like “ Maggie Lauder, ” where the heartiness and impulse of the poet's mood conquer all impediments of close vowels and rugged consonantal combinations. Of Scottish song-writers Burns is, of course, the head; for the songs of John Skinner, the heartiest song-writer that has appeared in Great Britain (not excluding Herrick), are too few in number to entitle him to be placed beside a poet so prolific in heartiness and melody as Burns. With regard to Campbell's heartiness, this is quite a different quality from the heartiness of Burns and Skinner, and is in quality English rather than Scottish, though, no doubt, it is of a fine and rare strain, especially in “ The Battle of the Baltic.” His songs illustrate an innrmity which even the Scottish song-writers share with the English-a defective sense of that true song-warble which we get in the stornelli and rispetti of the Italian peasants. A poet may have heartiness in plenty, but if he has that love of consonantal effects which Donne displays he will never write a first-rate song. Here, indeed, is the crowning difficulty of song-writing. An extreme simplicity of structure and of diction must be accompanied by an instinctive apprehension of the melodic capabilities of verbal sounds, and of what Samuel Lover, the Irish song-writer, called “ singing ” words, which is rare in this country, and seems to belong to the Celtic rather than to the Saxon ear. “ The song-writer, ” says Lover, “ must frame his song of open vowels with as few guttural or hissing sounds as possible, and he must be content sometimes to sacrifice grandeur and vigour to the necessity of selecting singing words and not reading words.” And he exemplifies the distinction between singing words and reading words by a line from one of Shelley's songs“
The fresh earth in new leaves drest,
“ where nearly every word shuts up the mouth instead of opening it.” But closeness of vowel sounds is by no means the only thing to be avoided in song-writing. A phrase may be absolutely unsinkable, though the vowels be open enough, if it is loaded with consonants. The truth is that in song-writing it is quite as important, in a consonantal language like ours, to attend to the consonants as to the vowels; and perhaps the first thing to avoid in writing English songs is the frequent recurrence of the sibilant. But this applies to all the brief and quintessential forms of poetry, such as the sonnet, the elegy, &c. As to the elegy-a form of poetic art which has more relation to the objects of the external world than the song, but less rela-The Elegy tion to these than the stornello-its scope seems to be wide 1ndeed, as practised by such various writers as Tyrtaeus, Theognis, Catullus, Tibullus, and our own Gray. It may almost be said that perfection of form is more necessary here and in the sonnet than in the song, inasmuch as the artistic pretensions are more pronounced. Hence even such apparent minutiae as those we have hinted at above must not be neglected here.
We have quoted Dionysius of Halicarnassus in relation to the arrangement of words in poetry. His remarks on sibilants are phone, ” equally deserving of attention. He goes so far as to Perfection say that v is entirely disagreeable, and, when It often recurs, insupportable. The hiss seems to him to be more appropriate to the beast than to man. Hence certain writers, he says, often avoid it, and employ it with regret. Some, he tells us, have com osed entire odes without it. But if sibilation is a defect in Greek odes, where the softening effect of the vowel sounds is so potent, it is much more so in English poetry, where the consonants dominate, though it will be only specially noticeable in the brief and quintessential forms such as the song, the sonnet, the elegy. Many poets only attend to their sibilants when these clog the rhythm. To write even the briefest song without a sibilant would be a tour de force; to write a good one would no doubt be next to impossible. It is singular that the only metricise who ever attempted it was John Thelwall, the famous “Citizen John, " friend of Lamb and Coleridge, and editor of the famous Champwn newspaper, where many of Lamb's epigrams a peared. Thelwall gave much attention to metrical questions, and) tried his hand at various metres Though “ Citizen John's” sa hics mi ht certainly have been better, he had a very remarkable criticaf insight into the rationale of metrical effects, and his “ Song without a Sibilant " is extremely neat and ingenious. Of course, however, it would be mere pedantry to exaggerate this objection to sibilants even in these brief forms of poetry. (T. W.-D.)
POGGENDORFF, JOHANN CHRISTIAN (1796-1877), German
physicist, was born in Hamburg on the 29th of December 1796.
His father, a wealthy manufacturer, having been all but ruined
by the French siege, he had, when only sixteen, to apprentice
himself to an apothecary in Hamburg, and when twenty-two
began to earn his living as an apothecary's assistant at Itzehoe.
Ambition and a strong inclination towards a scientific career
led him to throw up his business and remove to Berlin, where
he entered the university in 1820. Here his abilities were
speedily recognized, and in 1823 he was appointed meteorological
observer to the Academy of Sciences. Even at this early period
he had conceived the idea of founding a physical and chemical
scientific journal, and the realization of tlcis plan was hastened
by the sudden death of L. W. Gilbert, the editor of Gilbefts
Annalen der Physik, in 1824. Poggendorff immediately put
himself in communication with the publisher, Barth of Leipzig,
with the result that he was installed as editor of a scientific
journal, Annalen der Physik und Chemie, which was to be a
continuation of Gilberts Annalen on a somewhat extended plan.
Poggendorff was admirably qualified for the post. He had an
extraordinary memory, well stored with scientific knowledge,
both modern and historical, a cool and impartial judgment, and
a strong preference for facts as against theory of the speculative
kind. He was thus able to throw himself into the spirit of modern
experimental science. He possessed in abundant measure the
German virtue of orderliness in the arrangement of knowledge
and in the conduct of business. Further he had an engaging
geniality of manner and much tact in dealing with men. These
qualities soon made Poggendorjs Annalen the foremost scientific
journal in Europe.
In the course of his fifty-two years' editorship of the Annalen Poggendorff could not fail to acquire an unusual acquaintance with the labours of modern men of science. This knowledge, joined to what he had gathered by historical reading of equally unusual extent, he carefully digested and gave to the world in his Biographisch-literarisches H andworterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften, containing notices of the lives and labours of mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, and chemists, of all peoples and all ages. This work contains an astounding collection of facts invaluable to the scientific biographer and historian. The first two volumes were published in 1863; after his death a third volume appeared in 1898, covering the period 1858-1883, and a fourth in 1904, coming down to the beginning of the zoth century.
Poggendorff was a physicist of high although not of the very highest rank. He was wanting in mathematical ability, and never displayed in any remarkable degree the still more important power of scientific generalization, which, whether accompanied by mathematical skill or not, never fails to mark the highest genius in physical science. He was, however, an able and conscientious experimenter, and was very fertile and ingenious in devising physical apparatus. By far the greater and n1ore important part of his work related to electricity and magnetism. His literary and scientific reputation speedily brought him honourable recognition. In 1830 he was made royal professor, in 18 34 Hon. Ph.D. and extraordinary professor in the university of Berlin, and in 1839 member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Many offers of ordinary professorships were made to him, but he declined them all, devoting himself to his duties as editor of the Annaleh, and to the pursuit of his scientific researches. He died at Berlin on the 24th of January 1877.
POGGIO (1380–1459). Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini,
Italian scholar of the Renaissance, was born in 1380 at Terranuova,
a village in the territory of Florence. He studied Latin
under John of Ravenna, and Greek under Manuel Chrysoloras.
His distinguished abilities and his dexterity as a copyist of MSS.
brought him into early notice with the chief scholars of Florence.
Coluccio Salutati and Niccolo de' Niccoli befriended him, and
in the year 1402 or 1403 he was received into the service of the
Roman Curia. His functions were those of a secretary; and,
though he profited by benefices conferred on him in lieu of salary,
he remained a layman to the end of his life. It is noticeable
