Many are the thoughts that come to me
    In my lonely musing;
And they drift so strange and swift
    There's no time for choosing
Which to follow; for to leave
    Any, seems a losing.

Many are the | thöughts thât | cöme tô | më.

    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 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 these 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 rhythms 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 | cannot do better than quote a poem:

Pease porridge hot Pease porridge cold
Pease porridge in the pot — nine days old.

Pease | porridge | hot | Pease | porridge | cold |
Pease | porridge | in the | pot | nine | days | old. |

Many are the | thoughts that | come to | me, |

    The two divisions (thoughts that) and (come to) are ordinary trochees. The first division (many are the) would be thus accented by the Greek Prosodies (many are the), and would be called by them aaTpoNoyos. The Latin books would style the foot Paeon 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 | 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 ( v ) accenting these syllables. We must devise for them some new character which shall denote the sixth of long. Let it be ( c ) — the crescent placed with the curve to the left. The whole foot (many are the) might be called a quick trochee.

    We now come 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 caesura — 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 iambuses, trochees, dactyls, or anapaests. 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:

I have | a lit | tle step | son | of on | ly three | years old. |

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

Pale as a | lily was | Emily | Gray.

I have accented the caesura 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 enunciation, 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 trapping 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 | 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 anapaests 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:

The wa | ter li | ly sleeps | in pride |
Döwn în thê | dëpths ôf  thê | äzüre | lake. |

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

I shall now best proceed in quoting the initial lines of Byron's "Bride of Abydos":

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
    Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle
    Now melt into softness, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in their bloom?
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute —
              .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .     .
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine?
'Tis the land of the East — 'tis the clime of the Sun —
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?
Oh, wild as the accents of lovers' farewell
Are the hearts that they bear and the tales that they tell.

    The Grammars said nothing about dactylic lines, and it was easily seen that these lines were at least meant for dactylic. The first one was, therefore, thus divided:

Knöw yê thê | länd whêre thê | cyprêss ând | mÿrtlê. |

The concluding foot was a mystery; but the Prosodies said something about the dactylic "measure" calling now and then for a double rhyme; and the court of inquiry were content to rest in the double rhyme, without exactly perceiving what a double rhyme had to do with the question of an irregular foot. Quitting the first line, the second was thus scanned:

äre êmblêms | öf deêds thât | äre dône în | thëir clîme. |

— ëmblêms ôf | deêds thât âre | döne în thêir | clîme. |

    Now, had this court of inquiry been in possession of even the shadow of the philosophy of Verse, they would have had no trouble in reconciling this oil and water of the eye and ear, by merely scanning the passage without reference to lines, and, continuously, thus:

    Know ye the | land where the | cypress and | myrtle Are | emblems of | deeds that are | done in their | clime Where the | rage of the | vulture the | love of the | turtle Now | melt into | softness now | madden to | crime | Know ye the | land of the | cedar and | vine Where the | flowers ever | blossom the | beams ever | shine And the | light wings of | Zephyr op | pressed by per | fume Wax | faint o'er the | gardens of | Gul in their I bloom Where the | citron and | olive are | fairest of | fruit And the | voice of the | nightingale | never is | mute Where the | virgins are | soft as the | roses they | twine And | all save the | spirit of | man is di | vine. 'Tis the | land of the | East 'tis the | clime of the | Sun Can he | smile on such | deeds as his | children have | done Oh | wild as the | accents of | lovers' fare | well Are the | hearts that they | bear and the | tales that they | tell.

Here "crime" and "tell" (italicised) are caesuras, 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 anapaestic 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 "tunne And" to make out the rhyme 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 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," a 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 offense.

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: —

Know ye the | land where the |

Know ye the | land where the | cypress and |

Know ye the | land where the | cypress and | myrtle are |

Know ye the | land where the | cypress and | myrtle are | emblems of  |

Know ye the —
Land where the —

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

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle,

    In the foot "flowers ever" we shall find a further exemplification of the principle of 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 (many 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, en, 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 anapaest, whose nature I now need be at no trouble in explaining, will of course occur now and then in an anapestic 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 z, placed beneath the syllable; the last syllable, being long, should be unaccented; the whole would be thus (co₂ntrol). In a trochee, these accents would be merely converse, thus (manl₂y). In a dactyl, each of the
two final syllables, being the half of long, should also be accented with a small ~ beneath the syllable; and the first syllable left unaccented, the whole would be thus (happi₂nes₂s). In an anapaest we should converse the dactyl thus (i₂n the₂ 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 (flower₃s  e₃ve₃r). In the bastard anapaest we should converse the bastard dactyl thus (i₃n th₃e re₃bound). 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, (i₄n th₄e 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 (man₆y  a₆re  th₆e). The quick iambus is not yet created, and most probably never will be; for it will be excessively useless, awkward, and liable to misconception — as | have already shown that even the quick trochee is; — but, should it appear, we must accent it by conversing the quick trochee. The caesura being variable m 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 caesura, occurring in a spondaic rhythm, would be accented with a small 2 above the syllable or rather foot. Occurring in a dactylic or anapaestic rhythm, we also accent t with the 2 above the foot. Occurring in an iambic rhythm, however it must be accented above with 11/2; for this is the relative value of the iambus. Occurring m the trochaic rhythm, we give it of course the same accentuation. For the complex 11/2, however, it would be advisable to substitute the simpler expression 3/2, which amounts to the same thing

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

Many₆  are₆  the₆ | thoughts tha₂t | come to₂ | m^3/2e
In my₂ | lonely₂ | musi₂ng |
And the₂y | drift so₂ | strange a₂nd | swi^3/2ft
There's no₂ | time for₂ | choos₂ing I
Which to₂ | follow₂ | for to₂ | lea^3/2ve
Any₂, | seems a₂ | losi₂ng. I

Mänÿ arê thê | thöughts thât | cöme tô | më
in mÿ | lönelÿ | müsîng, |
änd thêy | drïft sô | stränge ând | swïft |
Thëre's nô | tïme fôr | choösîng |
Whïch tô | föllôw, | för tô | lëave
änÿ, | sëems â | lösîng. |

    It must be observed here that | 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 models. The first advantage seen in my mode is that of simplicity, or time, labour, 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, 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 caesura (wherever, as in the Latin Prosodies, the caesura is recognised) 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 caesura 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 marking of the rhythmical flow. Scansion with 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 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 unrhythmical or the scansion false. Apply all this to the English lines which we have quoted at various points in the course of thugs article. It will be found that the scansion exactly conveys the rhythm, and thus thoroughly fulfill 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:

Maecenas atavis edite regibus,
O, et presidium et dulce decus meum,
Sunt quos curricula pulverem Olympicum
Colle gisse juvat, metaque fervidis
Evitata rotis, palmaque nobilis
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos.

Maace | nas ala | vis | edite | regibus |
O, et | pra sidi' | et | dulce de | cus meum |
Sunt quos | curricu | lo | pulver'O | Iympicum |
Colle | gisse ju | vat | metaque | fervidis |
Evi | tata ro | tis | palmaque | nobilis |
Terra | rum domi | nos | evehit | ad Deos. |

    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 or 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

    "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 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:

His sinuous path, by blazes, wound
Among trunks grouped in myriads round.

    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 mounting our vowels, and altogether of Hudsoning 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 —

Among | trunks grouped | in my | riads round.

    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 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 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 little definitive system as ourselves.

    Were Horace alive to-day, 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!

Mæce₂na₂s | at₂avi₂s | edi₂te ₂| regib₂u₂s |
O e₂t præ₂ | sid₃iu₃m et₃ | dulce₂ de₂ | cus me₂u₂m |
Sunt qu₂os cu₂r | ricu₂lo₂ | pulve₃re₃m O₃ | Lympi₂cu₂m |
Colle₃gi₃sse₃ | juvat | meta₂qu₂e | fervi₂dis₂ |
Evi₃ta₃ta₃ | rotis | palma₂qu₂e | nobi₂lis₂ |
Terra₂ru₂m | domi₂no₂s | eve₂hi₂t | ad Deo₂s₂. |

    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 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 inflection, or variation of a word in its terminating syllables, caused the Romans — must have caused them — to pay greater attention to the termination of a word than to its commencement, or than we do to the termination of our words. The end of the Latin word established that relation of the word with other words which we establish by preposition or auxiliary verbs. 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

Litoreis ingens inventa sub illicibus sus,

Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.

    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 mamma will testify ), and the most impossible to cheat the ear of by any system of sliding — in the case of the m, | 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 (pu₃lver₃em O₃); but because the books had no conception of a bastard dactyl, they knocked it on 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.

Inte₂ge₂r | Vitæ | scele₃r₃isqu₃e | purus |
Non e₂ge₂t | Mauri | jacu₃li₃s ne₃ | que arcu |
Nec vene | natis | gravi₃da₃ sa₃ | gittis,
                Fusce₂, pha₂ | retrâ.

    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 nary 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 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 yew, 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 inflection has to throw full accentuation on terminal syllables, and the preponderance of the spondee is further ensured by the comparative infrequency 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 sewes 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:

Also the | church with | in was a | dorned for | this was the | season |
In which the | young their | parents' | hope and the | loved ones of | Heaven |
Should at the | foot of the | altar re | new the | vows of their | baptism |
Therefore each | nook and | corner was | swept and | cleaned and the | dust was |
Blown from the | walls and | ceiling and | from the | oil-painted | benches. |

Mr. Longfellow is a man of imagination, but can he imagine that any individual, with a proper understanding of the danger of lockjaw, would make the attempt of twisting his mouth into the shape necessary for the emission of, such spondees as "parents," and "from the," 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:"Also the church within was adorned; for this was the season in which the young, their parents' hope, and the loved ones of Heaven, should, at the foot of the altar, renew the vows of their baptism. Therefore, each nook and corner was swept and cleaned; and the dust was blown from the walls and ceiling, and from the oil-painted benches."

    There! — That is respectable prose, and it will incur no danger of ever getting its character ruined by anybody'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 Longfellowine, 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:

Do tell! | when may we | hope to make | men of sense | out of the | Pundits
Born and brought | up with their | snouts deep | down in the | mud of the | Frog-pond?
Why ask? | who ever | yet saw | money made | out of a | fat old
Jew, or | downright | upright | nutmegs | out of a | pine-knot?

    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.