THE "IN ME MO RTAM " METRE. [To TIE Marro'
or Tar "arm:rms.")
SIR,—There has always been a good deal of controversy over the genesis of the metre in which Tennyson wrote his "In Memoriam." The quatrain with rhymes arranged in this way was first used, I believe, by Sidney, but he employed for the two internal rhymes a double ending which gives the stanza a very ugly movement. Ben Jonson has the quatrain as Tennyson wrote it, though used with a very different cadence. I confess that I had always believed that Tennyson invented the metre—and I believe he never disclaimed the honour—for the alteration from the ordinary octosyllabic quatrain with alternating rhymes might readily have occurred even to a less ingenious artist. The disposition of the rhymes which has the effect of varying the monotony, and to a certain extent of mitigating the assonance, would naturally have commended itself to a writer who always tended, by the use of long lines or the interposition of long intervals, to modify the emphasis of rhyme while retaining its charm. But, as I happened to be writing a book about Tennyson, my attention was drawn to a poem by Lord Herbert of Cherbury (who died in 1648) which not merely by its stanza, but by its phrasing and thought, suggests the "In Memoriam" in the most striking way. It is called "An Ode upon the Question whether Love shall last for ever,"— and that is a title which would roughly describe the substance, if not the form, of Tennyson's wonderful monument of song. Unless I had positive assurance that the Victorian poet bad never seen Lord Herbert's verses (which are among the collection of his poems edited by Mr. Churton Collins, where attention is duly called to the resemblance), I should always believe that, consciously or unconsciously, Tennyson made them his model. An ingenious friend, however, who does not venture to put his own views into print, has shown me a poem which may possibly have suggested this form of verse. In 1806 there was published an anthology called "The Lyre of Love," edited, according to the British Museum catalogue, by P. L. Courtier. It contained extracts from the English lyrical poets, from Surrey down to P. L. Courtier himself, with biographical notices of each. That of P. L. Courtier is singularly fall; it confesses that he was a book- seller promoted poet (if that be a promotion), mentions the titles and qualities of his earlier volumes with a delightful puffery, and concludes by stating that he " has been recently united in matrimony to the lady celebrated in his verses as Myrtilla." To the anthology is affixed a supplemental collec-
tion, entitled " Amoretta, by the Editor" (whose identity with Courtier is, of course, not avowed). In this collection of trash occurs the following poem :- " I wonder if her heart be still The same that once I fondly met Will she her plighted faith forget, Or she my dearest hopes fulfil ?
I fear to pen the wished request, To ask if all within be so : I almost dread the truth to know, So changeful seems the human breast."
Was there ever anything so like a deliberate parody of Tennyson as the second verse? Lord Herbert may here and there recall the cadences of "In Memoriam," but he never sounds as if he were a mocking bird by prophetio gift. It is quite possible that Tennyson may as a boy have been familiar with this anthology, and may, with his wonderful instinct for metre, have seen that here was a good instrument ill-used,
and that the suggestion thus given may have germinated in his unconscious intelligence. The first rough lines in memory
of Hallam, as given in the Life of Tennyson, are not in the "In Memoriam" stanza. I believe myself that while his mind was preoccupied with his loss he came upon Lord Herbert's poem, and that it suggested the form and some of the thought. But the alternative suggestion of Courtier's example is quite worth considering; and it would be really interesting if one could find out whether it is known that Tennyson ever possessed or saw either Lord Herbert of Cherbnry's poems or " The Lyre of Love."—I am, Sir, &c., STEPHEN GWYNN.
Previous page
