Philological Seminary, intended to prepare young persons as schoolmasters for the Hanoverian territory. This gave him food, and hopes for the future.

In 1793, he printed a new edition of it so altered as to be, in truth, a different work. The first is said to be greatly better than the second; but on such a subject, particularly in the case of translation, we should have strong doubts. In the case of Cowper's Homer, where the changes in the second edition of his Odyssey are very considerable, Southey and Cary, the latter capable of forming some opinion on the subject, have each reprinted, in their respective editions of Cowper's works, his Homer from the first edition. Of Voss's Odyssey we happen to have the edition printed in 1821, whether from his first or second edition we do not know. After his quarrel with Heyne, there appears to have been a period of dissoluteness in the life of Voss, but it may have been little more than the permitted license of a German student. He and a number of friends contributed to periodical publications were paid for what they wrote-and the proceeds were expended in social entertainments, of which wild and improbable stories were told. Whatever were his irregu larities, he soon passed into the decencies of domestic life. For the last twenty years of his life he resided at Heidelberg..

The strange wild boy was not as deferential to Heyne as the professor expected, and had perhaps a right to expect. Voss declaimed against some propositions advanced in Heyne's lectures, and "attacked his opinions, in great part with the very arguments Heyne was accustomed to produce, and to refute in his own lectures." This was too bad. Heyne and his friends complained. Voss, in his turn, got offended -begged and borrowed four gold Frederics (Heyne's fee), and sent them in payment, somewhat insolently, for the lectures which he had been gratuitously attending. Voss was removed from the Philological Seminary, and had to look for his bread elsewhere. After some taskwork for the boooksellers, we find him, in 1778, married, and in comparative comfort. About this time he published his first translation of the Odyssey.

We have read parts of the Odyssey in his translation; but, to our car, his hexameters are not very skilfully framed, and the tone of the entire is altogether un-Homeric. There is, through all the domestic scenes in the original, a playfulness of tone which we do not think any translator has caught; which, though by no means unlike the tone of Cowper's original poetry, Cowper is the furthest of all Homer's translators from preservingand which, though in speaking of a German translation, we do so distrusting our own judgment, we think Voss has altogether lost. The best account of the humorous parts of the Odyssey is given by Colonel Muir, and we have read the Odyssey with infinitely more pleasure since we met with Colonel Muir's book.

Of "Luise" (Louisa) there are several editions; and from a sentence in one of Mr. Cochrane's prefaces, it would appear that there are differences of opinion as to the best. Ours is of

Vienna, 1816, and, it would appear, differs a good deal from that which Mr. Cochrane has used. The poem was first printed in 1781, and the