English Versification : a Complete Practical Guide to the Whole
Subject. By E. Wadham. (Longmans.)—" This work," the author says in his preface, "claims to be an exhaustive treatise on English versification, giving a complete view of all measures, their nature, re- lative bearing, and application. Every possible form that English verse can assume will here be found indicated, besides every moot point, such as the feasibility of naturalizing the hexameter, fully and finally settled." This rouses our expectations ; how delightful to have any- thing "finally settled"! Unhappily, Mr. Wadham, perfect as his know- ledge of verse may be, " wants the accomplishment " of prose. The language in which ho " finally settles moot points " is so confused and obscure that we feel as unsettled as over. " The elegiacal tone im- parted by line movement, and tolerably equal membership in a certain foregoing piece, is not to be overlooked, for it touches on the true metre of Elegy English." Who is sufficient for such things as this? It is only fair, however, to say that Mr. Wadham has taken much pains with his book, that he has analyzed carefully every kind of metre, and that, as far as we can understand what he means, he has a correct and appreciative taste.—A Manual of English Prosody, by R. F. Brewer, B.A. (Longmans), is a more modest and, we should say, more useful book. It supplies in simple language that knowledge of prosody which, by the strange exaggeration of our theory of classi cal training, boys acquire- for the study of Latin and Greek poets, but not for the study of our own.
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