_Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry_, 2d ed., I. 289. This view of Twining is upheld in some highly sensible remarks by Mr. A. O. Prickard in a lecture, _Aristotle and the Art of Poetry_, London, 1891. What Aristotle clearly meant to say is that “metre is not the most essential characteristic of poetry, _yet it would be a misuse of language to call anything a poem which is not metrical in form_.” (Italics not in original, p. 60.) Mr. Prickard agrees with Whately, Twining, and many others, that the words of the passage in question, and the instances given, do not make against this view; and “elsewhere, Plato and Aristotle invariably assume that only what is metrical is to be called poetry; nay, that metrical writing and poetry are, for the common purpose of language, convertible terms. ‘In metre, as a poet,’ says Plato, ‘or without metre as a layman.’ ‘A good sentence,’ says Aristotle, ‘should have rhythm but not metre; if it have metre, it will be a poem.’” See the _Phædrus_, 258, D., and Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_, III. 8.
A clear summary of the case as argued in Italy may be found in Quadrio, _Della Storia e della Ragione d’ogni Poesia_, I. Bologna, 1739; II.-VII. Milan, 1741-1752. See I. 2 ff. Quadrio is outright for the test of verse and for a generous rendering of Aristotle. He gives the names of forgotten pleaders on both sides, and thinks the noes have it against a traditional Aristotelian view; not to quarrel forever, “Basta, che nacque la Poesia col Verso e col Canto: né, propagata fra le nazioni, fu altrimenti mai lavorato che in Verso.”—Spingarn, _Literary Criticism in the Renaissance_, New York, 1899, pp. 9 ff., points out that Mantuan was for the verse-test, Savonarola, Minturno, Daniello, against it.
“Censet hoc ipsum ... Caesar Scaliger, qui, _quod raro facit, hac parte ab Aristotele recedit_,” says Vossius, _de art. poet._, § 7.
Iulii Caesaris Scaligeri ... _Poetices Libri Septem_ ... 1561, the first edition, published three years after the author’s death.
See p. 3ᵇ: “Poetae igitur nomen non a fingendo ... sed initio a faciendo versu ductum est. Simul enim cum ipsa natura humana extitit vis haec numerosa, quibus versus clauditur.”
_Ibid._, “Infans quoque prius canit quam loquitur, videmus enim plerosque haud aliter somnum captare.”