"The license" he says "of turning
such words as 'passionate' and 'desolate' into two syllables could
only have been taken by a pupil of the Fantastic School." We are quite
sure that Mr. Willis had no purpose of turning them into words of
two syllables- nor even, as may be supposed upon a careless
examination, of pronouncing them in the same time which would be
required for two ordinary, syllables. The excesses of measure are here
employed (perhaps without any definite design on the part of the
writer, who may have been guided solely by ear) with reference to
the proper equalization, of balancing, if we may so term it, of
time, throughout an entire sentence. This, we confess, is a novel
idea, but, we think, perfectly tenable. Any musician will understand
us. Efforts for the relief of monotone will necessarily produce
fluctuations in the time of any metre, which fluctuations, if not
subsequently counterbalanced, affect the ear like unresolved
discords in music. The deviations then of which we have been speaking,
from the strict rules of prosodial art, are but improvements upon
the rigor of those rules, and are a merit, not a fault. It is the
nicety of this species of equalization more than any other metrical
merit which elevates Pope as a versifier above the mere
couplet-maker of his day, and, on the other hand, it is the
extension of the principle to sentences of greater length which
elevates Milton above Pope.
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