Obseruations in the Art of English Poesy, by Thomas Campion.
The first Chapter, intreating of numbers in generall.
here is no writing too breefe, that without obscuritie comprehends the intent of the writer. These, my late obseruations in English Poesy I have gathered, that they might proue the lesse troublesome in perusing, and the more apt retayn'd in memorie. And I will first generally handle the nature of Numbers. Number is discreta quantitas, so that when we speake simply of number, we intend only the disseuer'd quantity; But when we speake of a Poeme written in number, we consider not only the distinct number of the sillables, but also their value, which is contained in the length or shortness of their sound. As in Musick we do not say a straine of so many notes, but so many sem'briefes (though sometimes there are no more notes than sem'briefes) so in a verse the numeration of the silliables is not so much to be obserued, as their waite, and due proportion. I ioyning of words to harmony there is nothing more offensiue to the eare then to place a long sillable with a short note, or a short sillable with a long note, though in the last the vowell often beares it out. The world is made by Simmetry and proportion, and is in that respect compared to Musick, and Musick to Poetry: for Terence saith speaking of Poets, artem qui tractant musicam, confounding musick and Poesy together. What musick can there be when there is no proportion oberued? Learning first flourished in Greece, from thence it was deriued unto the Romaines, both didligent obseruers of the number, and quantity of sillables, not in their verses only, but likewise in their prose. Learning after the decline of the Romaine Empire, and the pollution of their language through the conquest of the Barbarians, lay most pitifully deformed, till the time of Erasmus, Rewcline Sir Thomas Moore, and other learned men of that age, who brought the Latine toong againe to light, redeeming it with much labour out of thehands of the illiterate Monks and Friers:
as a scoffing booke, entituled Epistola obscurorum virorum, may sufficiently testifie. In those lack-learning times, and in barbarized Italy, began that vulgar and easie kind of Poesie which is now in vse throughout most parts of Christendome, which we abusiuely call Rime, and Meeter, of Rithmus and Metrum, of which I will now discourse.
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