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Spondee feet are to the Greek and Latin numbers[1]. So that I must beg leave to differ from my Author, in thinking the Alliterative Metre of the Scalds similar either to the Taste for Acrostics, or our modern Rhyme. Not but the Scalds often used Rhyme in the same manner as the moderns, and that with very nice exactness[2].
But granting that the Icelandic Scalds often composed little artificial poems, much in the taste of the Hebrew Acrostics, I fear it will be going too far, to fetch their Original from those of the Hebrews: for it may be safely affirmed, That all nations (without deriving it from each other) have, in the infancy of taste, run into all the species of False Wit. The Chinese, for example, deal in many little artificial forms of poetry, very much resembling the Rondeaus and Madrigals, so current among the French and us in the last age[3], and yet neither party will be suspected of imitation. So again, some of the other eastern
- ↑ Vid. Vol. I. p. 401, 402. Note.
- ↑ See the Icelandic original of Egill’s Ode, among the “Five Pieces of Runic Poetry," 8vo, p. 92.—Vid. [[Northern Antiquities/Chapter 13#399. I. p. 399]].
- ↑ See Specimens of Chinese Poetry (the Rhymes of which are very artificially disposed) at the end of the Translation of a Chinese novel: intitled, Hau Kiou Choaan, &c. 4 Vol. 12mo. 1761.
