( 401 )
It is not easy to discover wherein consisted the mechanism and harmony of those ancient verses which were not in rhime. The learned who have made the northern languages their study, fancy they discover in some of them the Saphic measure, which many Greek lyric poets and Horace in Latin so frequently chose[1]. In others the
- ↑ Dalin. Suea. Rik.
Hist. lib. viii. ——— [This
resemblance to the
Sapphic meafure, will I am
afraid be found only
imaginary. It may with with
more certainty be
affirmed that the vast variety of
metre used by the ancient
Scalds may chiefly, if
not altogether be reduced
to different kinds of
Alliteration. In Wormius
we have an exact analysis
of one of these sorts of
metre in which it was
requisite that the stanza
or strophe should consist
of four distichs, and each
verse of six syllables. In
each distich three words
at least were required to
begin with the same
letters, (that is, two words
in one verse, and one in
the other), that there
should besides this be two
correspondent syllables in
each verse, and that none
of the correspondences
ought immediately to
follow each other; &c. as
in the following Latin
couplet:
ChrisTus Caput noSTrum
CorONet te bONis.This appears to us at present, to be only a very laborious way of trifling; however we ought not to decide too hastily: every language has its own peculiar laws of harmony; and as the ancient Greeks
