The Drama contains a story, like the Epic; and, in its distinguishing peculiarity of the dialogue, gives additional scope for animation of plot. The spectator of a play is intent on watching the action and re-action of the personages.

The story is an important means of rousing the feelings: we are familiar with tales of distress, of wonder, of devotedness, of perseverance, of heroism. It being the nature of all such qualities to involve action, a narrative is the means of making them apparent.

128. VIII. Whatever painful effects are admitted into Poetry should be fully redeemed.

A work of Art is meant to give us pleasure, and the occurrence of anything to cause pain must be justified or atoned for. The chief example of the use of pain is seen in Tragedy, which is a representation of dire calamity and ruin overtaking men without corresponding ill desert on their part. Such events, of themselves, would necessarily shock our sympathies and offend our sense of justice. They are justified or redeemed in various ways:—

(1.) They occur in actual life; and, although we expect that Art should, as a rule, hold up the pleasing side of things, yet we do not wish it altogether to shut out painful realities from the view.

(2.) The exercise of compassion is agreeable within limits. We are not indisposed to have our sympathies engaged with suffering and sorrow. We do not shrink from encountering our fellow-beings, even in their miseries. The combined force of sympathy and tender feeling is able to swallow up the pain that the sight of calamity would cause us.

But there is a line that divides pity from horror. That line has been passed by some of the greatest poets; as by Shakespeare in Lear, if not also in Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet; by Campbell in Lord Ullin's daughter; in Byron's Shipwreck. Senior's remarks on Scott's Kenilworth are in point:—

"It is a fault perhaps of the conclusion, that it is too uniformly tragical. In 'Waverley,' and the 'Abbot,' the happiness of Rose

and Waverley, and of Catherine and Roland, is entwined, like the ivy of a ruined window, with the calamities of their unfortunate associates, and relieves us from one unvaried spectacle of misery. And even in the 'Bride of Lammermoor,' our author relents from what appears to have been his earlier intention, restores Bucklaw to health, and pensions Craigengelt, and suifers the whole weight of the catastrophe to fall only on his hero and heroine. But in 'Kenilworth,' the marriage of Wayland Smith and Janet (an event which scarcely excites any interest) is the only instance of mercy. The immediate circumstances of Amy's death, as she rushes to meet, what she supposes to be, her husband's signal, almost pass the limit that divides pity from horror. It is what Foster calls it, 'a seething of the kid in the mother's milk.' All our author's reiterations of Varney's devilishness, do not render it credible. Tressilian, Sir Hugh Robsart, Varney, Foster, Demetrius, Lambourne, almost every agent in the story, perishes prematurely or violently. Elizabeth is reserved for the sorrows of disappointed love and betrayed confidence, and Leicester for misery, such as even our author has not ventured to describe." (Essays on Fiction, p. 73.)

(3.) Calamity brings out the force and grandeur of the human spirit, and is thus an occasion of the sublime. The great tragedies of the Greek and of the modern drama, are exhibitions of lofty and heroic qualities of mind, endurance, daring, superiority to misfortune. Prometheus could defy, though he must succumb to, the might of Zeus.

(4.) The representation of painful scenes is an opportunity of showing the power of poetry. The influence of pleasure is manifested in subduing pain. The charm of imagery, the flow of numbers, and all the resources of poetic genius, are employed upon fictitious misery, that they may be at hand in real distress. Tragic situations call forth the energies of the poet himself, as well as of his heroes. It says much for the horrors of Lear, that the genius of the poet has not sufficed to redeem them. Poetry has especially endeavored to soften the terrors of

death. "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." The Stoical mode of regarding death took a slightly different, but equally poetical turn; it was a great, a sacred, an inviolable asylum, beyond the reach of human passion and injustice.

129. The form of Metre has been always considered suitable to Poetry.

Metre is an effect added to Melody; being, in our language, the arranging of emphatic and unemphatic syllables on a measured plan.

Metre operates in several ways:—

(1.) In strong excitement, we are unable to adapt ourselves to the varying exigencies of a prose rhythm, and accordingly feel the simplicity of a poetic measure to be a great relief. The greater the excitement, the more simple usually is the metrical scheme.

(2.) In the effusion of intense feeling, the regularity of metre may act as a controlling or moderating power. The ebullition of excitement is made calmer and more continuous by the adoption of a measured step; so that, when the subject is of an impassioned nature, the proper accompaniment is verse. On an occasion of joy, the regularity of the dance protracts and husbands the pleasurable emotion, which might otherwise be soon exhausted by spasmodic violence.

(3.) In the recurrence of beats at measured intervals, there is a positive pleasure. It is the pleasure of time in music, and of equal intervals in the array of objects to the eye, as when we place trees or pilasters in a row. We may consider it as an example of the principle of harmony, so widely diffused in Fine Art.

Verse, although a frequent adjunct, is not the essential distinction of Poetry. Many compositions in prose are of the poetical type; their design is to charm or please, and not to instruct or to persuade. Such is the Novel, or Prose Epic. Such also are many compositions having the form of instruction or of persuasion, but using that form as a mere framework for ornament and elegance. History, criticism, the moral essay, the delineation of life and manners, in the hands of a man of poetic genius, may be written in prose, but they have the effects of Poetry, and rank with it in the department of Polite Literature, or the Belles-Lettres.

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SPECIES OF POETRY.

130. Poetry is divided into three principal species, the Lyric, Epic, and Dramatic. These are marked by certain leading peculiarities, although few poems adhere purely to any one type. In modern compositions more especially, under whatever form, there is apt to be a mixture of all the modes of poetic effect.

LYRIC POETRY.

131. This species is represented by Songs, Hymns, and Odes. They are usually short, for which reason alone they are commonly more concentrated and intense.

The Lyric poem is an expression or effusion of some intense feeling, passion, emotion, or sentiment; as, devotion, love, military ardor, he. The metrical form deviates farthest from prose. The word "Lyric" shows that these poems were originally sung or pronounced with an instrumental accompaniment. Music, however, is an auxiliary only, and is commonly dispensed with. Even the versification can be dropped, and the composition still retain a lyrical character. This is seen in the highlywrought, impassioned prose of De Quincey (Confessions of an Opium-Eater, and Suspiria de Profundis); of Carlyle (Death of Marie Antoinette in The Diamond Necklace); of Richter; of Lamennais {Paroles (Tun Croyant—an instance of a lyrical book); of Victor Hugo, Michelet, and others. The passage from Milton's Areopagitica,—" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance," &c.—is Lyrical, being the effusion of intense feeling in strong, although unmetrical, language.

132. Lyrical poems may be classified as follows:

(1.) The Song. A song is usually short; simple in measure; broken up into stanzas, each complete in meaning, yet falling into a place in the arrangement of the piece; modified, according as it is to be sung or merely pronounced, in the first case being more abrupt and more metrical.

The varieties of the Song may be enumerated thus:—

I. The Sacred Song, or Hymn, expressing (a) awe, reverence, fear; (6) love, thankfulness, confidence; (c) supplication and intercession; (d) self-abasement and contrition; or (e) being hortatory (a departure from the strict poetical vein, almost peculiar to the Christian hymns).

The Psalms include all the varieties. The old Latin hymns (Dies Iræ, he.) may also be referred to. Luther's hymns are remarkable outbursts of his own personality; as in the tone of confidence displayed in—" A great stronghold our God is still." The modern missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains," is an example of the hortatory kind. The old Greek hymns to the deities, generally sung by the choruses, are pure instances under a, b, and c.

II. The Secular Song, corresponding to the more exciting occasions of common life.

(a) The War Song partakes of the nature of eloquence; the means of persuasion being the impassioned excitement and burning words of the author. It may be composed for a special emergency, or for nourishing patriotic sentiment at all times. One need refer only to Tyrtæus, Burns ("Scots wha hae—"), the Marseillaise, Arndt's and Korner's German War Lyrics (War of Freedom, 1813). The sentiments bodied forth are defiance of the foe, disregard of death, the dishonor of cowardice, the miseries of defeat.

It is important to remark, however, that narrative or Epic compositions, such as the ballads reciting heroic deeds of the past, have probably a still greater influence in rousing military sentiment. Dibdin's songs have the narrative, and not the Lyric, form. It was to the Ballad of Chevy Chase that Sidney's famous saying was applied, "It stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet." The explanation has already been alluded