338.3. EBB to James Commeline, Jr.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 2.
Hope End.
June. 1829.
Dear Sir,
I am hardly justified in troubling you again on this venata surillo; but I never can help being very eager when I am very interested,—& besides have received such pleasure from your letter as to give me a kind of right to annoy you once more by thanking you for it. Can you once more bear with me, while I venture to notice briefly the observations you have so much obliged me by addressing to myself for my instruction & it is only the circumstance of their being addressed to myself that makes me venture upon this liberty,—for let me repeat, if I were defending any thing else but my own reasons for receiving Mr Price’s creed, both you & Mr Price might well break my “arco del oir” for its impertinence.
You seem disposed to adopt the Psammetichan scheme more literally than I contemplated or desired, for really, did any decision in the present case depend on discovering Sir William Curtis’s innate ideas, (or perhaps his acquired ones) it might remain sub judice as long as our tongues could make false quantities or our ears tolerate them. How long that might be, I do not presume to guess,—but certainly we have no right, so far, to doubt their powers of endurance. Tho’ you were amused at my talking of Psammetichus, I was quite serious in thinking it desirable that the instinct of the ear should be got at by applying to it in its uncritical state,—by which uncritical state, I did not mean its first state of innocence, (having no design on innate ideas) but such blissful ignorance as the non-consultation of authorities for the solution of a physical question would incontestably prove. In the very [illegible word] of the London university plenty of ears might be found fitted for my tripod—& I still suspect their oracles would be given against you, unless you recurred to your critical violence,—& then—but no! not even then may you hope to be “invincible.” My query should simply be—“which syllable of the word ‘follów’ is confest to the ear?–” for I should refrain from perplexing the Pythia with technicalities .. accent, stress &c– Quantity having as good a right to the epithet πολυωνυμσ,—unquestionably to νεφεληνερετης,—as the great Jupiter himself.
I do not think the fact of syllables in our language having a less “stated settled & recognised quantity” than syllables in an ancient language, a fact by any means competent to refute Mr Price’s maintenance of the identity of the essential principle in each. The essential principle in each may be time; & this time may be, in our language, produced & modified, by different causes & under different regulations. Aggregated consonants, in an ancient language, produced a long syllable by occasioning a delay of the voice; but if aggregated consonants, in a modern language, do not occasion a delay of the voice, they cannot a fortissima produce a long syllable;—what is long to the eye not being always long,—& what is short to the eye not being always short πενμηριονατοη: And as the causes of quantity, in a modern language, may differ from the causes of quantity in an ancient one,—so, without involving any ad absurdum, they may differ inter se, & be relative & variable, instead of being stated & settled. If therefore I were to grant to you that no English monosyllable possesses an “innate quantity,” my concession would no more bear upon Mr Price’s position. Quantity is the essence of English poetry .. than Locke’s position .. “there are no innate ideas” .. can be said to bear against the entity of all ideas. The concession only induces a conclusion I am not at all anxious to avoid. viz. the length of our monosyllables in poetry is regulated relatively by the general proportion of times. You will remember the opposite expression of an ancient critic—ρυθμος πατης μετρου.
Allow me to take a great liberty with your demonstration: I propose reading it in this manner—If A be the same with B, & B the same with C, at Cambridge the conclusion would be allowed that A also is the same with C. You assume what could never be granted, that the monkish poetry was constructed on a principle “totally differing” from the one, on which ancient poetry was constructed. Mr Price would, I think, contend for the identity of the principle, tho’ that principle, in the “Latin de cuisine,” was applied [illegible word]—i.e. exactly as we apply it in our recitation; by confounding length with musical accent.
I will no priestïs for me sing
Dies illa, dies iræ
Nar yet no rhymïs for me ring
Sicut semper solet fieri.
Nevertheless to give the “priestïs” honor due, they have a claim to the praise of consistency,—to which, we, who read Latin by one rule, & write it by another, can have no possible claim.
In spite of all my respect for the Quidlibet audendi, & your dreadful threatening about the Timbuctoo scholar in the 11th century, I am not persuaded to let my example from Homer, i.e. βελος,—supported as it is by so many other similar instances in Greek & Latin verses,—go down the stream as a false quantity. We should in the first place recollect that ancient poetry, accompanied by a musical instrument, was unavoidably more metrically regular than modern poetical compositions are obliged to be: Mr Price,—with great authority on his side,—will not hear of the existence of acephaloris verses,—or what he calls “headless monsters,”—in Homer. In the second place we should take with us the internal evidence of the line—
Αυτας επειτ'αυτοισι βελθ ελεπευκες εφιεις
βαλλ
Is it likely that Homer, so distinguished for imitative harmony, would choose to interrupt the winged rapidity of an arrow,—an arrow belonging to the `Εηηζολος—by suffering his line to falter & stagger & break down under a false quantity,—& that false quantity placed exactly where it must be most perceived & worst endured—in the cæsura? At least, if he did so, he must have been very fast asleep indeed! Longinus,—or whoever you suppose the scholiast on Hephæstion to have been,—quotes Homer’s “πςος οικον πηληος,” & observes that tho’ προς be intrinsically a short syllable, yet εντοπω κειται μακρας—τπονδειον γαρ δει ειναι τον ποδα.
I am not solicitous about ελὠρια,—& will concede that by laying our modern accent after the lambda we barely have the quantity—inasmuch as the syllable remains shorter than a standard long syllable, tho’ longer than a standard short one. Mr Price never contended that the first of holl’y was as long as the first of ho’ly,—but that the first of holl’y was longer than the second of the same word. And in this I cannot εεκμηριοταηοη: refuse to concur: I cannot refuse to admit that the voice is hitched half way on your pyrrhic by the modern accent; & is thus interrupted in its rapidity–
If, as you suppose, any argument of mine has made “clearly & decidedly” against Mr Price’s position, in favour of your view, I can only say with Hudibras,
He who complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
But will you suffer me to observe that in proposing a substitution of the first three syllables of Cowper’s choriambus roēhs nĕŏn heārd for Pope’s dactyl, I did, in the first place, deprecate the restoration of what you call the “tonic accent” to “never’. Had I suffered that restoration I was well aware that, on Mr Price’s own principle, I should be virtually proposing the substitution of an antibacchius for a dactyl,—which the verse could not be expected to tolerate. My proposal was to substitute roēhs’nĕvĕr (pronounced, if you please, as one word) for sol’yma; & my reason for making the proposal was a suspicion, that, in Pope’s line, our ear directs us to preserve the metre by making sol’yma a “drawling” instead of a “breathless dactyl.” I was therefore anxious to try the fact, by placing in its room a dactyl whose degree of rapidity had been voiced by being associated in our ears with the cadence of a familiar line. And after this experiment, I certainly do very strongly feel, that, with the quick dactyl, Pope’s line is unmetrical, while with the first drawling one, sol’yma, it is strictly metrical.
As to Southey’s pritenoid hexameters, (for if there be a real one in all his work it is “such a one, as such was none”) you cannot think of them more contemptibly than Mr Price himself does; & perhaps no one can think of them too contemptibly. The ‘vision’ is a buoy upon the waters of literature to keep future poets from the rocks,—&, so far it is useful. But I do not think it can be useful to your decision against Mr Price’s principles, because I cannot agree with you that “the Laureat’s hexameters are adapted strictly to those principles.” Upon Mr Price’s principles there must be one insurmountable objection (among the many) to the existence of English hexameters.—viz. the want of spondees,—an objection Dr Southey was no stranger to, & which he ingeniously obviated by placing trochees in their room. Nothing could be more happily imagined than the substitution: two & two used to be equal to four,—but it was reserved for Dr Southey to “changer tout cela,” & make three equal to two & two! Such an innovation in arithmetic added to the outrage upon our poetical national association, was not likely to render the latter pleasanter to vulgar readers,—& puts me in mind of a “mery interlude” written by a worthy predecessor of our Laureat (it would be too severe to say, a predecessor worthy of our Laureat!) where there is this stage direction—“Enter Balsebub with a Berde.” Dr Southey’s metrical Beelzebub has really a most terrific beard–
You must not be angry if I take the liberty of observing with regard to your extract from Aristotle, that it appears to make much more strongly against yourself than against Mr Price. By the δασυτης & ψιλοτης, which you translate stress or modern accent, Dr Gally understands “the breathings or aspirations”—a meaning perhaps the most usually attached to the Greek words. Apollonius could have had no other, when he wrote “'Οιμεν αλλαι 'Ελληνες δασυτουσι τα εν πη λε ξει φωτηεντα Αιολεις σε μοτοι ψιλουσι.” Not granting to you your interpretation,—granting to you that Mr Price has confounded “the first & second characteristics” mentioned by Aristotle, & has there been hurried into “a fatal delusion”,—have not you yourself in like manner confounded the first & third characteristics, the δασυτης & οξυτης,—& in your own delusion less fatal? I cannot understand how you reconcile with your principle, your emphatic strokes under the ηοφ'εηατον.
The striking & obvious fact which forms the subject of your confession, had not escaped my attention,—& I think you must have overlooked a passage in my letter that made some allusion to it, giving as an example Virgil’s “Insulæ lonio in magno.” I gave the examples in Latin, because, there, the practice is so much rarer,—while in Greek, as you observe, instances are too innumerable to call for quotation. It is extremely candid in you to acknowledge that the fact bears hard upon your principles,—so hard that you should be induced to abandon them but for your conjecture respecting the elided short vowel. I could not help being delighted with the originality & ingenuity of this conjecture, even if it were a more deadly enemy than it is likely to move: but (since you “do not contend for victory but truth”) I will venture to submit to your candid consideration a fact which seems, to my mind, even conclusive, & is thus stated by Priscian—“Æoles θουνατης dicunt pro θυνατης, ου conipientu.” I never read Priscian, & have not the work to refer to: the above passage I extract from an extract introduced into one of the notes to Foster’s book without any view to the present question. Foster seems to think the passage chiefly valuable on account of the light thrown by it on the metre of an Adonic in Homer, which has been considered irregular—αλλα βὄυλεσθε. But, with regard to the present question, it appears invaluable: &, really, on reading the words of your confession—“I should be induced to abandon my own principles but for the circumstance of long vowels or diphthongs being only made short at the end of words & in a confluence of vowels”—on reading over those words, & then reading Priscian’s assertion that the Aolians did systematically shorten a diphthong in the middle of a word & before a consonant, I cannot help believing that you have no choice—that you must either refuse to admit Priscian’s authority, or abandon your stronghold. I am now quite at the end of my trespass—& pray forgive “my having ventured to address you so freely.” I am conscious that it looks much too like presumption to be distinguished from presumption, unless you are kind enough to look closely & discern the line. But, while I could not omit thanking you for an extremely interesting letter, to have done so without fairly stating the impression it left on my mind would have been an ungrateful return for all the trouble you have taken to release me from the Arch-Inchantu—within whose paradise (do you remember Spenser’s exquisite imitation?)
No tree on which a fine bird doth not sit—
No bird but doth her shrill notes sweetly sing—
no song but doth contain a lovely dit–
With our united best remembrances, believe me
Your most truly obliged
E. B. Barrett.
My postscript must take some notice of yours. In giving the same monosyllablic sound to an iambus & pyrrhic, you barely seem to deal a little in Southey’s arithmetic which the “triste embarras” renders necessary to your system; for by keeping to your δασυτης thro’ good & ill report, you would, even to your own ears, sometimes make your syllables as broad as they are long. Alius Donatus mentions two exceptions to the Latin rule of accenting dissyllables—ergó & poné,—on the last syllables of which, the accent was laid. To this “pair of slippers” however, you cant possibly pay any deference.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s draft at Armstrong Browning Library.
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