there are at least four accents or stresses of the voice, with faint pauses after them, just enough to separate the continuous stream of sound into these four parts, to be read thus: Fullman-yataleth-eirmus-ictells,* by which, new combinations of sound are produced, of a singularly musical character. It is evident from the inspection of the above line, that the division of the feet by the accents is quite independent of the division of words by the sense. The sounds are melted into continuity, and re-divided again in a manner agreeable to the musical ear."-Ib., p. 486. Undoubtedly, the due formation of our poetic feet occasions both a blending of some words and a dividing of others, in a manner unknown to prose; but still we have the authority of this writer, as well as of earlier ones, for saying, "Good verse requires to be read with the natural quantites of the syllables," (p. 487,) a doctrine with which that of the redivision appears to clash. If the example given be read with any regard to the casural pause, as undoubtedly it should be, the th of their cannot be joined, as above, to the word tale; nor do I see any propriety in joining the s of music to the third foot rather than to the fourth. Can a theory which turns topsyturvy the whole plan of syllabication, fail to affect "the natural quantities of syllables?" OBS. 22.-Different modes of reading verse, may, without doubt, change the quantities of very many syllables. Hence a correct mode of reading, as well as a just theory of measure, is essential to correct scansion, or a just discrimination of the postic feet. It is a very common opinion, that English verse has but few spondees; and the doctrine of Brightland has been rarely disputed, that, "Heroic Verses consist of five short, and five long Syllables intermixt, but not so very strictly as never to alter that order."—Gram., 7th Ed., p. 160. J. D. W., being a heavy reader, will have each line so "stuffed out with sounds," and the consonants so syllabled after the vowels, as to give to our heroics three spondees for every two iambuses; and lines like the following, which, with the elisions, I should resolve into four iambuses, and without them, into three iambuses and one anapest, he supposes to consist severally of four spondees: "When coldness wraps this suffering clay, [These are] to be read," according to this prosodian, "Whencoldnesswrapsth-issuff'r-ingclay, Ah! whith-erstraysth-immort-almind?" "The verse," he contends, "is perceived to consist of six [probably he meant to say eight] heavy syllables, each composed of a vowel followed by a group of consonantal sounds, the whole measured into four equal feet. The movement is what is called spondaic, a spondee being a foot of two heavy sounds. The absence of short syllables gives the line a peculiar weight and solemnity suited to the sentiment, and doubtless prompted by it."-American Review, Vol. i, p. 487. Of his theory, he subsequently says: "It maintains that good English verse is as thoroughly quantitative as the Greek, though it be much more heavy and spondaic."-Ib., p. 491.‡ OBS. 23. For the determining of quantities and feet, this author borrows from some old Latin grammar three or four rules, commonly thought inapplicable to our tongue, and, mixing them up with other speculations, satisfies himself with stating that the "Art of Measuring Verses" requires yet the production of many more such! But, these things being the essence of his principles, it is proper to state them in his own words: “A short vowel sound followed by a double consonantal sound, usually makes a long quantity;§ so also does a long vowel like y in beauty, before a consonant. The metrical accents, which often differ from the prosaic, mostly fall upon the heavy sounds; which must also be prolonged in reading, and never slurred or lightened, unless to help out a bad verse. In our language the groupings of the consonants furnish a great number of spondaic feet, and give the language, especially its more ancient forms, as in the verse of Milton and the prose of Lord Bacon, a grand and solemn character. One vowel followed by another, unless the first be naturally made long in the reading, makes a short quantity, as in the old. So, also, a short vowel followed by a single short consonant, gives a short time or quantity, as in to give. A great variety of rules for the detection of long and short quantities have yet to be invented, or applied from the Greek and Latin prosody. In all languages they are of course the same, making due allowance for difference of organization; but it is as absurd to suppose that the Greeks should have a system of prosody differing in principle from our own, as that their rules of musical harmony should be different from the modern. Both result from the nature of the ear and of "THE BELLS OF ST. PETERSBURGH." "Those ev'ning bells, those ev'ning bells. How many a tale their music tells!"-Moore's Melodies, p. 263. This couplet, like all the rest of the piece from which it is taken, is iambic verse, and to be divided into feet thus: "Those ev-ning bells, those ev' -ning bells, † Lord Kames, too, speaking of "English Heroic verse," says: "Every line consists of ten syllables, fire short and five long; from which [rule] there are but two exceptions, both of them rare."-Elements of Criti cism, Vol. ii, p. 89. "The Latin is a far more stately tongue than our own. It is essentially spondaic; the English is as essentially dactylic. The long syllable is the spirit of the Roman (and Greek) verse: the short syllable is the essence of ours."-Poe's Notes upon English Verse; Pioneer, Vol. i, p. 110. "We must search for spondaic words, which, in English, are rare indeed."-Ib., p. 111. "There is a rule, in Latin prosody, that a vowel before two consonants is long. We moderns have not only no such rule, but profess inability to comprehend its rationale."-Poe's Notes: Pioneer, p. 112. the organ of speech, and are consequently the same in all ages and nations."—Am. Rev., Vol. i, p. 488. OBS. 24.-QUANTITY is here represented as "time" only. In this author's first mention of it, it is called, rather less accurately, "the division into measures of time." With too little regard for either of these conceptions, he next speaks of it as including both "time and accent." But I have already shown that "accents or stresses " cannot pertain to short syllables, and therefore cannot be ingredients of quantity. The whole article lacks that clearness which is a prime requisito of a sound theory. Take all of the writer's next paragrapli as an example of this defect: "Tho two elements of musical metre, time and accent, both together constituting quantity, are equally clements of the metre of verse. Each iambic foot or metre, is marked by a swell of the voice, concluding abruptly in an accent, or interruption, on the last sound of the foot; or, [omit this 'or:' it is improper,] in metres of the trochaic order, in such words as dandy, handy, bottle, favor, labor, it [the foot] begins with a heavy accented sound, and declines to a faint or light one at the close. The line is thus composed of a series of swells or waves of sound, concluding and beginning alike. The accents, or points at which the voice is most forcibly exerted in the feet, being the divisions of time, by which a part of its musical character is given to the verse, are usually made to coincide, in our language, with the accents of the words as they are spoken; which [coincidence] diminishes the musical character of our verse. In Greek hexameters and Latin hexameters, on the contrary, this coincidence is avoided, as tending to monotony and a prosaic character.”—Ibid. OBS. 25.-The passage just cited represents "accent" or accents :) not only as partly constituting quantity, but as being, in its or their turn, "the divisions of time;"-as being also stops, pauses, or "interruptions " of sound else continuous;-as being of two sorts, "metrical" and "prosaic," which "usually coincide," though it is said, they "often differ," and their "interference" is "very frequent;"-as being "the points" of stress "in the feet," but not always such in "the words," of verse;-as striking different feet differently, "each iambic foot on the latter syllable and every trochee on the former, yet causing, in each line, only such waves of sound as conclude and begin "alike;"-as coinciding with the long quantities and "the prosaic accents," in iambics and trochaics, yet not coinciding with these always;;-as giving to verre "a part of its musical character," yet diminishing that character, by their usual coincidence with "the prose accents;"-as being kept distinct in Latin and Greek, "the metrical" from "the prosaic," and their coincidence avoided," to make poetry more poetical,-though the old prosodists, in all they say of accents, acute, grave, and circumflex, give no hint of this primary distinction! In all this elementary teaching, there seems to be a want of a clear, steady, and consistent notion of the things spoken of. The author's theory led him to several strange combinations of words, some of which it is not easy, even with his whole explanation before us, to regard as other than absurd. With a few examples of his new phraseology, Italicized by myself, I dismiss the subject: "It frequently happens that word and verse accent fall differently."-P. 489. "The verse syllables, liko the verse feet, differ in the prosaic and [the] metrical reading of the line."-Ib. "If we read it by the prosaic syllabication, there will be no possibility of measuring the quantities."-Iv. metrical are perfectly distinct from the prosaic properties of verse."-Ib. "It may be called an iambic dactyl, formed by the substitution of two short for one long time in the last portion of the foot. Iambic spondees and dactyls are to be distinguished by the metrical accent falling on the last syllable."-P. 491. SECTION IV. THE KINDS OF VERSE. "The The principal kinds of verse, or orders of poetic numbers, as has already been stated, are four; namely, Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, and Dactylic. Besides these, which are sometimes called "the simple orders," being unmixed, or nearly so, some recognize several "Composite orders," or (with a better view of the matter) several kinds of mixed verse, which are said to constitute "the Composite order." In these, one of the four principal kinds of feet must still be used as the basis, some other species being inserted therewith, in each line or stanza, with more or less regularity. PRINCIPLES AND NAMES. The diversification of any species of metre, by the occasional change of a foot, or, in certain cases, by the addition or omission of a short syllable, is not usually regarded as sufficient to change the denomination, or stated order, of the verse; and many critics suppose some variety of feet, as well as a studied diversity in the position of the cæsural pause, essential to the highest excellence of poetic composition. The dividing of verses into the feet which compose them, is called Scanning, or Scansion. In this, according to the technical language of the old prosodists, when a syllable is wanting, the verse is said to be catalectic; when the measure is exact, the line is acatalectic; when there is a redundant syllable, it forms hypermeter. Since the equal recognition of so many feet as twelve, or even as eight, will often produce different modes of measuring the same lines; and since it is desirable to measure verses with uniformity, and always by the simplest process that will well answer the purpose; we usually scan by the principal feet, in preference to the secondary, where the syllables give us a choice of measures, or may be divided in different ways. A single foot, especially a foot of only two syllables, can hardly be said to constitute a line, or to have rhythm in itself; yet we sometimes see a foot so placed, and rhyming as a line. Lines of two, three, four, five, six, or seven feet, are common; and these have received the technical denominations of dim'eter, trim'eter, tetram'eter, pentameter, hexam'eter, and heptam'eter. On a wide page, iambics and trochaics may possibly be written in octom'eter; but lines of this measure, being very long, are mostly abandoned for alternate tetrameters. ORDER I.-IAMBIC VERSE. In Iambic verse, the stress is laid on the even syllables, and the odd ones are short. Any short syllable added to a line of this order, is supernumerary; iambic rhymes, which are naturally single, being made double by one, and triple by two. But the adding of one short syllable, which is much practised in dramatic poetry, may be reckoned to convert the last foot into an amphibrach, though the adding of two cannot. Iambics consist of the following measures: MEASURE I.-IAMBIC OF EIGHT FEET, OR OCTOMETER. "O all ye pèo | -plě, clap | your hands, | ănd with | trium | -phant või | -cès sing; Each couplet of this verse is now commonly reduced to, or exchanged for, a simple stanza of four tetrameter lines, rhyming alternately, and each commencing with a capital; but sometimes, the second line and the fourth are still commenced with a small letter: as, "Your utmost skill | in praise | be shown, for Him who all the world commands, Who sits upon | his right | -eous throne, and spreads his sway | o'er heath | -en lands." Ib., verses 7 and 8; Edition bound with Com. Prayer, N. Y., 1819. An other Example. "The hour is come |--the cher | -ish'd hour, When from the bus | -y world | set free, I seek at length | my lone | -ly bower, And muse | in si | -lent thought | on thee." THEODORE HOOK'S REMAINS: The Examiner, No. 82. MEASURE II.-IAMBIC OF SEVEN FEET, OR HEPTAMETER. "It's odd how hats | expand their brims | as youth | begins | to fade, Example II.-Psalm XLII, 1. "As pants the hart | for cool | -ing streams, | when heat | -ed in | the chase; EPISCOPAL PSALM-BOOK: The Rev. W. Allen's Eng. Gram., p. 227. "Oh, when I rove | the desert waste, and 'neath | the hot | sun pant, Surely I shall not turn | aside, | and scorn | his kind | -ly | care, Example IV-"The Far, Far East."-First six Lines. Edinburgh Journal; and The Examiner. Example V-" Lament of the Slave."-Eight Lines from thirty-four. Example VI.-"Greek Funeral Chant."-First four of sixty-four Lines. Everett observes, "The Iliad was translated into this measure by CHAPMAN, and the Eneid by PHAER."-Eng. Versif., p. 68. Prior, who has a ballad of one hundred and eighty such lines, intimates in a note the great antiquity of the verse. Measures of this length, though not very uncommon, are much less frequently used than shorter ones. A practice has long prevailed of dividing this kind of verse into alternate lines of four and of three feet, thus: "To such as fear | thy holy name, myself I close ] -ly join; To all who their obe | -dient wills Psalms with Com. Prayer: Psalm cxix, 63. This, according to the critics, is the most soft and pleasing of our lyric measures. With the slight change of setting a capital at the head of each line, it becomes the regular ballad-metre of our language. Being also adapted to hymns, as well as to lighter songs, and, more particularly, to quaint details of no great length, this stanza, or a similar one more ornamented with rhymes, is found in many choice pieces of English poetry. The following are a few popular examples: "When all thy mer | -cies, O | my God! Cowper's Poems, Vol. i, p. 275. 666 "God prosper long | our no | -ble king, A wo-ful hunting once | there did Goldsmith's Poems, p. 67. 'Come back! | come back !' | he cried | in grief, And I'll forgive your High | -land chief, My daughter!-oh | my daughter! 'Twas vain: the loud | waves lashed | the shore, The waters wild | went o'er | his child, And he was left | lamenting."-Campbell's Poems, p. 110. The rhyming of this last stanza is irregular and remarkable, yet not unpleasant. It is contrary to rule, to omit any rhyme which the current of the verse leads the reader to expect. Yet here the word "shore," ending the first line, has no correspondent sound, where twelve examples of such correspondence had just preceded; while the third line, without previous example, is so rhymed within itself that one scarcely perceives the omission. Double rhymes are said by some to unfit this metre for serious subjects, and to adapt it only to what is meant to be burlesque, humorous, or satiric. The example above does not confirm this opinion, yet the rule, as a general one, may still be just. Ballad verse may in some degree imitate the language of a simpleton, and become popular by clownishness, more than by elegance: as, "Father and I went down | to the camp Along with cap | -tain Goodwin, And there we saw the men and boys And there we saw | a thun | -dering gun,— It took a horn | of powder, It made a noise | like father's gun, Original Song of Yankee Doodle. Even the line of seven feet may still be lengthened a little by a double rhyme: as, How gay-ly, over fell and fen, | yon sports | -man light | is dashing! Of this length, T. O. Churchill reckons the following couplet; but by the general usage of the day, the final ed is not made a separate syllable:— "With hic and hæc, | as Pris | -cian tells, | sacer | -dos was decli | -něd; MEASURE III.-IAMBIC OF SIX FEET, OR HEXAMETER. Example I-A Couplet. “Să vă | -rýing still | their mōods, | õbsérv | -ing ŷet | în all MICHAEL DRAYTON: Johnson's Quarto Dict., w. Quantity. Example II-From a Description of a Stag-Hunt. DRAYTON: Three Couplets from twenty-three, in Everett's Versif., p. 66. "If love make me | forsworn, how shall | I swear to love? Celestial as thou art, | O, do not love that wrong, To sing the heav | -ens' praise | with such an earth | -ly tongue." The Passionate Pilgrim, Stanza IX; SINGER'S SHAK., Vol. ii, p. 594. "Adore | no God | besides | me, to provoke | mine eyes; DR. ISAAC WATTS: Lyric Poems, p. 46. This verse, consisting, when entirely regular, of twelve syllables in six iambs, is the Alexandrine; said to have been so named because it was "first used in a poem called Alexander."— Worcester's Dict. Such metre has sometimes been written, with little diversity, through an entire *The opponents of capital punishment will hardly take this for a fair version of the sixth commandment.— G. B. |