The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-11-21

the death bed songs of "Madge Wildfre," ii
SCOTS Heart of Midlothian"
sour work is over over now,
The good man wipes his weary brow;
The last long vain wends slow away,
And we are free to sport and play"
The third line of this quatrain is one Of the
finest alterations in English poetry. and has
never, that we know of, attracted the attention
of any of our critics. In the song of kathleen
Mavourneen" is an instance that has been fire.
quently noticed
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill
! And exactly parallel with this is line of
Moore's well-known song of the ''Woodpecker
tapping the hollow beech tree:
II said if there's peace to be found in this world
heart that is humble might hope for it here"
Hood, to use an apt slang phrase, 'lays
over everybody in the way of ALTERATION in
the last line of his experiment in "writing
blank verse in rhyme:
'Well Rose knows those beaus woesn
The famous alphabetical feat" matches or
beats it. but that was made expressly as the
solution of puzzle, and does not fairly COM
pete with alterations suggested by the sub
ject, and not purposely constructed to make a
feature of the poem.
An Austrian army, awfuliy arrayed
Boldly. by battery, besieged Belgrade"
aid so on through the whole alphabet. This
is mere ''tour de force" trick of inge-
nuity, and has no claim to place as a sample
OF ALTERATION growing naturally out Of sub
ject or its treatment. In the "Medea" of
Euripides, collegans will remember one of the
most sonorous alterations in any literature.
classic or modern, but it is too hard 70 repre-
sent by English types and we must let it pass
with this allusion. In Madame Dacier's edi
ton of "Horace'-we think it isis quota
ton, IN one Of the notes. from the old Latin
tragic poet, Ennius in which occurs the most
astonishing specimen of ALTERATION we have
eyer seen or heard of:
"Oh lite tute tati tibi tamil tyranni tusti."
just what it means we confess we have never
been able to make out satisfactorily, but the
ASPONANVA VI tAO lCltcI uudkeS IL the most
amazing feat of ALTERATION ever achieved in
any literature of which we have ever heard,
Moliere INDUCES in some neat little alitera-
tons in some of his comedies, as in tho sssec-
ond interlude" of the 'Malade Imaginaire y
or "Hypochondriac,
Proftez du printemps de vos bcaus ans
A line of the Eneid, probably the best
known of all classic literature, is equally re-
markable for its alliterative effect and its ex-
preston of sense by sound. Like some Of the
passages in Pope's Essay on Criticism, but
far surprising any of them, it describes
scene by the sound and "scansion," or metre.
of the words, as distinctly as by their mean
ing and the effect is obviously aided by the
alliterative force of some of the words. II
describes troop of horse galloping over
dusty plain.
"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula
campum."
The metre of it in Latin scanson makes il
run thus:
'Quadrupe- dantepu -tremsoni - uquatit upp.la
campum."
The accent falls upon the first syllable all
through, aud thus reading the line the de-
scriptive sound of the galloping of troop of
horse and the alliterative effect are readily
perceived
Another line of the same description and
alfteratiye character, and hardly less cele-
brated in classic literature, is that in Homer
which describes the rock of Sisyphus breaking
loose and rolling down hill, after he has La
bOriously rolled it to the top:
'Authis epeita pedonde, kuRnde to laas anades. y
Horace certainly adds something 10 the
prettiness Of one of his prettiest odes by the
ALTERATION Of the last lines;
"I.Alagen annabo dulce ridentem
Dulce loquentem"
One who takes the trouble to read Moore,s
Durlesdue account of the fight between Dares