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By Root 16879 0

Fully one-third of whatever effect "The Raven" has, is wrought by the quaintness in question — a point elaborately introduced, to accomplish a well-considered purpose. What idea would Outis entertain of me, were I to speak of his defence of his friends as very decent, very respectable, but rather meritorious? In the passages collated, there are two points upon which the "snarling critic" might base his insinuation — if ever so weak a "snarling critic" existed. Of these two points one is purely hypothetical — that is to say, it is disingenuously manufactured by Mr. Longfellow's acquaintance to suit his own purposes — or perhaps the purposes of the imaginary snarling critic. The argument of the second point is demolished by my not only admitting it, but insisting upon it. Perhaps the least tedious mode of refuting Outis, is to acknowledge nine-tenths of everything he may think proper to say.

But, in the present instance, what am I called upon to acknowledge? I am charged with imitating the repetition of phrase in the two concluding lines of a stanza, and of imitating this from Coleridge. But why not extend the accusation, and insinuate that I imitate it from everybody else? for certainly there is no poet living or dead who has not put in practice the identical effect — the well-understood effect of the refrain. Is Outis's argument to the end that I have no right to this thing for the reason that all the world has? If this is not his argument, will he be kind enough to inform me (at his leisure) what it is? Or is he prepared to confess himself so absurdly uninformed as not to know that whatever a poet claims on the score of original versification, is claimed not on account of any individual rhythmical or metrical effects, (for none are individually original,) but solely on account of the novelty of his combinations of old effects? The hypothesis, or manufacture, consists in the alteration of Coleridge's metre, with the view of forcing it into a merely ocular similarity with my own, and thus of imposing upon some one or two grossly ignorant readers. I give the verses of Coleridge as they are:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow,

Ah, wretch, said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow.

The verses beginning, "They all averred," etc., are arranged in the same manner. Now I have taken it for granted that it is Outis's design to impose the idea of similarity between my lines and those of Coleridge, upon some one or two grossly ignorant individuals: at the same time, whoever attempts such an imposition is rendered liable at least to the suspicion of very gross ignorance himself. The ignorance or the knavery are the two uncomfortable horns of his dilemma.

Let us see. Coleridge's lines are arranged in quatrains — mine in couplets. His first and third lines rhyme at the closes of the second and fourth feet — mine flow continuously, without rhyme. His metre, briefly defined, is alternately tetrameter acatalectic and trimeter acatalectic — mine is uniformly octameter catalectic. It might be expected, however, that at least the rhythm would prove to be identical — but not so. Coleridge's is iambic (varied in the third foot of the first line with an anapæst) — mine is the exact converse, trochaic. The fact is, that neither in rhythm, metre, stanza, or rhyme, is there even a single point of approximation throughout; the only similarity being the wickedly or sillily manufactured one of Outis himself, appealing from the ears to the eyes of the most uncultivated classes of the rabble. The ingenuity and validity of the manufacture might be approached, although certainly not paralleled, by an attempt to show that blue and yellow pigments standing unmixed at separate ends of a studio, were equivalent to green. I say "not paralleled," for even the mixing of the pigments, in the case of Outis, would be very far, as I have shown, from producing the supposititious effect. Coleridge's lines, written together, would result in rhymed iambic heptameter acatalectic, while mine are unrhymed trochaic