a translation from Schiller's Walk,' by Sir J. Herschel. It is far more readable than the simple hexameter form, on account of the variation in ending brought about by the so-called pentameters always written alternately with the other.

A pentameter, it should be said, is by rule of this build: central cesura, first member of two feet dactyl or spondee at will, with a long odd syllable over, ditto the last member, save that the feet are of dactyls always. Now for the example:

Sacred walls! from whose bosom the seeds of humanity, wafted
E'en to the farthest isles, morals and arts have conveyed.
Sages in these thronged gates in justice and judgment have spoken:
Heroes to battle have rushed hence for their altars and homes:
Mothers the while (their infants in arms), from the battlements gazing,
Follow with tears the host till in the distance it fades:
Then to the temples crowding and prostrate flung at the altars
Pray for their triumph and fame-pray for their joyful return.
Triumph and fame are theirs, but in vain their welcome expects them.
Read how th' exciting stone tells of their glorious deserts:
Traveller, when to Sparta thou comest, declare thou hast seen us
Each man slain at his post, e'en as the law hath ordained.
Soft be your honoured rest! with your precious life-blood besprinkled
Freshens the olive-bough-sparkles with harvest the plain.

And now to go on to other matters.

The most frequent error English writers of quick verse fall into, is that of overweighting the three-syllabled foot. The syllable of the three that it most behoves not to overburden is the middle one. As long as this position is occupied by part of a word with the accent elsewhere, there is little to apprehend; but when it comes to monosyllables, too much care cannot be taken. The more hedges and ditches that can be got over without a spill, the more seemingly of some literary steeplechasers the enjoyment. To these let there be left their sport, but also let those who wish to drive smoothly be informed of obstacles that lie in their path.

The worst stumblingblock in all English is the word 'our,' and the next, perhaps, the poetical 'flower.' The second of

these is acknowledged to be of two syllables; the first, owing to our absurd mode of spelling, only one, though nowise different virtually from the other. Flower, indeed, is more often than not in verse jotted down flow'r, with a mark of elision, and treated as a monosyllable; but in the muteness so common among English short vowels unaccented, this is not sufficient, the vowel still remains as much as ever; the mute required to pronounce the 'r' in our' is no otherwise circumstanced. Never must either or any other resembling word be treated as of less than two syllables, under any circumstances whatever.

6

Herein lies the awkwardness of our' above all other words. Too insignificant to receive the accent, it yet always demands the consideration of a dissyllable, which is rendered the more annoying by its frequent recurrence.

Mark the overloaded effect from treating these words as of one syllable only, and then cramming them into quick feet:

-

Reflecting our eyes as they sparkle and weep

To the delicate growth of our isle—

Their time with the flow'rs on the margin have wasted.

'Even,'' heaven,' and participles of this ending, are words most hap to be abused in the same way :

Nor ev'n in the hour when his heart is most gay

One bright drop or two that has fall'n on the leaves.

It is hardly too much to say, that nearly every piece of quick verse in English is more or less marred by this wilful procedure.

The chapter on false metre may not be an unsuitable place to introduce that of false emphasis, though there is no connection between the two subjects.

When a word is italicised, surely one would say that it is to indicate a more emphatic accent is to be thrown on that word; if not, why signalise it? But a syllable, strangely enough, is often italicised between accents, which it appears to be the writer's desire to fetch up like a dropped stitch. The ab

surdity of such an arrangement needs no pointing out, for the impossibility of emphasising a syllable in a position whence the accent is designedly excluded speaks for itself:

The budding sprouts of those that shall wear

you

Italics ought to be excluded from verse altogether; where there is anything emphatic for the accent to mark, the accent itself is the best thing to mark it with:

The

Ye would be dupes and victims, and ye áre.

the accent appears grave proper one to denote when a syllable commonly passed over receives separate pronunciation, as amazed; the acute when the beat itself receives any displacement, as harmonié.

Italics in verse are a pretty sure indication of something faulty, showing a latent idea in the writer's mind, that such and such a passage is not as expressive or emphatic as it was meant to be.

VIII.

QUICK VERSE RHYMED.

As remarked in the previous sections, the character of quick verse depends not only on the relative numbers of the two feet in combination, but as much or more on their relative position. The whole number of varieties may be grouped into two classes-that which has the metrical rise sustained on till the end of the verse, and that which has it succeeded by feet of slower progression.

First, the class in which the rise is sustained. Here it may be noticed more perhaps than anywhere how essentially the nature of English feet is one of pace; neither a matter of force nor of weight, nor of anything so much as slowness or quickness in exact proportion to the mixture of the feet of

those qualities in the verse. It is by and through pace that every effect in English verse comes about that depends on the foot arrangement for its cause. What other effects and

tones there are arise from other sources-latent melody, latent prosody, rhythmic cadencing, &c.

The selections will be chosen to illustrate as appropriately as may be the different degrees of speed, but it would be to multiply examples needlessly to cite apart every variation in this respect.

Two-foot quatrain :—

"Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;
No flow'r of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

Or give sigh for sigh !-T. MOORE,

Three-foot or six, as written:

The valley lay smiling before me,
When lately I left her behind;

Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me
That saddened the joy of my mind.

I looked for the lamp which she told me
Should shine when her pilgrim returned;

But though darkness began to infold me,

No lamp from the battlements burned.-T. MOORE.

Four-foot and three alternate, or seven as written :

The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower,
Which Mary to Anna conveyed;

The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,

And weighed down its beautiful head.

The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet,

And it seemed to a fanciful view,

To weep for the buds it had left with regret

On the flourishing bush where it grew.-CowPER,

I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms that a cottage was near;
And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that is humble may hope for it here.'
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.
'And here in this lone little wood,' I exclaimed,
'With a maid that was lovely to soul and to eye,
Who would blush if I praised her, and weep if I blamed,
How blest could I live and how calm could I die!'
Every leaf, &c.

Five-foot:

At the mid-hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think that if spirits can steal from the regions of air,
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remembered e'en in the sky.
Then I sing the wild song, which once 'twas rapture to hear,
When our voices both mingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, oh my love! 'tis thy voice from the kingdom of souls,
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear!

T. MOORE.

Verses wholly of quick feet, of which rhyme is not without examples, though they may be ranged most agreeably as a separate class, are in nature, but of the last instanced, raised to the utmost of speed. It might not be amiss to call them double quick:

He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.

The fount reappearing

From the raindrops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow.- -W. SCOTT.

Note the odd-over in every line, not allowed for in the

opening of the next.