on_--this is a proposition to which we should have readily
assented; but when Mr. Hunt goes on to say that by _freedom of
versification_ he means something which neither Pope nor Johnson
possessed, and of which even "they knew less than any poets perhaps who
ever wrote," we check our confidence; and, after a little consideration,
find that by freedom Mr. Hunt means only an inaccurate, negligent, and
harsh style of versification, which our early poets fell into from want
of polish, and such poets as Mr. Hunt still practise from want of ease,
of expression, and of taste.

"_License_ he means, when he cries _liberty_."

Mr. Hunt tells us that Dryden, Spenser and Ariosto, Shakespeare and
Chaucer (so he arranges them), are the greatest masters of _modern_
versification; but he, in the next few sentences, leads us to suspect
that he really does not think much more reverently of these great names
than of Pope and of Johnson; and that, if the whole truth were told, he
is decidedly of opinion that the only good master of versification, in
modern times, is--Mr. Leigh Hunt.

Dryden, Mr. Hunt thinks, is apt to be _artificial_ in his style; or, in
other words, he has improved the harmony of our language from the
rudeness of Chaucer, whom Mr. Hunt (in a sentence which is not grammar,
p. xv) says that Dryden (though he spoke of and borrowed from him)
neither relished nor understood. Spenser, he admits, was musical from
pure taste, but Milton was only, as he elegantly expresses it,
"_learnedly_ so." Being _learned in music_, is intelligible, and, of
Milton, true; but what can Mr. Hunt mean by saying that Milton had
"_learnedly_ a _musical ear_"? "Ariosto's fine ear and _animal spirits_
gave a _frank_ and exquisite tone to all he said"--what does this mean?--
a fine ear may, perhaps, be said to _give_, as it contributes to, an
exquisite tone; but what have _animal spirits_ to do here? and what, in
the matter of _tones_ and _sounds_, is the effect of _frankness_? We
shrewdly suspect that Mr. Hunt, with all his affectation of Italian
literature, knows very little of Ariosto; it is clear that he knows
nothing of Tasso. Of Shakespeare he tells us, "that his versification
escapes us because he _over-informed_ it with knowledge and sentiment,"
by which it appears (as well, indeed, as by his own verses), that this
new Stagyrite thinks that good versification runs a risk of being
spoiled by having _too much meaning_ included in its lines.