It now remains to treat in detail the various metres, which will be done on the following plan-march, trip, and quick severally, first unrhymed and then rhymed, the stanza forms subsequently apart. After that will come revert and all irregular and exceptional varieties, followed by examples of metres on other bases beside the foot.

A chapter on the rendering of Greek measures, and a slight summary, will conclude the work.

III.

MARCH METRE.-BLANK VERSE.

Ir has been premised that the term march will apply to all measures of the alternate beat, the second syllable accented.

Though, presumably, verses may be composed of any number of feet in moderation, yet in pure metre, uninfluenced, that is, by rhyme, this is found to be anything but the case in practice; one form, and one only, being of any real value for sustained linear use in any rhythm. In the metre before us that variety is of five feet, the most used of all English metres, that commonly styled blank verse. The term blank to imply unrhymed has become special to this one form, from its having been the earliest and for a long period the sole of the kind used; perhaps, also, not without a certain sarcastic reflection on the metre itself.

Simple as the verse is in primary structure, it admits many varieties-in one phase the verse of Milton, in another that of Shakspeare.

Even about a metre so long and extensively in vogue as this, far from clear and correct ideas are abroad.

In the first place there are two standing varieties of blank verse, perfectly distinct, and having hardly a single particularity in common. These are the epical, strict and artificial; and the dramatic, free and natural. So far there is little difficulty in classification, but between these two varieties

there is what, to give a comprehensive name, may be called the idyllic, which, as its nature inclines one way or other, partakes of the characteristics of both.

Variation operates upon the verse through four channels: regularity or otherwise of the accent; syllables additional; arrangement of the cesura; and lapse of the accent.

To give an idea of blank verse in its ordinary aspect, take the following from Cowper-about an average specimen of the way in which it is handled by most:

There is in souls || a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitched || the ear is pleased
With melting air or martial, || brisk or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, || and the heart replies.
How soft the music || of those village bells,
Falling at intervals || upon the ear
In cadence soft, || now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, || and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, || as the gale comes on.
With easy force || it opens all the cells

Where memory slept. | Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, || the scene recurs,

And with it || all its pleasures and its pains.

Respecting the use of an opening accent in the line above, 'Fálling at íntervals,' it may be as well to state at once that it is an accepted interchange throughout all verses that by rule would begin otherwise, and is not to be deemed an irregularity, for without it all such lines would open alike, accented on the second syllable, much too uniform to be pleasing. To style this usage as the strong beginning may perhaps be the best way of phrasing it.

Midline the recourse to this figure, to obtain an opening accent, can be obviated by cesura at the half-foot.

Since Michael and his powers went forth to tame

But the form, though then somewhat irregular, is not inadmissible even here.

back defeated to return,

They worse abhorred. Sátan beheld their flight.

Or again:

Where to lie hid. Séa he had searched, and land.

Dramatists and others use this licence without a full pause, or even stop at all, though not without cesura, for that cannot be obviated.

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Long lines of cliff breaking had left a chasm.

Cáve here, húnt here, are outlaws, and in time.
To pay the petty debt twenty times over.

This constitutes the first form of variation: to go on then to the second, or the change wrought by additional syllables. Tennyson uses such lines as

The prettiest little damsel in the port—

To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair-
Many a sad kiss, by day, by night, renewed.

But in the epic, a long narrative poem of an elevated character, additional syllables are rarely or never added, except under the figure of what is called elision; that is, where one vowel, mostly final, is supposed to cut off before another.

He ended, and his words their drooping cheer
Enlightened, and their languished hopes revived.
The invention all admired, and each how he
To be the inventor missed: so easy it seemed,

Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought
Impossible.

The author of 'Paradise Lost' adopted this practice in imitation of the ancients, but whether he meant it to extend to actual pronunciation is another question. Certainly in one instance above, so easy it seemed,' such an opinion cannot be entertained: why then suppose it in others? Should we not rather acknowledge a quick foot of smooth utterance, as in

6

Throws his steep flight in many an aëry whirl,

where surely every syllable is expressive, and to be expressed? But be it remarked that the reason why the melody of this

verse is of a superior kind is simply because the elision passes unperceived-small praise this to the figure of elision itself, simply showing that it is to vowel syllables added on and pronounced, not to any cut out, that the praise is due.

Two vowels meeting in adjoining syllables do not suffer offence in English unless sung: witness the opening words of the quotation above, 'He ended.' To slur away one vowel before another is, as a rule, inadmissible in speech, and to arrange metrically as if it could occur a consequent blemish. To insert a foot of three syllables, where one of two is expected, is a tacit assumption that such a foot can be pronounced in equivalent time, and tends to force an elided utterance, if in such an unfortunate situation the chance be offered. There may be a doubt as to which is most unpleasant, yielding to the tendency, or withstanding it, none whatever as to its general ill effects.

To point to the Latin as authority on this subject is idle. With an accented pronunciation elision is intolerable in that tongue too, and may have been even to the Romans for aught we can tell, though fashion made it go down, as to a certain extent with ourselves.

A vowel should never be cut out unless a word is thoroughly pronounceable without it. The word 'heaven' is not so without the second e: in verse, then, it must count as a dissyllable, however written. For the ill effects of supposing the contrary, see, with other remarks of the kind in quick verse where it concerns, Ch. VII. towards the end.

6

To cut out a consonant, on the other hand, often resolves a difficulty in pronunciation, not creates one; the use of i'the, o'the, to wit, for in the,' of the,' like o'er for over. Also the colloquiasms ''tis' and ''twas' may have something said for them as useful realities; but about a practice that would transform to highest' into 't'ighest,' there is no need to enlarge further.

Decisively elision in English, on whatever principle explained, by whatever great name backed, is to be systematically avoided; for, to say the least, there is no beauty in it,

C

and occasional unavoidability is its only excuse. The' is the only word with which the liberty should ever be taken, and the seldomer with that the better.

All alterations of words, such as yon for yonder, o'er for over, av'rice for avarice (bad), declar'st for declarest, with i'the, aforesaid, may be set down as poetic forms or licence; but mere suppression of such letters as e mute in display'd or in inspir'd, mere changes to the eye, are both absurd and idle as poetic peculiarities, not but that some phonetic reformation of English spelling is much needed.

In such a form as Cowper's, before given, 'where memory slept,' nothing seems gained by suppressing the o in memory, though it is an instance where the choice lies open.

Dramatists, not considering it incumbent on them to support a stately regularity, are altogether more free and easy in their style. An essential point is the admission of an extra odd syllable at the end of the line. In the highest class this is often the principal difference as far as syllables are con

cerned.

To be or not to be, that is the question:-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them ?—to die—to sleep-
No more;-and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.

The principle on which this usage may be accounted for appears to be, that, as only the number of accents, or at least of accentual places, are counted, this addition is metrically of little or no moment, thrown in; its bearing not so much that of anything added, as closely enclitic to the last word and accent it is entailed to. The name odd syllable over, or simply odd-over, will be sufficient to designate this custom for after reference. Uncouth if the proposed term be, it is surely outdone in this respect by the Greek term it is meant to supplant-hypercatalectic.