The pleasure which the Greeks received from it had
for its basis Difference and the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively
was the curiosity and intense the delight at seeing the difficulty
overcome.
* * * * *
The ancients certainly seem to have understood some principles in acoustics
which we have lost, or, at least, they applied them better. They contrived
to convey the voice distinctly in their huge theatres by means of pipes,
which created no echo or confusion. Our theatres--Drury Lane and Covent
Garden--are fit for nothing: they are too large for acting, and too small
for a bull-fight.
* * * * *
_June_ 7. 1824.
LORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN.
How lamentably the _art_ of versification is neglected by most of the
poets of the present day!--by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular,
among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the
part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself,
are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I
know of Lord B.'s works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of
Nicholas Poussin's pictures.[1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza
of this Canto (the third):--
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.
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