I am serious in these suggestions;
for, first again, there is something in "scholarship" which seduces us
into blind worship of Bacon's Idol of the Theatre- into irrational
deference to antiquity, secondly, the proper "profundity" is rarely
profound- it is the nature of Truth in general, as of some ores in
particular, to be richest when most superficial; thirdly, the clearest
subject may be over-clouded by mere superabundance of talk. In
chemistry, the best way of separating two bodies is to add a third; in
speculation, fact often agrees with fact and argument with argument
until an additional well-meaning fact or argument sets everything by
the ears. In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively
discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is
obscure because excessively discussed. When a topic is thus
circumstanced, the readiest mode of investigating it is to forget that
any previous investigation has been attempted.
But, in fact, while much has been written on the Greek and Latin
rhythms, and even on the Hebrew, little effort has been made at
examining that of any of the modern tongues. As regards the English,
comparatively nothing has been done. It may be said, indeed, that we
are without a treatise on our own verse. In our ordinary grammars
and in our works on rhetoric or prosody in general, may be found
occasional chapters, it is true, which have the heading,
"Versification," but these are, in all instances, exceedingly
meagre.
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