Tom Nash was right enough when he called this kind of stuff,
"that drunken, staggering kinde of verse which is all vp hill and downe
hill, like the waye betwixt Stamford and Becchfeeld, and goes like a
horse plunging through the myre in the deep of winter, now soust up to
the saddle, and straight aloft on his tiptoes." It will be noticed that
his prose falls into a kind of tipsy hexameter. The attempt in England
at that time failed, but the controversy to which it gave rise was so
far useful that it called forth Samuel Daniel's "Defence of Ryme,"
(1603,) one of the noblest pieces of prose in the language. Hall also,
in his "Satires," condemned the heresy in some verses remarkable for
their grave beauty and strength.

The revival of the hexameter in modern poetry is due to Johann Heinrich
Voss, a man of genius, an admirable metrist, and, Schlegel's sneer to
the contrary notwithstanding, hitherto the best translator of Homer.
His "Odyssey," (1783,) his "Iliad," (1791,) and his "Luise," (1795,)
were confessedly Goethe's teachers in this kind of verse. The "Hermann
and Dorothea" of the latter (1798) was the first true poem written in
modern hexameters. From Germany, Southey imported that and other
classic metres into England, and we should be grateful to him, at
least, for having given the model for Canning's "Knifegrinder." The
exotic, however, again refused to take root, and for many years after
we have no example of English hexameters. It was universally conceded
that the temper of our language was unfriendly to them.

It remained for a man of true poetic genius to make them not only
tolerated, but popular. Longfellow's translation of "The Children of
the Lord's Supper" may have softened prejudice somewhat, but
"Evangeline," (1847,) though incumbered with too many descriptive
irrelevancies, was so full of beauty, pathos, and melody, that it made
converts by thousands to the hitherto ridiculed measure. More than
this, it made Longfellow at once the most popular of contemporary
English poets, Clough's "Bothie"--a poem whose singular merit has
hitherto failed of the wide appreciation it deserves--followed not long
after; and Kingsley's "Andromeda" is yet damp from the press.

While we acknowledge that the victory thus won by "Evangeline" is a
striking proof of the genius of the author, we confess that we have
never been able to overcome the feeling that the new metre is a
dangerous and deceitful one. It is too easy to wr