In short, the ancients were content to read as they scanned,
or nearly so. It may be safely prophesied that we shall never do this;
and thus we shall never admit English hexameters. The attempt to
introduce them, after the repeated failures of Sir Philip Sidney and
others, is perhaps somewhat discreditable to the scholarship of
Professor Longfellow. The "Democratic Review," in saying that he has
triumphed over difficulties in this rhythm, has been deceived, it is
evident, by the facility with which some of these verses may be
read. In glancing over the poem, we do not observe a single verse
which can be read, to English ears, as a Greek hexameter. There are
many, however, which can be well read as mere English dactylic verses;
such, for example, as the well-known lines of Byron, commencing
Know ye the / land where the / cypress and / myrtle.
These lines (although full of irregularities) are, in their
perfection, formed of three dactyls and a caesura- just as if we
should cut short the initial verse of the Bucolics thus-
Tityre / tu patu / lae recu / bans-
The "myrtal," at the close of Byron's line, is a double rhyme, and
must be understood as one syllable.
Now a great number, of Professor Longfellow's hexameters are
merely these dactylic lines, continued for two feet. For example-
Whispered the / race of the / flowers and / merry on / balancing /
branches.
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