Introductory

In his preface to Some Oxford Compositions (Oxford University Press, 1949) Mr. T. F. Higham quotes with apparent approval the statement that ‘Mr. H. M. Butler was constantly haunted by the conviction that each metre had, more or less, a personality of its own’. Many years of Sixth-form teaching, and more recently the privilege of examining for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board's Higher Certificate, have led the writer of this article not only to share Mr. Butler's conviction but also to realize that far too many pupils labour at verse composition without that sufficient knowledge of the underlying principles by which verse-making can become so fascinating a pursuit. It is believed that with this knowledge boys would not only maintain their deep interest in versification, on which they almost invariably enter with enthusiasm, but also—and this is far more important—would find, as the seven authors of Some Oxford Compositions have found, that they were not merely engaged in an elegant accomplishment but using one of the best means to a higher standard of scholarship.

This essay is written with the further conviction that the boy who has gained some knowledge of the inner ‘personality’ of Vergil's hexameter line—a personality that determines, as Mr. Butler claimed, both its spirit and its form—will have very little difficulty in learning to appreciate more fully all except the more recondite metres both in Latin and in Greek.

In the following paragraphs the majority of the quotations from Vergil have been taken from Aeneid, book iv; it is hoped that this will simplify the task of looking up the references; will encourage a closer study of a book which is not greatly dependent on the other books of the Aeneid for its full appreciation; and, most of all, will lead pupils to make a similar close study of one or more of those other books.