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The word “Verse” is here used not in its strict or primitive sense, but as the term most convenient for expressing generally and without pedantry all that is involved in the consideration of rhythm, rhyme, metre, and versification.

There is, perhaps, no topic in polite literature which has been more pertinaciously discussed, and there is certainly not one about which so much inaccuracy, confusion, misconception, misrepresentation, mystification, and downright ignorance on all sides, can be fairly said to exist. Were the topic really difficult, or did it lie, even, in the cloud-land of metaphysics, where the doubt-vapors may be made to assume any and every shape at the will or at the fancy of the gazer, we should have less reason to wonder at all this contradiction and perplexity; but in fact the subject is exceedingly simple; one tenth of it, possibly, may be called ethical; nine tenths, however, appertain to the mathematics; and the whole is included within the limits of the commonest common sense.

“But, if this is the case, how,” it will be asked, “can so much misunderstanding have arisen? Is it conceivable that a thousand profound scholars, investigating so very simple a matter for centuries, have not been able to place it in the fullest light, at least, of which it is susceptible?” These queries, I confess, are not easily answered: — at all events a satisfactory reply to them might cost more trouble than would, if properly considered, the whole vexata quæstio [[questio]] to which they have reference. Nevertheless, there is little difficulty or danger in suggesting that the “thousand profound scholars” may have failed, first because they were scholars, secondly because they were profound, and thirdly because they were a thousand — the impotency of the scholarship and profundity having been thus multiplied a thousand fold. I am serious in these suggestions; for, first again, there is something in “scholarship” which seduces us into blind worship of Bacon's Idol of the Theatre — into irrational deference to antiquity; secondly, the proper “profundity” is rarely profound — it is the nature of Truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial; thirdly, the clearest subject may be overclouded by mere superabundance of talk. In chemistry, the best way of separating two bodies is to add a third; in speculation, fact often agrees with fact and argument with argument, until an additional well-meaning fact or argument sets every thing by the ears. In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because excessively discussed. When a topic is thus circumstanced, the readiest mode of investigating it is to forget that any previous investigation has been attempted.

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But, in fact, few questions of equal importance, have received so little attention as the rationale of rhythm in general. The Greek and the Latin prosodies have their rules, but nothing more. The philosophy of these rules, is untouched. No one has thought of reducing rule, in general, to its lowest terms — to its ultimate expression — in law. I have long thought that it is only by an analysis such as is here suggested, with disregard, for the time, of the mere conventionalities and unwarranted assumptions which disgrace our treatises on the ancient rhythms, that we shall be able to arrive, if ever, at any intelligible view of these rhythms, themselves. Quantity is a point in the investigation of which the lumber of mere learning may be dispensed with, if ever in any. Its appreciation is universal. It appertains to no region, nor race, nor æra in especial. To melody and to harmony the Greeks hearkened with ears precisely similar to those which we employ, for similar purposes, at present; and a pendulum at Athens would have vibrated much after the same fashion as does a pendulum in the city of Penn.

But while a full and unpedantic discussion of metre in general, is much needed, the purpose of this article extends no farther than to some practical observations on the English rhythms; and I am led to these observations solely by the hope of supplying, to some extent, the singular deficiency of our ordinary treatises on the topic.

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By scanning, these lines are thus divided:

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The word “verse” is derived (through versus) from the Latin verto, I turn, and has reference to the turning at the end of the line and commencing anew with a capital letter. It can be nothing but this derivation which has led to the error of our writers upon prosody. It is this which has seduced them into regarding the line itself — the versus or turning — as an essential, or principle, of metre; and hence the term “versification” has been employed as sufficiently general, or inclusive, for treatises upon rhythm in general. Hence, also, the precise catalogue of a few varieties of English lines, when these varieties are, in fact, almost without limit.

I shall dismiss entirely, from the consideration of the principle of rhythm, the idea of versification, or the construction of verse. In so doing we shall avoid a world of confusion. Verse is, indeed, an afterthought, or an embellishment, or an improvement, rather than an element of rhythm; and this is the fact which, perhaps, more than any thing else, has induced the easy admission, into the realms of Poesy, of such works as the “Télémaque” of Fénélon. In the elaborate modulation of their sentences they fulfil the idea of metre; and their arrangement, or rather their division, into lines (which could be readily effected), would do little more than present this idea in a popularly intelligible dress.

Holding these things in view, the prosodist who rightly examines that which constitutes the external, or most immediately recognisable, form of Poetry, will commence with the definition of Rhythm. Now rhythm, from the Greek α̉ριθμος, number, is a term which, in its present application, very nearly conveys its own idea. No more proper word could be employed to present the conception intended; for rhythm, in prosody, is, in its last analysis, identical with time in music. For this reason I have used, throughout this article, as synonymous with rhythm, the word metre from μετρον, measure. Either the one or the other may be defined as the arrangement of words into two or more consecutive, equal, pulsations of time. These pulsations are feet. Two feet, at least, are requisite to constitute a rhythm; just as, in mathematics, two units are necessary to form number. The syllables of which the foot consists, when the foot is not a syllable in itself, are subdivisions of the pulsations. No equality is demanded in these subdivisions. It is only required that, so far as regards two consecutive feet at least, the sum of the times of the syllables in one, shall be equal to the sum of the times of the syllables in the other. Beyond two pulsations there is no necessity for equality of time. All beyond is arbitrary or conventional. A third and fourth pulsation may embody half, or double, or any proportion of the time occupied in the two first.

I have already said that all syllables, in metre, are either long or short. Our usual prosodies maintain that a long syllable is equal, in its time, to two short; this, however, is but an approach to the truth. It should be here observed that the quantity of an English syllable has no dependence upon the sound of its vowel or dipthong, but chiefly upon accentuation. Monosyllables are exceedingly variable, and, for the most part, may be either long or short, to suit the demand of the rhythm. In polysyllables, the accented ones are always long, while those which immediately precede or succeed them, are always short. Emphasis will render any short syllable long.

Rhythm being thus understood, the prosodist should proceed to define versification as the making of verses, and verse as the arbitrary or conventional isolation of rhythms into masses of greater or less extent.

Let us now exemplify what has been said. We will take the words,

with the accentuation which belongs to them in the well known line

Of the three first words, by themselves, with the accentuation as here given, we can form no metre or rhythm. We cannot divide them into “two or more equal pulsations of time” — that is to say, into two metrical feet. If we divide them thus:

the time of the latter division is to that of the former as three to two; and a glance will suffice to show that no nearer approach to equal division, is practicable. The words as they stand, therefore, are purely prose. But, by placing an emphasis upon the pronoun, we double its length, and the whole is resolved into rhythm; for

is readily divided into two equal pulsations, thus:

These equal pulsations are trochaic feet; and, from the appreciation of such equality as we recognise in them, arises the gratification of rhythm. With less than two feet there can be no comparison — thus no equality — thus no rhythm. “But no equality is demanded” (here I quote my previous words) “in the subdivisions of the rhythm. It is only required that the sum of the times of the syllables in the one, shall be equal to the sum of the times of the syllables in the other” — as we see it above. The entire line,

is thus scanned:

Here are three anapæsts. The two first suffice to establish a rhythm; but the third confirms it. Had the words run thus:

no ear would have been materially offended; but it is evident that, in this case, we should have thus scanned the verse:

and the last foot, being a pure spondee, (two long syllables — equal to the one long and two short syllables of the preceding anapæsts) is, of itself, sufficient demonstration that the spondee has been improperly rejected from the English rhythms.

The two anapæsts,

do not demand that, if a third foot succeed, this third foot be an anapæst, or even the equivalent in time of an anapæst. The requisitions of rhythm are fulfilled in the two; and a novel mood of metre may now arise. A conventionality, however, founded in reason, has decided that the new metre should, in general, form the commencement of a new line, that the ear may thus, by means of the eye, be prepared for the change. The cæsura, whose peculiarities have never been discussed, and which I have already described as a foot consisting of a single long syllable, is frequently found interposed (especially in the ancient metres) between various rhythms in the same line. Its object, in such situations, is to allow time, or opportunity, for the lapse from one rhythm to another, or, more ordinarily, from a rhythm to a variation of the same; as, for example, in the verses:

which are thus scanned:

The general rhythm of these lines will be at once recognised as dactylic, or equivalent to dactylic. The two first pulsations, or feet, consist of a spondee and a dactyl; each amounting to four short syllables. This order is now interrupted by a single long syllable; (the cæsura foot;) and in the two succeeding, although the general rhythm remains undisturbed, two dactyls supply the place of the original spondee and dactyl. The cæsura effects the lapse from the initial rhythm to a variation of it. We should be taught to look upon the cæsura as a variable foot which accommodates itself to any rhythm whatever. I have designated it “as a single long syllable,” because this is, apparently, its abstract force or value; but, in its application, it has the force of any foot whatever. In the lines quoted just above, it has the value of a spondee or dactyl; occupying precisely equal time. In the first verse above, we dwell upon the “vis” just so long as it would take us to pronounce the “nas ata” preceding. With this understanding of the cæsura, (the most important foot in the English, or in any metre, and most blindly rejected by our prosodists,) we can now proceed to an exemplification of what has been said respecting the arbitrary or conventional nature of mere versification, or the division of rhythms into verse. For this purpose let us quote the commencement of Lord Byron's “Bride of Abydos.”

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To divert attention from the real matter in hand by any farther reference to these works, is unnecessary, and would be weak. I cannot call to mind, at this moment, one essential particular of information that is to be gleaned from them; and I will drop them here with merely this one observation: that, employing from among the numerous “ancient” feet the spondee, the trochee, the iambus, the anapæst, the dactyl, and the cæsura alone, I will engage to scan correctly any of the Horatian rhythms, or any true rhythm that human ingenuity can conceive. And this excess of chimerical feet is, perhaps, the very least of the scholastic supererogations. Ex uno disce omnia. The fact is that Quantity is a point in whose investigation the lumber of mere learning may be dispensed with, if ever in any. Its appreciation is universal. It appertains to no region, nor race, nor æra in especial. To melody and to harmony the Greeks hearkened with ears precisely similar to those which we employ for similar purposes at present; and I should not be condemned for heresy in asserting that a pendulum at Athens would have vibrated much after the same fashion as does a pendulum in the city of Penn.

Verse originates in the human enjoyment of equality, fitness. To this enjoyment, also, all the moods of verse — rhythm, metre, stanza, rhyme, alliteration, the refrain, and other analogous effects — are to be referred. As there are some readers who habitually confound rhythm and metre, it may be as well here to say that the former concerns the character of feet (that is, the arrangements of syllables) while the latter has to do with the number of these feet. Thus by “a dactylic rhythm” we express a sequence of dactyls. By “a dactylic hexameter” we imply a line or measure consisting of six of these dactyls.

To return to equality. Its idea embraces those of similarity, proportion, identity, repetition, and adaptation or fitness. It might not be very difficult to go even behind the idea of equality, and show both how and why it is that the human nature takes pleasure in it, but such an investigation would, for any purpose now in view, be supererogatory. It is sufficient that the fact is undeniable — the fact that man derives enjoyment from his perception of equality. Let us examine a crystal. We are at once interested by the equality between the sides and between the angles of one of its faces: the equality of the sides pleases us; that of the angles doubles the pleasure. On bringing to view a second face in all respects similar to the first, this pleasure seems to be squared; on bringing to view a third it appears to be cubed, and so on. I have no doubt, indeed, that the delight experienced, if measurable, would be found to have exact mathematical relations such as I suggest; that is to say, as far as a certain point, beyond which there would be a decrease in similar relations.

The perception of pleasure in the equality of sounds is the principle of Music. Unpractised ears can appreciate only simple equalities, such as are found in ballad airs. While comparing one simple sound with another they are too much occupied to be capable of comparing the equality subsisting between these two simple sounds, taken conjointly, and two other similar simple sounds taken conjointly. Practised ears, on the other hand, appreciate both equalities at the same instant — although it is absurd to suppose that both are heard at the same instant. One is heard and appreciated from itself: the other is heard by the memory; and the instant glides into and is confounded with the secondary, appreciation. Highly cultivated musical taste in this manner enjoys not only these double equalities, all appreciated at once, but takes pleasurable cognizance, through memory, of equalities the members of which occur at intervals so great that the uncultivated taste loses them altogether. That this latter can properly estimate or decide on the merits of what is called scientific music, is of course impossible. But scientific music has no claim to intrinsic excellence — it is fit for scientific ears alone. In its excess it is the triumph of the physique over the morale of music. The sentiment is overwhelmed by the sense. On the whole, the advocates of the simpler melody and harmony have infinitely the best of the argument; — although there has been very little of real argument on the subject.

In verse, which cannot be better designated than as an inferior or less capable Music, there is, happily, little chance for complexity. Its rigidly simple character not even Science — not even Pedantry can greatly pervert.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee. The very germ of a thought seeking satisfaction in equality of sound, would result in the construction of words of two syllables, equally accented. In corroboration of this idea we find that spondees most abound in the most ancient tongues. The second step we can easily suppose to be the comparison, that is to say, the collocation of two spondees — of two words composed each of a spondee. The third step would be the juxta-position of three of these words. By this time the perception of monotone would induce farther consideration: and thus arises what Leigh Hunt so flounders in discussing under the title of “The Principle of Variety in Uniformity.” Of course there is no principle in the case — nor in maintaining it. The “Uniformity” is the principle: — the “Variety” is but the principle's natural safeguard from self-destruction by excess of self. “Uniformity,” besides, is the very worst word that could have been chosen for the expression of the general idea at which it aims.

The perception of monotone having given rise to an attempt at its relief, the first thought in this new direction would be that of collating two or more words formed each of two syllables differently accented (that is to say, short and long) but having the same order in each word: — in other terms, of collating two or more iambuses, or two or more trochees. And here let me pause to assert that more pitiable nonsense has been written on the topic of long and short syllables than on any other subject under the sun. In general, a syllable is long or short, just as it is difficult or easy of enunciation. The natural long syllables are those encumbered — the natural short ones are those unencumbered, with consonants; all the rest is mere artificiality and jargon. The Latin Prosodies have a rule that “a vowel before two consonants is long.” This rule is deduced from “authority” — that is, from the observation that vowels so circumstanced, in the ancient poems, are always in syllables long by the laws of scansion. The philosophy of the rule is untouched, and lies simply in the physical difficulty of giving voice to such syllables — of performing the lingual evolutions necessary for their utterance. Of course, it is not the vowel that is long (although the rule says so) but the syllable of which the vowel is a part. It will be seen that the length of a syllable, depending on the facility or difficulty of its enunciation, must have great variation in various syllables; but for the purposes of verse we suppose a long syllable equal to two short ones: — and the natural deviation from this relativeness we correct in perusal. The more closely our long syllables approach this relation with our short ones, the better, ceteris paribus, will be our verse: but if the relation does not exist of itself, we force it by emphasis, which can, of course, make any syllable as long as desired; — or, by an effort we can pronounce with unnatural brevity a syllable that is naturally too long. Accented syllables are of course always long — but, where unencumbered with consonants, must be classed among the unnaturally long. Mere custom has declared that we shall accent them — that is to say, dwell upon them; but no inevitable lingual difficulty forces us to do so. In fine, every long syllable must of its own accord occupy in its utterance, or must be made to occupy, precisely the time demanded for two short ones. The only exception to this rule is found in the cæsura — of which more anon.

The success of the experiment with the trochees or iambuses (the one would have suggested the other) must have led to a trial of dactyls or anapæsts — natural dactyls or anapæsts — dactylic or anapæstic words. And now some degree of complexity has been attained. There is an appreciation, first, of the equality between the several dactyls, or anapæsts, and, secondly, of that between the long syllable and the two short conjointly. But here it may be said that step after step would have been taken, in continuation of this routine, until all the feet of the Greek Prosodies became exhausted. Not so: — these remaining feet have no existence except in the brains of the scholiasts. It is needless to imagine men inventing these things, and folly to explain how and why they invented them, until it shall be first shown that they are actually invented. All other “feet” than those which I have specified, are, if not impossible at first view, merely combinations of the specified; and, although this assertion is rigidly true, I will, to avoid misunderstanding, put it in a somewhat different shape. I will say, then, that at present I am aware of no rhythm — nor do I believe that any one can be constructed — which, in its last analysis, will not be found to consist altogether of the feet I have mentioned, either existing in their individual and obvious condition, or interwoven with each other in accordance with simple natural laws which I will endeavor to point out hereafter.

We have now gone so far as to suppose men constructing indefinite sequences of spondaic, iambic, trochaic, dactylic, or anapæstic words. In extending these sequences, they would be again arrested by the sense of monotone. A succession of spondees would immediately have displeased; one of iambuses or of trochees, on account of the variety included within the foot itself, would have taken longer to displease; one of dactyls or anapæsts still longer: but even the last, if extended very far, must have become wearisome. The idea, first, of curtailing, and, secondly, of defining the length of a sequence, would thus at once have arisen. Here then is the line, of verse proper.* The principle of equality being constantly at the bottom of the whole process, lines would naturally be made, in the first instance, equal in the number of their feet; in the second instance there would be variation in the mere number; one line would be twice as long as another; then one would be some less obvious multiple of another; then still less obvious proportions would be adopted: — nevertheless there would be proportion, that is to say a phase of equality, still.

Lines being once introduced, the necessity of distinctly defining these lines to the ear, (as yet written verse does not exist,) would lead to a scrutiny of their capabilities at their terminations: — and now would spring up the idea of equality in sound between the final syllables — in other words, of rhyme. First, it would be used only in the iambic, anapæstic, and spondaic rhythms, (granting that the latter had not been thrown aside, long since, on account of its tameness;) because in these rhythms the concluding syllable, being long, could best sustain the necessary protection [[protraction]] of the voice. No great while could elapse, however, before the effect, found pleasant as well as useful, would be applied to the two remaining rhythms. But as the chief force of rhyme must lie in the accented syllable, the attempt to create rhyme at all in these two remaining rhythms, the trochaic and dactylic, would necessarily result in double and triple rhymes, such as beauty with duty (trochaic) and beautiful with dutiful (dactylic. [[sic)[[.]]

It must be observed that in suggesting these processes I assign them no date; nor do I even insist upon their order. Rhyme is supposed to be of modern origin, and were this proved, my positions remain untouched. I may say, however, in passing, that several instances of rhyme occur in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, and that the Roman poets occasionally employ it. There is an effective species of ancient rhyming which has never descended to the moderns; that in which the ultimate and penultimate syllables rhyme with each other. For example:

and again —

The terminations of Hebrew verse, (as far as understood,) show no signs of rhyme; but what thinking person can doubt that it did actually exist? That men have so obstinately and blindly insisted, in general, even up to the present day, in confining rhyme to the ends of lines, when its effect is even better applicable elsewhere, intimates, in my opinion, the sense of some necessity in the connexion of the end with the rhyme — hints that the origin of rhyme lay in a necessity which connected it with the end — shows that neither mere accident nor mere fancy gave rise to the connexion — points, in a word, at the very necessity which I have suggested, (that of some mode of defining lines to the ear,) as the true origin of rhyme. Admit this and we throw the origin far back in the night of Time — beyond the origin of written verse.

But to resume. The amount of complexity I have now supposed to be attained is very considerable. Various systems of equalization are appreciated at once (or nearly so) in their respective values and in the value of each system with reference to all the others. As our present ultimatum of complexity, we have arrived at triple-rhymed, natural-dactylic lines, existing proportionally as well as equally with regard to other triple-rhymed, natural-dactylic lines. For example:

Here we appreciate, first, the absolute equality between the long syllable of each dactyl and the two short conjointly; secondly, the absolute equality between each dactyl and any other dactyl — in other words, among all the dactyls; thirdly, the absolute equality between the two middle lines; fourthly, the absolute equality between the first line and all the others taken conjointly; fifthly, the absolute equality between the two last syllables of the respective words “dutiful” and “beautiful;” sixthly, the absolute equality between the two last syllables of the respective words “lowlily” and “holily;” seventhly, the proximate equality between the first syllable of “dutiful” and the first syllable of “beautiful;” eighthly, the proximate equality, between the first syllable of “lowlily” and that of “holily;” ninthly, the proportional equality, (that of five to one,) between the first line and each of its members, the dactyls; tenthly, the proportional equality, (that of two to one,) between each of the middle lines and its members, the dactyls; eleventhly, the proportional equality between the first line and each of the two middle — that of five to two; twelfthly, the proportional equality between the first line and the last — that of five to one; thirteenthly, the proportional equality between each of the middle lines and the last — that of two to one; lastly, the proportional equality, as concerns number, between all the lines, taken collectively, and any individual line — that of four to one.

The consideration of this last equality would give birth immediately to the idea of stanza* — that is to say, the insulation of lines into equal or obviously proportional masses. In its primitive, (which was also its best,) form, the stanza would most probably have had absolute unity. In other words, the removal of any one of its lines would have rendered it imperfect; as in the case above, where if the last line, for example, be taken away, there is left no rhyme to the “dutiful” of the first. Modern stanza is excessively loose, and where so, ineffective as a matter of course.

Now, although in the deliberate written statement which I have here given of these various systems of equalities, there seems to be an infinity of complexity — so much that it is hard to conceive the mind taking cognizance of them all in the brief period occupied by the perusal or recital of the stanza — yet the difficulty is in fact apparent only when we will it to become so. Any one fond of mental experiment may satisfy himself, by trial, that, in listening to the lines, he does actually, (although with a seeming unconsciousness, on account of the rapid evolutions of sensation,) recognize and instantaneously appreciate, (more or less intensely as his ear is cultivated,) each and all of the equalizations detailed. The pleasure received, or receivable, has very much such progressive increase, and in very nearly such mathematical relations, as those which I have suggested in the case of the crystal.

It will be observed that I speak of merely a proximate equality between the first syllable of “dutiful” and that of “beautiful;” and it may be asked why we cannot imagine the earliest rhymes to have had absolute instead of proximate equality of sound. But absolute equality would have involved the use of identical words; and it is the duplicate sameness or monotony — that of sense as well as that of sound — which would have caused these rhymes to be rejected in the very first instance.

The narrowness of the limits within which verse composed of natural feet alone, must necessarily have been confined, would have led, after a very brief interval, to the trial and immediate adoption of artificial feet — that is to say of feet not constituted each of a single word, but two or even three words; or of parts of words. These feet would be intermingled with natural ones. For example:

This is an iambic line in which each iambus is formed of two words. Again:

This is an iambic line in which the first foot is formed of a word and a part of a word; the second and third of parts taken from the body or interior of a word; the fourth of a part and a whole; the fifth of two complete words. There are no natural feet in either lines. Again:

These are two dactylic lines in which we find natural feet, (“Deity,” “mannikin;”) feet composed of two words (“fancied that,” “image a,” “merely to,” “madden it;”) feet composed of three words (“can it be,” “made in his;”) a foot composed of a part of a word (“dictively;”) and a foot composed of a word and a part of a word (“ever vin. [[sic]]”) [[.]]

And now, in our supposititious progress, we have gone so far as to exhaust all the essentialities of verse. What follows may, strictly speaking, be recorded as embellishment merely — but even in this embellishment, the rudimental sense of equality would have been the never-ceasing impulse. It would, for example, be simply in seeking farther administration to this sense that men would come, in time, to think of the refrain, or burden, where, at the closes of the several stanzas of a poem, one word or phrase is repeated; and of alliteration, in whose simplest form a consonant is repeated in the commencements of various words. This effect would be extended so as to embrace repetitions both of vowels and of consonants, in the bodies as well as in the beginnings of words; and, at a later period, would be made to infringe on the province of rhyme, by the introduction of general similarity of sound between whole feet occurring in the body of a line: — all of which modifications I have exemplified in the line above,

Farther cultivation would improve also the refrain by relieving its monotone in slightly varying the phrase at each repetition, or, (as I have attempted to do in “The Raven,”) in retaining the phrase and varying its application — although this latter point is not strictly a rhythmical effect alone. Finally, poets when fairly wearied with following precedent — following it the more closely the less they perceived it in company with Reason — would adventure so far as to indulge in positive rhyme at other points than the ends of lines. First, they would put it in the middle of the line; then at some point where the multiple would be less obvious; then alarmed at their own audacity, they would undo all their work by cutting these lines in two. And here is the fruitful source of the infinity of “short metre,” by which modern poetry, if not distinguished, is at least disgraced. It would require a high degree, indeed, both of cultivation and of courage, on the part of any versifier, to enable him to place his rhymes — and let them remain — at unquestionably their best position, that of unusual and unanticipated intervals.

On account of the stupidity of some people, or, (if talent be a more respectable word,) on account of their talent for misconception — I think it necessary to add here, first, that I believe the “processes” above detailed to be nearly if not accurately those which did occur in the gradual creation of what we now call verse; secondly, that, although I so believe, I yet urge neither the assumed fact nor my belief in it, as a part of the true proposition of this paper; thirdly, that in regard to the aim of this paper, it is of no consequence whether these processes did occur either in the order I have assigned them, or at all; my design being simply, in presenting a general type of what such processes might have been and must have resembled, to help them, the “some people,” to an easy understanding of what I have farther to say on the topic of Verse.

There is one point which, in my summary of the processes, I have purposely forborne to touch; because this point, being the most important of all, on account of the immensity of error usually involved in its consideration, would have led me into a series of detail inconsistent with the object of a summary.

Every reader of verse must have observed how seldom it happens that even any one line proceeds uniformly with a succession, such as I have supposed, of absolutely equal feet; that is to say, with a succession of iambuses only, or of trochees only, or of dactyls only, or of anapæsts only, or of spondees only. Even in the most musical lines we find the succession interrupted. The iambic pentameters of Pope, for example, will be found on examination, frequently varied by trochees in the beginning, or by (what seem to be) anapæsts in the body, of the line.

Were any one weak enough to refer to the Prosodies for a solution of the difficulty here, he would find it solved as usual by a rule, stating the fact, (or what it, the rule, supposes to be the fact,) but without the slightest attempt at the rationale. “By a synæresis of the two short syllables,” say the books, “an anapæst may sometimes be employed for an iambus, or a dactyl for a trochee. ... In the beginning of a line a trochee is often used for an iambus.”

Blending is the plain English for synæresis — but there should be no blending; neither is an anapæst ever employed for an iambus, or a dactyl for a trochee. These feet differ in time; and no feet so differing can ever be legitimately used in the same line. An anapæst is equal to four short syllables — an iambus only to three. Dactyls and trochees hold the same relation. The principle of equality, in verse, admits, it is true, of variation at certai [[certain]] points, for the relief of monotone, as I have already shown, but the point of time is that point which, being the rudimental one, must never be tampered with at all.

To explain: — In farther efforts for the relief of monotone than those to which I have alluded in the summary, men soon came to see that there was no absolute necessity for adhering to the precise number of syllables, provided the time required for the whole foot was preserved inviolate. They saw, for instance, that in such a line as

the equalization of the three syllables elais ea with the two syllables composing any of the other feet, could be readily effected by pronouncing the two syllable [[syllables]] elais in double quick time. By pronouncing each of the syllables e and lais twice as rapidly as the syllable sy, or the syllable in, or any other short syllable, they could bring the two of them, taken together, to the length, that is to say to the time, of any one short syllable. This consideration enabled them to effect the agreeable variation of three syllables in place of the uniform two. And variation was the object — variation to the ear. What sense is there, then, in supposing this object rendered null by the blending of the two syllables so as to render them, in absolute effect, one? Of course, there must be no blending. Each syllable must be pronounced as distinctly as possible, (or the variation is lost,) but with twice the rapidity in which the ordinary short syllable is enunciated. That the syllables elais ea do not compose an anapæst is evident, and the signs ( ̆ ̆ ̄) of their accentuation are erroneous. The foot might be written thus ( ̯ ̯ ̱) the inverted crescents expressing double quick time; and might be called a bastard iambus.

Here is a trochaic line:

The prosodies — that is to say the most considerate of them — would here decide that “delicate” is a dactyl used in place of a trochee, and would refer to what they call their “rule,” for justification. Others, varying the stupidity, would insist upon a Procrustean adjustment thus (del’cate) — an adjustment recommended to all such words as silvery, murmuring, etc., which, it is said, should be not only pronounced, but written silv’ry, murm’ring, and so on, whenever they find themselves in trochaic predicament. I have only to say that “delicate,” when circumstanced as above, is neither a dactyl nor a dactyl's equivalent; that I would suggest for it this ( ¯ ˆ ˆ) accentuation; that I think it as well to call it a bastard trochee; and that all words, at all events, should be written and pronounced in full, and as nearly as possible as nature intended them.

About eleven years ago, there appeared in “The American Monthly Magazine,” (then edited, I believe, by Mess. Hoffman and Benjamin,) a review of Mr. Willis’ Poems; the critic putting forth his strength, or his weakness, in an endeavor to show that the poet was either absurdly affected, or grossly ignorant of the laws of verse; the accusation being based altogether on the fact that Mr. W. made occasional use of this very word “delicate,” and other similar words, in “the Heroic measure which every one knew consisted of feet of two syllables.” Mr. W. has often, for example, such lines as

Here, of course, the feet licate love, verent in, and sible fin, are bastard iambuses; are not anapæsts; and are not improperly used. Their employment, on the contrary, by Mr. Willis is but one of the innumerable instances he has given of keen sensibility in all those matters of taste which may be classed under the general head of fanciful embellishment.

It is also about eleven years ago, if I am not mistaken, since Mr. Horne, (of England,) the author of “Orion,” one of the noblest epics in any language, thought it necessary to preface his “Chaucer Modernized” by a very long and evidently a very elaborate essay, of which the greater portion was occupied in a discussion of the seemingly anomalous foot of which we have been speaking. Mr. Horne upholds Chaucer in its frequent use; maintains his superiority, on account of his so frequently using it, over all English versifiers; and, indignantly repelling the common idea of those who make verse on their fingers — that the superfluous syllable is a roughness and an error — very chivalrously makes battle for it as “a grace.” That a grace it is, there can be no doubt; and what I complain of is, that the author of the most happily versified long poem in existence, should have been under the necessity of discussing this grace merely as a grace, through forty or fifty vague pages, solely because of his inability to show how and why it is a grace — by which showing the question would have been settled in an instant.

About the trochee used for an iambus, as we see in the beginning of the line,

there is little that need be said. It brings me to the general proposition that, in all rhythms, the prevalent or distinctive feet may be varied at will, and nearly at random, by the occasional introduction of equivalent feet — that is to say, feet the sum of whose syllabic times is equal to the sum of the syllabic times of the distinctive feet. Thus the troches whēthĕr, is equal, in the sum of the times of its syllables, to the iambus, thŏu choōse, in the sum of the times of its syllables; each foot being, in time, equal to three short syllables. Good versifiers who happen to be, also, good poets, contrive to relieve the monotone of a series of feet, by the use of equivalent feet only at rare intervals, and at such points of their subject as seem in accordance with the startling character of the variation. Nothing of this care is seen in the line quoted above — although Pope has some fine instances of the duplicate effect. Where vehemence is to be strongly expressed, I am not sure that we should be wrong in venturing on two consecutive equivalent feet — although I cannot say that I have ever known the adventure made, except in the following passage, which occurs in “Al Aaraaf,” a boyish poem, written by myself when a boy. I am referring to the sudden and rapid advent of a star:

In the “general proposition” above, I speak of the occasional introduction of equivalent feet. It sometimes happens that unskilful versifiers, without knowing what they do, or why they do it, introduce so many “variations” as to exceed in number the “distinctive” feet; when the ear becomes at once baulked by the bouleversement of the rhythm. Too many trochees, for example, inserted in an iambic rhythm, would convert the latter to a trochaic. I may note here, that, in all cases, the rhythm designed should be commenced and continued, without variation, until the ear has had full time to comprehend what is the rhythm. In violation of a rule so obviously founded in common sense, many even of our best poets, do not scruple to begin an iambic rhythm with a trochee, or the converse; or a dactylic with an anapæst, or the converse; and so on.

A somewhat less objectionable error, although still a decided one, is that of commencing a rhythm, not with a different equivalent foot, but with a “bastard” foot of the rhythm intended. For example:

Here many a is what I have explained to be a bastard trochee, and to be understood should be accented with inverted crescents. It is objectionable solely on account of its position as the opening foot of a trochaic rhythm. Memory, similarly accented, is also a bastard trochee, but unobjectionable, although by no means demanded.

The farther illustration of this point will enable me to take an important step.

One of our finest poets, Mr. Christopher Pease [[Pearse]] Cranch, begins a very beautiful poem thus:

“A losing” to Mr. Cranch, of course — but this en passant. It will be seen here that the intention is trochaic; — although we do not see this intention by the opening foot, as we should do — or even by the opening line. Reading the whole stanza, however, we perceive the trochaic rhythm as the general design, and so, after some reflection, we divide the first line thus:

Thus scanned, the line will seem musical. It is — highly so. And it is because there is no end to instances of just such lines of apparently incomprehensible music, that Coleridge thought proper to invent his nonsensical system of what he calls “scanning by accents” — as if “scanning by accents” were anything more than a phrase. Whenever “Christabel” is really not rough, it can be as readily scanned by the true laws (not the supposititious rules) of verse, as can the simplest pentameter of Pope; and where it is rough (passim) these same laws will enable any one of common sense to show why it is rough and to point out, instantaneously, the remedy for the roughness.

A reads and re-reads a certain line, and pronounces it false in rhythm — unmusical. B, however, reads it to A, and A is at once struck with the perfection of the rhythm, and wonders at his dulness in not “catching” it before. Henceforward he admits the line to be musical. B, triumphant, asserts that, to be sure, the line is musical — for it is the work of Coleridge — and that it is A who is not; the fault being in A's [[A's]] false reading. Now here A is right and B wrong. That rhythm is erroneous, (at some point or other more or less obvious,) which any ordinary reader can, without design, read improperly. It is the business of the poet so to construct his line that the intention must be caught at once. Even when men have precisely the same understanding of a sentence, they differ and often widely, in their modes of enunciating it. Any one who has taken the trouble to examine the topic of emphasis, (by which I here mean not accent of particular syllables, but the dwelling on entire words,) must have seen that men emphasize in the most singularly arbitrary manner. There are certain large classes of people, for example, who persist in emphasizing their monosyllables. Little uniformity of emphasis prevails; because the thing itself — the idea, emphasis, — is referable to no natural — at least to no well comprehended and therefore uniform law. Beyond a very narrow and vague limit, the whole matter is conventionality. And if we differ in emphasis even when we agree in comprehension, how much more so in the former when in the latter too! Apart, however, from the consideration of natural disagreement, is it not clear that, by tripping here and mouthing there, any sequence of words may be twisted into any species of rhythm? But are we thence to deduce that all sequences of words are rhythmical in a rational understanding of the term? — for this is the deduction, precisely to which the reductio ad absurdum will, in the end, bring all the propositions of Coleridge. Out of a hundred readers of “Christabel,” fifty will be able to make nothing of its rhythm, while forty-nine of the remaining fifty will, with some ado, fancy they comprehend it, after the fourth or fifth perusal. The one out of the whole hundred who shall both comprehend and admire it at first sight — must be an unaccountably clever person — and I am by far too modest to assume, for a moment, that that very clever person is myself.

In illustration of what is here advanced I cannot do better than quote a poem:

Now those of my readers who have never heard this poem pronounced according to the nursery conventionality, will find its rhythm as obscure as an explanatory note; while those who have heard it, will divide it thus, declare it musical, and wonder how there can be any doubt about it.

The chief thing in the way of this species of rhythm, is the necessity which it imposes upon the poet of travelling in constant company with his compositions, so as to be ready at a moment's notice, to avail himself of a well understood poetical license — that of reading aloud one's own doggerel.

In Mr. Cranch's line,

the general error of which I speak is, of course, very partially exemplified, and the purpose for which, chiefly, I cite it, lies yet further on in our topic.

The two divisions (thoughts that) and (come to) are ordinary trochees. Of the last division (me) we will talk hereafter. The first division (many are the) would be thus accented by the Greek Prosodies (māny ăre thĕ) and would be called by them αστρολογος. The Latin books would style the foot Pæon Primus, and both Greek and Latin would swear that it was composed of a trochee and what they term a pyrrhic — that is to say a foot of two short syllables — a thing that cannot be, as I shall presently show.

But now, there is an obvious difficulty. The astrologos, according to the Prosodies’ own showing, is equal to five short syllables, and the trochee to three — yet, in the line quoted, these two feet are equal. They occupy precisely the same time. In fact, the whole music of the line depends upon their being made to occupy the same time. The Prosodies then, have demonstrated what all mathematicians have stupidly failed in demonstrating — that three and five are one and the same thing.

After what I have already said, however, about the bastard trochee and the bastard iambus, no one can have any trouble in understanding that many are the is of similar character. It is merely a bolder variation than usual from the routine of trochees, and introduces to the bastard trochee one additional syllable. But this syllable is not short. That is, it is not short in the sense of “short” as applied to the final syllable of the ordinary trochee, where the word means merely the half of long.

In this case (that of the additional syllable) “short,” if used at all, must be used in the sense of the sixth of long. And all the three final syllables can be called short only with the same understanding of the term. The three together are equal only to the one short syllable (whose place they supply) of the ordinary trochee. It follows that there is no sense in thus (˘) accenting these syllables. We must devise for them some new character which shall denote the sixth of long. Let it be (‹) — the crescent placed with the curve to the left. The whole foot (māny are the) might be called a quick trochee.

We come now to the final division (me) of Mr. Cranch's line. It is clear that this foot, short as it appears, is fully equal in time to each of the preceding. It is in fact the cæsura — the foot which, in the beginning of this paper, I called the most important in all verse. Its chief office is that of pause or termination; and here — at the end of a line — its use is easy, because there is no danger of misapprehending its value. We pause on it, by a seeming necessity, just so long as it has taken us to pronounce the preceding feet, whether iambus [[iambuses]], trochees, dactyls or anapæsts. It is thus a variable foot, and, with some care, may be well introduced into the body of a line, as in a little poem of great beauty by Mrs. Welby:

Here we dwell on the cæsura, son, just as long as it requires us to pronounce either of the preceding or succeeding iambusses [[iambuses]]. Its value, therefore, in this line, is that of three short syllables. In the following dactylic line its value is that of four short syllables.

I have accented the cæsura with a (~~~~) by way of expressing this variability of value.

I observed, just now, that there could be no such foot as one of two short syllables. What we start from in the very beginning of all idea on the topic of verse, is quantity, length. Thus when we enunciate an independent syllable it is long, as a matter of course. If we enunciate two, dwelling on both equally, we express equality in the enumeration, or length, and have a right to call them two long syllables. If we dwell on one more than the other, we have also a right to call one short, because it is short in relation to the other. But if we dwell on both equally and with a tripping voice, saying to ourselves here are two short syllables, the query might well be asked of us — “in relation to what are they short?” Shortness is but the negation of length. To say, then, that two syllables, placed independently of any other syllable, are short, is merely to say that they have no positive length, or enunciation — in other words that they are no syllables — that they do not exist at all. And if, persisting, we add anything about their equality, we are merely floundering in the idea of an identical equation, where, x being equal to x, nothing is shown to be equal to zero. In a word we can form no conception of a pyrrhic as of an independent foot. It is a mere chimera bred in the mad fancy of a pedant.

From what I have said about the equalization of the several feet of a line, it must not be deduced that any necessity for equality in time exists between the rhythm of several lines. A poem, or even a stanza, may begin with iambuses, in the first line, and proceed with anapæsts in the second, or even with the less accordant dactyls, as in the opening of quite a pretty specimen of verse by Miss Mary A. S. Aldrich:

Here azure is a spondee, equivalent to a dactyl; lake a cæsura.

I shall now best proceed in quoting the initial lines of Byron's “Bride of Abpdos [[Abydos]]:”

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By all who have ears — not over long — this will be acknowledged as the true and the sole true scansion. The harmony is perfect, and with the melody but a single fault can be found, and that of minor importance. In the dactyl formed by the words, “smile on such,” “such” is too obviously a long syllable, that is to say, it too necessarily demands a long accentuation in common parlance, to justify its use as a short syllable in verse.

would be an improvement of the melody; at the expense, however, of the sense.

although more rigorously grammatical, than our line first suggested, is objectionable on the very ground which caused objection to the use of “such.” The difficulty of pronouncing “which” has brought about its exclusion from poetry, among those who have keen musical perceptions: — see the last line of those just quoted.

I have italicized the cæsuras and spondees introduced. The force and office of the cæsura have been already sufficiently explained; but it may be demanded — “Why is the continuous flow of the dactylic succession interrupted by spondees? Why were not dactyls here also employed?” The answer which most readily suggests itself is, that the variation is for the purpose of relieving the monotony; but however plausible this reply, it is by no means the true one. For, in fact, there is no relief of the monotone effected. The spondees used are to all intents and purposes (except with mere reference to the eye) equivalent to dactyls. The cause of their introduction is to be found in the admission of unusually long syllables at certain points. In the spondee “fume wax,” for example, the “wax,” which is composed of two of the most difficult consonants in the language, could not have been tortured into brevity by any mode of accentuation. Pronounce it as trippingly as we please, it will still occupy such portion of time as will render it equal to two short syllables. If employed at all, therefore, it could not have been employed otherwise, in its present location, than as the final syllable of a spondee. The emphasis demanded upon the “oh” in “done oh” forces it, in the same manner, into length.” [[sic]]

That the division of the dactylic rhythms into verses, or lines, is a point purely arbitrary, or conventional, will be rendered evident by a glance at these rhythms as we have run them together, above. We might form what is termed versification thus:

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Here “crime” and “tell” (italicized) are cæsuras, each having the value of a dactyl, four short syllables; while “fume Wax,” “twine and,” and “done Oh,” are spondees which, of course, being composed of two long syllables, are also equal to four short, and are the dactyl's natural equivalent. The nicety of Byron's ear has led him into a succession of feet which, with two trivial exceptions as regards melody, are absolutely accurate — a very rare occurrence this in dactylic or anapæstic rhythms. The exceptions are found in the spondee “twine And” and the dactyl, “smile on such.” Both feet are false in point of melody. In “twine And,” to make out the rhythm, we must force “And” into a length which it will not naturally bear. We are called on to sacrifice either the proper length of the syllable as demanded by its position as a member of a spondee, or the customary accentuation of the word in conversation. There is no hesitation, and should be none. We at once give up the sound for the sense; and the rhythm is imperfect. In this instance it is very slightly so; — not one person in ten thousand could, by ear, detect the inaccuracy. But the imperfection [[perfection]] of verse, as regards melody, consists in its never demanding any such sacrifice as is here demanded. The rhythmical must agree, thoroughly, with the reading, flow. This perfection has in no instance been attained — but is unquestionably attainable. “Smile on such,” the dactyl, is incorrect, because “such,” from the character of the two consonants ch, cannot easily be enunciated in the ordinary time of a short syllable, which its position declares that it is. Almost every reader will be able to appreciate the slight difficulty here; and yet the error is by no means so important as that of the “And” in the spondee. By dexterity we may pronounce “such” in the true time; but the attempt to remedy the rhythmical deficiency of the And by drawing it out, merely aggravates the offence against natural enunciation, by directing attention to the offence.

My main object, however, in quoting these lines, is to show that, in spite of the Prosodies, the length of a line is entirely an arbitrary matter. We might divide the commencement of Byron's poem thus:

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One word here in regard to rhyme. Its employment is quite as arbitrary as that of verse itself. Our books speak of it as “a similarity of sound between the last syllables of different lines.” But how absurd such definition, in the very teeth of the admitted facts, that rhymes are often used in the middle of verses, and that mere similarity of sound is insufficient to constitute them in perfection! Rhyme may be defined as identity of sound occurring among rhythms, between syllables or portions of syllables of equal length, at equal intervals, or at interspaces the multiples of these intervals.

The Iambic, the Trochaic, the Anapæstic, and the Dactylic, are the usually admitted divisions of English verse. These varieties, in their purity, or perfection, are to be understood as mere indefinite successions of the feet or pulsations, respectively, from which are derived their names. Our Prosodies cite examples of only the most common divisions of the respective rhythms into lines; but profess to cite instances of all the varieties of English verse. These varieties are, nevertheless, unlimited, as will be readily seen from what has been said; but the books have done much, by their dogmas, in the way of prohibiting invention. A wide field is open for its display, in novel combinations of metre. The immenseness of the effect derivable from the harmonious combination of various rhythms, is a point strangely neglected or misunderstood. We have, in America, some few versifiers of fine ear, who succeed to admiration in the building of the ordinary established lines — the Iambic Pentameters of Sprague, for example, surpass even those of Pope — but we have had few evidences of originality in the division of the old rhythms, or in the combination of their varieties. In general, the grossest ignorance prevails, even among our finest poets, and even in respect to the common-place harmonies upon which they are most habitually employed. If we regard at the same time accuracy of rhythm, melody, and invention, or novel combination, of metre, I should have no hesitation in saying that a young and true poetess of Kentucky, Mrs. Amelia Welby, has done more in the way of really good verse than any individual among us. I shall be pardoned, nevertheless, for quoting and commenting upon an excellently well conceived and well managed specimen of versification, which will aid in developing some of the propositions already expressed. It is the “Last Leaf” of Oliver W. Holmes.

Every one will acknowledge the effective harmony of these lines; yet the attempt to scan them, by any reference to the rules of our Prosodies, will be vain. Indeed, I am at a loss to imagine what these books could say upon the subject, that would not immediately contradict all that has been said by them upon others. Let us scan the first stanza.

This is the general scansion of the poem. We have first three iambuses. The second line shifts the rhythm into the trochaic, giving us three trochees, with a cæsura equivalent, in this case, to a trochee. The third line is a trochee and equivalent cæsura. But it must be observed, that although the cæsura is variable in value, and can thus be understood as equivalent to any pulsation which precedes it, it is insufficient to form, with any single pulsation, a perfect rhythm. The rhythm of the line “and again” is referrible, therefore, to the line preceding, and dependent thereupon. The whole would have been, more properly, written thus:

The pausing or terminating force of the cæsura is here clearly seen. In the second line, as just remodelled, we make a pause in the trochaical rhythms, by means of “door.” The “and again” has the air of a resumption; which in fact it is. The word “passed” in the volume from which we extract the poem [Mr. Griswold's “Poets and Poetry of America”] has been printed, with an elision, “pass'd,” and thus made one syllable; but improperly: for each syllable requires full accentuation to form the trochee.

If we now look at the second stanza, we shall perceive that in the line,

which, according to the construction of the first stanza, should be iambical, the author has merely continued the trochees of the preceding verse. The third stanza is constructed as the second. So also the fourth — with a variation in the line,

which is thus scanned:

Here, in place of the expected trochee, we have a dactyl. Referring to the Prosodies, we learn that “by a synæresis [blending] of the two short syllables, an anapæst may sometimes be employed for an iambus, or a dactyl for a trochee”: — all which is true, but excessively unsatisfactory. The rationale of the matter is untouched. I was perhaps wrong in admitting even the truth of the rule. The fact is, that in cases such as this, the synæresis of the syllables is erroneously urged. There should be no blending of the two short syllables into one; and, unquestionably, if blended, the result would be one long, to which they are equivalent; thus the blending would be far from producing a trochee, inasmuch as it would produce more. The idea of the versifier here is discord for the relief of monotone. The time of the pulsation is purposely increased, that the ear may not be palled by the too continuous harmony. As in music, so in the rhythm of words, this principle of discord is one of the most important, and, when effectively managed, surprizes and delights by its vigorous effects. It seems to be an essential, in these variations, that they be never, of diminution. A decrease in the ordinary time of the pulsations should never be attempted; but a fine discord is often effected by mere change of the order of syllables, without increase. In iambic rhythms this change is most usually seen. For example:

Here a trochee forms the first foot of the third line. Discords of excess are observed in the concluding foot of the third verse, and in the penultimate of the fourth; where anapæsts take place of iambuses.

These various discords, it will be understood, are efforts for the relief of monotone. These efforts produce fluctuations in the metre; and it often happens that these fluctuations, if not subsequently counterbalanced, affect the ear displeasingly, as do unresolved discords in music. Very generally, one discord requires a counterbalance at no great interval. This is a point, however, which only a very nice ear can appreciate. Pope felt its importance, and more especially Milton. I quote an example from the latter:

“Said the angel [[Angel]]” is here used as a single foot, and counterbalances the two previous discords of excess, italicized. To this practice, on the part of Milton, I especially alluded, when speaking of this poet as surpassing Pope “in the adjusting of his harmonies through paragraphs of greater length than the latter ever ventured to attempt.”

Discords of excess are also employed (and even more than one in a line) with the view of equalizing the time of a verse with the real time of a preceding one, when the apparent time of this preceding does not exceed the ordinary rhythm. For example:

If we scan the first of these lines, we find only the ordinary iambuses; but, by the use of unusually long syllables, the verse is made to labor, in accordance with the author's favorite whim, of “making the sound an echo to the sense.” It will be found impossible to read aloud

in the usual time of five iambuses. The drag of the line, therefore, is properly counterbalanced by two anapæsts in the succeeding; which is thus scanned:

Some editions of Pope read, with elision, thus:

but this is, of course, improper. Our books, in general, are full of false elisions.

But to return to our scansion of “The Last Leaf.” The fifth and six [[sixth]] stanzas exactly resemble the second. The seventh differs from all the others. The second line, as well as the first, is iambic. The whole should be thus divided:

In saying that the whole should be thus divided, I mean only to say that this is the true grouping of the pulsations; and have no reference to the rhymes. I speak as if these latter had no existence.

The last stanza embraces still another variation. It is entirely trochaic; and involves the only absolute error to be seen in the whole versification. The rhythm requires that the first syllable of the second line should be long; but “the” is a monosyllable which can never be forced, by any accentuation, into length.

As I am now speaking of American verse, and of the dearth of invention which, in general, it betrays, some remarks on Professor Longfellow's late attempts at introducing the Greek Hexameter, will not be considered out of place. The Greek or Latin Hexameter line, consists, as its title implies, of six pulsations. These, in the four first instances, may be either dactyls or spondees, or dactyls and spondees arbitrarily intermingled. The penultimate foot, however, is always (at least nearly always) a dactyl; the ultimate always a spondee. The lines already quoted from Silius Italicus are Latin Hexameters. The first two of these lines run thus:

The first point which will arrest the attention of the merely English reader, is the discrepancy between this scansion and the flow of the lines in perusal. In attempting, himself, a division, he, no doubt, would have thus arranged it:

and, not until he had counted the feet, would he have been aware of the deficiency of one. Now the discrepancy in question is not observable in English metres; where the scansion coincides with the reading, so far as the rhythm is concerned — that is to say, if we pay no attention to the sense of the passage. But these facts indicate a radical difference in the genius of the two languages, as regards their capacities for modulation. In truth, from the character of its terminations (most frequently in um, am, i, o, os, &c.) as well as from the paucity of the monosyllabic articles and pronouns so prevalent in the Saxon, 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. In casting the eye, for example, over the lines of Silius here quoted, we will not fail to perceive the great preponderance of the spondee;* and, in examining the so-called Hexameters, just above, by Professor Longfellow, we shall, in the same manner, see the predominance of the dactyl. English Hexameters are always about one-third longer to the eye than Latin or Greek ones. Now it follows from what has been here explained, that English Hexameters are radically different from Latin ones; for it is the predominant foot, or pulsation, which gives the tone to the verse, or establishes its rhythm. Latin Hexameters are spondaic rhythms, varied by equivalent dactyls. English Hexameters are dactylic rhythms varied, rarely, by equivalent spondees. Not that we cannot have English Hexameter, in every respect correspondent to the Latin; but that such can be constructed only by a minuteness of labor, and with a forced or far-fetched appearance, which are at war with their employment to any extent. In building them we must search for spondaic words, which, in English, are rare indeed; or, in their default, we must construct spondees of long monosyllables, although the majority of our monosyllables are short. I quote, here, an unintentional instance of a perfect English Hexameter formed upon the model of the Greek:

This line is thus scanned:

I say that this is “a perfect English Hexameter formed upon the model of the Greek,” because, while its rhythm is plainly spondaic varied by dactyls, and thus is essentially Greek, (or Latin,) it yet preserves, as all English verse should preserve, a concordance between its scansion and reading-flow. Such lines, of course, cannot be composed without a degree of difficulty which must effect their exclusion, for all practical purposes, from our tongue.

But let us examine some of the supposed Hexameters of Professor Longfellow.

We here find that, although the preponderance of the dactyl is not great, apparently, yet this preponderance would be excessive, were it not for the forced lengthening of syllables too unimportant to sustain an accent in the ordinary perusal. In the first line, the “for,” in “dorn'd for,” and the “son” in “season,” have no right to be long. In the second, the same objection applies to “their” in “young their,” and the “en” in “heaven.” In the third, it applies to the “the” in “new the”; in the fourth to the “and” in “swept and,” and the “was” in “dust was”; in the fifth to the “and” in “walls and,” the “from” and “the” in “from the,” and the “es” in “benches.” “Baptism” is the only admissible spondee in the whole composition.

The truth is, that nothing less than the deservedly high reputation of Professor Longfellow, could have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one thing nor another. Some few of them are dactylic verses — English dactylics. But do away with the division into lines, and the most astute critic would never have suspected them of anything more than prose. Let us try the experiment upon the extract just above:

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My second object in quoting Byron's lines, was that of showing how absurd it often is to cite a single line from amid the body of a poem, for the purpose of instancing the perfection or imperfection of the line's rhythm. Were we to see by itself

we might justly condemn it as defective in the final foot, which is equal to only three, instead of being equal to four, short syllables.

In the foot (flowers ever) we shall find a further exemplification of the principle in the bastard iambus, bastard trochee, and quick trochee, as I have been at some pains in describing these feet above. All the Prosodies on English verse would insist upon making an elision in “flowers,” thus (flow’rs,) but this is nonsense. In the quick trochee (māny are the) occurring in Mr. Cranch's trochaic line, we had to equalize the time of the three syllables [[(]]ny, are, the,) to that of the one short syllable whose position they usurp. Accordingly each of these syllables is equal to the third of a short syllable, that is to say, the sixth of a long. But in Byron's dactylic rhythm, we have to equalize the time of the three syllables (ers, ev, er,) to that of the one long syllable whose position they usurp or, (which is the same thing,) of the two short. Therefore the value of each of the syllables (ers, ev, and er) is the third of a long. We enunciate them with only half the rapidity we employ in enunciating the three final syllables of the quick trochee — which latter is a rare foot. The “flowers ever,” on the contrary, is as common in the dactylic rhythm as is the bastard trochee in the trochaic, or the bastard iambus in the iambic. We may as well accent it with the curve of the crescent to the right, and call it a bastard dactyl. A bastard anapæst, whose nature I now need be at no trouble in explaining, will of course occur, now and then, in an anapæstic rhythm.

In order to avoid any chance of that confusion which is apt to be introduced in an essay of this kind by too sudden and radical an alteration of the conventionalities to which the reader has been accustomed, I have thought it right to suggest for the accent marks of the bastard trochee, bastard iambus, etc., etc., certain characters which, in merely varying the direction of the ordinary short accent ( ̆ ) should imply, what is the fact, that the feet themselves are not new feet, in any proper sense, but simply modifications of the feet, respectively, from which they derive their names. Thus a bastard iambus is, in its essentiality, that is to say, in its time, an iambus. The variation lies only in the distribution of this time. The time, for example, occupied by the one short (or half of long) syllable, in the ordinary iambus, is, in the bastard, spread equally over two syllables, which are accordingly the fourth of long.

But this fact — the fact of the essentiality, or whole time, of the foot being unchanged, is now so fully before the reader, that I may venture to propose, finally, an accentuation which shall answer the real purpose — that is to say what should be the real purpose of all accentuation — the purpose of expressing to the eye the exact relative value of every syllable employed in Verse.

I have already shown that enunciation, or length, is the point from which we start. In other words, we begin with a long syllable. This then is our unit; and there will be no need of accenting it at all. An unaccented syllable, in a system of accentuation, is to be regarded always as a long syllable. Thus a spondee would be without accent. In an iambus, the first syllable being “short,” or the half of long, should be accented with a small 2, placed beneath the syllable; the last syllable, being long, should be unaccented; — the whole would be thus (co2 ntrol.) In a trochee, these accents would be merely conversed, thus (manl2 y.) In a dactyl, each of the two final syllables, being the half of long, should, also, be accented with a small 2 beneath the syllable; and the first syllable left unaccented, the whole would be thus (happi2 nes2 s.) In an anapæst we should converse the dactyl thus, (in2 th2 e land.) In the bastard dactyl, each of the three concluding syllables being the third of long, should be accented with a small 3 beneath the syllable, and the whole foot would stand thus, (flower3 s  e3 ve3 r.) In the bastard anapæst we should converse the bastard dactyl thus, (i3 n th3 e re3 bound.) In the bastard iambus, each of the two initial syllables, being the fourth of long, should be accented, below, with a small 4; the whole foot would be thus, (i4 n th4 e rain.) In the bastard trochee, we should converse the bastard iambus thus, (many4 a4.) In the quick trochee, each of the three concluding syllables, being the sixth of long, should be accented, below, with a small 6; the whole foot would be thus, (many6   a6 re  th6 e.) The quick iambus is not yet created, and most probably never will be; for it would be excessively useless, awkward, and liable to misconception — as I have already shown that even the quick trochee is: — but, should it appear, we must accent it by conversing the quick trochee. The cæsura, being variable in length, but always longer than “long,” should be accented, above, with a number expressing the length, or value, of the distinctive foot of the rhythm in which it occurs. Thus a cæsura, occurring in a spondaic rhythm, would be accented with a small 2 above the syllable, or, rather, foot. Occurring in a dactylic or anapæstic rhythm, we also accent it with the 2, above the foot. Occurring in an iambic rhythm, however, it must be accented, above, with 1 1/2; for this is the relative value of the iambus. Occurring in the trochaic rhythm, we give it, of course, the same accentuation. For the complex 1 1/2, however, it would be advisable to substitute the simpler expression 3 2 [[3/2]], which amounts to the same thing.

In this system of accentuation Mr. Cranch's lines, quoted above, would thus be written:

In the ordinary system the accentuation would be thus:

It must first be observed, here, that I do not grant this to be the “ordinary” scansion. On the contrary, I never yet met the man who had the faintest comprehension of the true scanning of these lines, or of such as these. But granting this to be the mode in which our Prosodies would divide the feet, they would accentuate the syllables as just above.

Now, let any reasonable person compare the two modes. The first advantage seen in my mode is that of simplicity — of time, labor, and ink saved. Counting the fractions as two accents, even, there will be found only twenty-six accents to the stanza. In the common accentuation there are forty-one. But admit that all this is a trifle, which it is not, and let us proceed to points of importance. Does the common accentuation express the truth, in particular, in general, or in any regard? Is it consistent with itself? Does it convey either to the ignorant or to the scholar a just conception of the rhythm of the lines? Each of these questions must be answered in the negative. The crescents, being precisely similar, must be understood as expressing, all of them, one and the same thing; and so all prosodies have always understood them and wished them to be understood. They express, indeed, “short” — but this word has all kinds of meanings. It serves to represent (the reader is left to guess when) sometimes the half, sometimes the third, sometimes the fourth, and sometimes the sixth, of “long” — while “long” itself, in the books, is left undefined and undescribed. On the other hand, the horizontal accent, it may be said, expresses sufficiently well, and unvaryingly, the syllables which are meant to be long. It does nothing of the kind. This horizontal accent is placed over the cæsura (wherever, as in the Latin Prosodies, the cæsura is recognized) as well as over the ordinary long syllable, and implies anything and everything, just as the crescent. But grant that it does express the ordinary long syllables, (leaving the cæsura out of question,) have I not given the identical expression, by not employing any expression at all? In a word, while the Prosodies, with a certain number of accents, express precisely nothing whatever, I, with scarcely half the number, have expressed everything which, in a system of accentuation, demands expression. In glancing at my mode in the lines of Mr. Cranch, it will be seen that it conveys not only the exact relation of the syllables and feet, among themselves, in those particular lines, but their precise value in relation to any other existing or conceivable feet or syllables, in any existing or conceivable system of rhythm.

The object of what we call scansion is the distinct making [[marking]] of the rhythmical flow. Scansion without accents or perpendicular lines between the feet — that is to say scansion by the voice only — is scansion to the ear only; and all very good in its way. The written scansion addresses the ear through the eye. In either case the object is the distinct making [[marking]] of the rhythmical, musical, or reading flow. There can be no other object and there is none. Of course, then, the scansion and the reading flow should go hand in hand. The former must agree with the latter. The former represents and expresses the latter; and is good or bad as it truly or falsely represents and expresses it. If by the written scansion of a line we are not enabled to perceive any rhythm or music in the line, then either the line is [[un]]rhythmical or the scansion false. Apply all this to the English lines which we have quoted, at various points, in the course of this article. It will be found that the scansion exactly conveys the rhythm, and thus thoroughly fulfils the only purpose for which scansion is required.

But let the scansion of the schools be applied to the Greek and Latin verse, and what result do we find? — that the verse is one thing and the scansion quite another. The ancient verse, read aloud, is in general musical, and occasionally very musical. Scanned by the Prosodial rules we can, for the most part, make nothing of it whatever. In the case of the English verse, the more emphatically we dwell on the divisions between the feet, the more distinct is our perception of the kind of rhythm intended. In the case of the Greek and Latin, the more we dwell the less distinct is this perception. To make this clear by an example:

Now in reading these lines, there is scarcely one person in a thousand who, if even ignorant of Latin, will not immediately feel and appreciate their flow — their music. A prosodist, however, informs the public that the scansion runs thus:

Now I do not deny that we get a certain sort of music from the lines if we read them according to this scansion, but I wish to call attention to the fact that this scansion and the certain sort of music which grows out of it, are entirely at war not only with the reading flow which any ordinary person would naturally give the lines, but with the reading flow universally given them, and never denied them, by even the most obstinate and stolid of scholars.

And now these questions are forced upon us — “Why exists this discrepancy between the modern verse with its scansion, and the ancient verse with its scansion?” — “Why, in the former case, are there agreement and representation, while in the latter there is neither the one nor the other?” or, to come to the point, — “How are we to reconcile the ancient verse with the scholastic scansion of it?” This absolutely necessary conciliation — shall we bring it about by supposing the scholastic scansion wrong because the ancient verse is right, or by maintaining that the ancient verse is wrong because the scholastic scansion is not to be gainsaid?

Were we to adopt the latter mode of arranging the difficulty, we might, in some measure, at least simplify the expression of the arrangement by putting it thus — Because the pedants have no eyes, therefore the old poets had no ears.

“But,” say the gentlemen without the eyes, “the scholastic scansion, although certainly not handed down to us in form from the old poets themselves (the gentlemen without the ears,) is nevertheless deduced, Baconially, from certain facts which are supplied us by careful observation of the old poems.[[“]]

And let us illustrate this strong position by an example from an American poet — who must be a poet of some eminence, or he will not answer the purpose. Let us take Mr. Alfred B. Street. I remember these two lines of his:

With the sense of these lines I have nothing to do. When a poet is in a “fine phrensy” he may as well imagine a large forest as a small one — and “by blazes!” is not intended for an oath. My concern is with the rhythm, which is iambic.

Now let us suppose that, a thousand years hence, when the “American language” is dead, a learned prosodist should be deducing from “careful observation” of our best poets, a system of scansion for our poetry. And let us suppose that this prosodist had so little dependence in the generality and immutability of the laws of Nature, as to assume in the outset, that, because we lived a thousand years before his time and made use of steam-engines instead of mesmeric balloons, we must therefore have had a very singular fashion of mouthing our vowels, and altogether of hudsonizing our verse. And let us suppose that with these and other fundamental propositions carefully put away in his brain, he should arrive at the line,

Finding it in an obviously iambic rhythm, he would divide it as above, and observing that “trunks” made the first member of an iambus, he would call it short, as Mr. Street intended it to be. Now farther: — if instead of admitting the possibility that Mr. Street, (who by that time would be called Street simply, just as we say Homer) — that Mr. Street might have been in the habit of writing carelessly, as the poets of the prosodist's own era did, and as all poets will do (on account of being geniuses) — instead of admitting this, suppose the learned scholar should make a “rule” and put it in a book, to the effect that, in the American verse, the vowel u, when found embedded among nine consonants, was short. What, under such circumstances, would the sensible people of the scholar's day have a right not only to think, but to say of that scholar? — why, that he was “a fool, — by blazes!”

I have put an extreme case, but it strikes at the root of the error. The “rules” are grounded in “authority” — and this “authority” — can any one tell us what it means? or can any one suggest anything that it may not mean? Is it not clear that the “scholar” above referred to, might as readily have deduced from authority a totally false system as a partially true one? To deduce from authority a consistent prosody of the ancient metres would indeed have been within the limits of the barest possibility; and the task has not been accomplished, for the reason that it demands a species of ratiocination altogether out of keeping with the brain of a bookworm. A rigid scrutiny will show that the very few “rules” which have not as many exceptions as examples, are those which have, by accident, their true bases not in authority, but in the omniprevalent laws of syllabification; such, for example, as the rule which declares a vowel before two consonants to be long.

In a word, the gross confusion and antagonism of the scholastic prosody, as well as its marked inapplicability to the reading flow of the rhythms it pretends to illustrate, are attributable, first to the utter absence of natural principle as a guide in the investigations which have been undertaken by inadequate men; and secondly to the neglect of the obvious consideration that the ancient poems, which have been the criteria throughout, were the work of men who must have written as loosely, and with as littla [[little]] definitive system, as ourselves.

Were Horace alive to day [[today]], he would divide for us his first Ode thus, and “make great eyes” when assured by the prosodists that he had no business to make any such division:

Read by this scansion, the flow is preserved; and the more we dwell on the divisions, the more the intended rhythm becomes apparent. Moreover, the feet have all the same time; while, in the scholastic scansion, trochees — admitted trochees — are absurdly employed as equivalents to spondees and dactyls. The books declare, for instance, that Colle, which begins the fourth line, is a trochee, and seem to be gloriously unconscious that to put a trochee in apposition with a longer foot, is to violate the inviolable principle of all music, time.

It will be said, however, by “some people” that I have no business to make a dactyl out of such obviously long syllables as sunt, quos, cur. Certainly I have no business to do so. I never do so. And Horace should not have done so. But he did. Mr. Bryant and Mr. Longfellow do the same thing every day. And merely because these gentleman [[gentlemen]], now and then, forget themselves in this way, it would be hard if some future prosodist should insist upon twisting the “Thanatopsis,” or the “Spanish Student,” into a jumble of trochees, spondees, and dactyls.

It may be said, also, by some other people that in the word decus, I have succeeded no better than the books, in making the scansional agree with the reading flow; and that decus was not pronounced decus. I reply that there [[can be]] no doubt of the word having been pronounced, in this case, decus. It must be observed that the Latin case, or variation of a noun in its terminating syllables, caused the Romans — must have caused them to pay greater attention to the termination of a noun than to its commencement, or than we do to the terminations of our nouns. The end of the Latin word established that relation of the word with other words, which we establish by prepositions. Therefore, it would seem infinitely less odd to them than it does to us, to dwell at any time, for any slight purpose, abnormally, on a terminating syllable. In verse this license, scarcely a license, would be frequently admitted. These ideas unlock the secret of such lines as the

and the

which I quoted, some time ago, while speaking of rhyme.

As regards the prosodial elisions, such as that of rem before O, in pulverem Olympicum, it is really difficult to understand how so dismally silly a notion could have entered the brain even of a pedant. Were it demanded of me why the books cut off one vowel before another, I might say — it is, perhaps, because the books think that, since a bad reader is so apt to slide the one vowel into the other at any rate, it is just as well to print them ready-slided. But in the case of the terminating m, which is the most readily pronounced of all consonants, (as the infantile mama will testify,) and the most impossible to cheat the ear of by any system of sliding — in the case of the m, I should be driven to reply that, to the best of my belief, the prosodists did the thing, because they had a fancy for doing it, and wished to see how funny it would look after it was done. The thinking reader will perceive that, from the great facility with which em may be enunciated, it is admirably suited to form one of the rapid short syllables in the bastard dactyl (pulve₃re₃em O₃) — but because the books had no conception of a bastard dactyl, they knocked it in the head at once — by cutting off its tail.

Let me now give a specimen of the true scansion of another Horatian measure; embodying an instance of proper elision.

Here the regular recurrence of the bastard iambus [[dactyl]], gives great animation to the rhythm. The e before the a in que arcu is, almost of sheer necessity, cut off — that is to say, run into the a [[a]] so as to preserve the spondee. But even this license it would have been better not to take.

Had I space, nothing would afford me greater pleasure than to proceed with the scansion of all the ancient rhythms, and to show how easily, by the help of common sense, the intended music of each and all can be rendered instantaneously apparent. But I have already overstepped my limits, and must bring this paper to an end.

It will never do, however, to omit all mention of the heroic hexameter.

I began the “processes” by a suggestion of the spondee as the first step towards verse. But the innate monotony of the spondee has caused its disappearance, as the basis of rhythm, from all modern poetry. We may say, indeed, that the French heroic — the most wretchedly monotonous verse in existence — is, to all intents and purposes, spondaic. But it is not designedly spondaic — and if the French were ever to examine it at all, they would no doubt pronounce it iambic. It must be observed that the French language is strangely peculiar in this point — that it is without accentuation and consequently without verse. The genius of the people, rather than the structure of the tongue, declares that their words are, for the most part, enunciated with an [[a]] uniform dwelling on each syllable. For example, we say “syllabification.” A Frenchman would say syl-la-bi-fi-ca-ti-on; dwelling on no one of the syllables with any noticeable particularity. Here again I put an extreme case, in order to be well understood; but the general fact is as I give it — that comparatively, the French have no accentuation. And there can be nothing worth the name of verse, without. Therefore, the French have no verse worth the name — which is the fact, put in sufficiently plain terms. Their iambic rhythm so superabounds in absolute spondees as to warrant me in calling its basis spondaic; but French is the only modern tongue which has any rhythm with such basis; and even in the French, it is, as I have said, unintentional.

Admitting, however, the validity of my suggestion that the spondee was the first approach to verse, we should expect to find, first, natural spondees, (words each forming just a spondee,) most abundant in the most ancient languages, and, secondly, we should expect to find spondees forming the basis of the most ancient rhythms. These expectations are in both cases confirmed.

Of the Greek hexameter, the intentional basis is spondaic. The dactyls are the variation of the theme. It will be observed that there is no absolute certainty about their points of interposition. The penultimate foot, it is true, is usually a dactyl; but not uniformly so; while the ultimate, on which the ear lingers is always a spondee. Even that the penultimate is usually a dactyl may be clearly referred to the necessity of winding up with the distinctive spondee. In corroboration of this idea, again, we should look to find the penultimate spondee most usual in the most ancient verse; and, accordingly, we find it more frequent in the Greek than in the Latin hexameter.

But besides all this, spondees are not only more prevalent in the heroic hexameter than dactyls, but occur to such an extent as is even unpleasant to modern ears, on account of monotony. What the modern chiefly appreciates and admires in the Greek hexameter[[,]] is the melody of the abundant vowel sounds. The Latin hexameters really please very few moderns — although so many pretend to fall into ecstasies about them. In the hexameters quoted, several pages ago, from Silius Italicus, the preponderance of the spondee is strikingly manifest. Besides the natural spondees of the Greek and Latin, numerous artificial ones arise in the verse of these tongues on account of the tendency which case has to throw full accentuation on terminal syllables; and the preponderance of the spondee is farther ensured by the comparative [[in]]frequency of the small prepositions which we have to serve us instead of case, and also the absence of the diminutive auxiliary verbs with which we have to eke out the expression of our primary ones. These are the monosyllables whose abundance serve to stamp the poetic genius of a language as tripping or dactylic.

Now paying no attention to these facts, Sir Philip Sidney, Professor Longfellow, and innumerable other persons more or less modern, have busied themselves in constructing what they supposed to be “English hexameters on the model of the Greek.” The only difficulty was that (even leaving out of question the melodious masses of vowel,) these gentlemen never could get their English hexameters to sound Greek. Did they look Greek? — that should have been the query; and the reply might have led to a solution of the riddle. In placing a copy of ancient hexameters side by side with a copy (in similar type) of such hexameters as Professor Longfellow, or Professor Felton, or the Frogpondian Professors collectively, are in the shameful practice of composing “on the model of the Greek,” it will be seen that the latter (hexameters, not professors) are about one third longer to the eye, on an average, than the former. The more abundant dactyls make the difference. And it is the greater number of spondees in the Greek than in the English — in the ancient than in the modern tongue — which has caused it to fall out that while these eminent scholars were groping about in the dark for a Greek hexameter, which is a spondaic rhythm varied now and then by dactyls, they merely stumbled, to the lasting scandal of scholarship, over something which, on account of its long-leggedness, we may as well term a Feltonian hexameter, and which is a dactylic rhythm, interrupted, rarely, by artificial spondees which are no spondees at all, and which are curiously thrown in by the heels at all kinds of improper and impertinent points.

Here is a specimen of the Longfellow hexameter:

Mr. Longfellow is a man of imagination — but can he imagine that any individual, with a proper understanding of the danger of lock-jaw, would make the attempt of twisting his mouth into the shape necessary for the emission of such spondees as “parents,” or such dactyls as “cleaned and the” and “loved ones of?” “Baptism” is by no means a bad spondee — perhaps because it happens to be a dactyl; — of all the rest, however, I am dreadfully ashamed.

But these feet — dactyls and spondees, all together, — should thus be put at once into their proper position:

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This is excellent prose; but no species of manipulation can torture it into anything better than very indifferent verse.

Whatever defects may be found in the harmony of our poets, their errors of melody are still more conspicuous. Here the field is, comparatively, one of little extent. The versifier, who is at all aware of the nature of the rhythms with which he is engaged, can scarcely err, in melody, unless through carelessness, or affectation. The rules for his guidance are simple and few. He should employ his syllables, as nearly as possible, with the accentuation due in prose reading. His short syllables should never be encumbered with many consonants, and especially, never with those difficult of pronunciation. His long syllables should depend as much as possible upon full vowels or dipthongal sounds for length. His periods, or equivalent pauses, should not be so placed as to interrupt a rhythm. Farther than this, little need be said. It is, therefore, justly matter for surprise, when we meet, amid the iambics of so fine a versifier as Mr. Bryant, for example, such lines as

or, still worse, as

in the latter of which we can preserve the metre only by drawing out “influence” into three strongly-marked syllables, shortening the long monosyllable “Lo,” and lengthening the short one “their.”

In turning over a poem by Alfred B. Street, my attention is arrested by these lines:

Every reader will here perceive the impossibility of pronouncing “trunks” as a short syllable. The difficulty arises from the number of harsh consonants by which the vowel, u, is surrounded. 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. If, nevertheless, from the natural limit to man's power of syllabification, a vowel before two consonants is inevitably long, how shall we properly understand as short, one which is embedded among nine? Yet Mr. Street is one of our finest versifiers, and his error is but one of a class in which all his brethren most pertinaciously indulge.

But I must bring this paper to a close. It will not be supposed that my object has been a treatise upon verse. A world more than I have room to say might be said. I have endeavored to deal with principles while seeming busy with details. A right application of these principles will clear up much obscurity in our common acceptation of rhythm; but, throughout, it has been my design not so much thoroughly to investigate the topic, as to dwell upon those salient points of it which have been either totally neglected, or inefficiently discussed.

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Mr. Longfellow is a man of imagination — but can he imagine that any individual, with a proper understanding of the danger of lock-jaw, would make the attempt of twisting his mouth into the shape necessary for the emission of such spondees as “parents,” or such dactyls as “cleaned and the” and “loved ones of?” “Baptism” is by no means a bad spondee — perhaps because it happens to be a dactyl; — of all the rest, however, I am dreadfully ashamed.

But these feet — dactyls and spondees, all together, — should thus be put at once into their proper position:

There! — that is respectable prose; and it will incur no danger of ever getting its character ruined by any body's mistaking it for verse.

But even when we let these modern hexameters go, as Greek, and merely hold them fast in their proper character of Longfellownian, or Feltonian, or Frogpondian, we must still condemn them as having been committed in a radical misconception of the philosophy of verse. The spondee, as I observed, is the theme of the Greek line. Most of the ancient hexameters begin with spondees, for the reason that the spondee is the theme; and the ear is filled with it as with a burden. Now the Feltonian dactylics have, in the same way, dactyls for the theme, and most of them begin with dactyls — which is all very proper if not very Greek — but, unhappily, the one point at which they are very Greek is that point, precisely, at which they should be nothing but Feltonian. They always close with what is meant for a spondee. To be consistently silly, they should die off in a dactyl.

That a truly Greek hexameter cannot, however, be readily composed in English, is a proposition which I am by no means inclined to admit. I think I could manage the point myself. For example:

The proper spondee predominance is here preserved. Some of the dactyls are not so good as I could wish — but, upon the whole, the rhythm is very decent — to say nothing of its excellent sense.

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* The “English Grammar” of Goold Brown.

* Even the regular dactyl in the penultimate foot is often displaced by a spondee, in Latin Hexameters.

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*  Some few passages of this article appeared, about four years ago, in “The Pioneer,” a monthly Magazine published by J. R. Lowell and R. Carter. Although an excellent work it had a very limited circulation.

*  Verse, from the Latin vertere, to turn, is so called on account of the turning or recommencement of the series of feet. Thus a verse, strictly speaking, is a line. In this sense, however, I have preferred using the latter word alone; employing the former in the general acceptation given it in the heading of this paper.

*  A stanza is often vulgarly, and with gross impropriety, called a verse.

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