HEWLETT, hulk, Maurice Henry, Eng lish novelist: b. London, 22 Jan. 1861. He was the son of Henry Gay Hewlett, a writer of some little note, and was educated at the London International College, Isleworth. He was ad mitted to the bar in 1891, and in 1896-1900 was keeper of the land revenue records and enrol ments. His reputation was made as an inter preter of the more recondite phases of the life and thought of the Middle Ages, especially in Italy. His style is a skilful medium for his purpose, but frequently so archaized as to be somewhat difficult. His principal works are 'Earthwork out of Tuscany' (1895), a collec tion of Italian studies; 'The Masque of Dead Florentines' (1895) ; 'Songs and Meditations' (1897) • 'Pan and the Young Shepherd' (1898) ; The Forest Lovers> (1898), his firstpopular success; 'Little Novels of Italy' (1899) ; 'Richard Yea-and-Nay> (1900) ; New Canter bury Tales' (1901) ; 'Fond Adventures' (1904)• 'The Stooping Lady> (1907); 'Half Way House> (1908) ; (Artemision: Idylls and Songs> (1909) ; 'Brayenhead the Great' (1911) ;
the Greek if, six. and *rpm', a measure), a verse of six feet. It is the heroic or epic measure of the Greeks and Romans, the finest examples of which are the two poems ascribed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the fEneid of Virgil. The sixth foot is always a spondee (two long sylla bles) or a trochee (a long and a short). The five first may be all dactyls (one long syllable and two short), or all spondees, or a mixture of both. The scheme of this verse then is .??? ...
with all the varieties which the mingling of the two kinds of feet, as mentioned, affords; as, Forte sub arguto eonsederat nice Daphnis; Qui Bavium non odit arnet tua carmine, Mevi; and so on. The variety of which the hexameter
is susceptible, its great simplicity, its harmony, and its numerous pauses, constitute the charm of this verse, and adapt it to the most various subjects. A spondee is rarely used in the fifth foot, and then in Latin the word with which the verse ends is generally composed of four syllables, and the fourth foot at least must be a dactyl; as, Cara &Gm wholes. magnum Jovis ineremeatum.
The prevalence of the dactyl or spondee in the hexameter depends much upon the genius of the language; thus the dactyl is more fre quent in Greek than in Latin, and in German than in Greek. It is evident that the hexa meter cannot be formed in such languages as Italian, French, Spanish and English, whose prosody is regulated by the accent and not by the quantity of the words.
The French and Italian writers, however, early attempted the hexameter, as well as Sidney and Southey in English; but without success. More recent English poets have also tried it, as Clough and Kingsley. Longfellow has made use of the hexameter in his 'Evangeline.> But in no modern European language have heaca meters become naturalized, except in German, to which this measure seems as well adapted as to the Greek. Fischart attempted the German hexameter in the 16th century. In the middle of the 18th century it was used by Klopstocic, U; and Kleist. Goethe's hexameters are very often as poor as their sense is beautiful. John Henry Voss improved the German hexameter by the excellent translation of Homer and his valuable 'Zeitrnessung der deutschen Sprache' (KUnigsberg 1802). See PROSODY; VERSIFICA TION.