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 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:

 

Mæcenas, atavis edite regibus,

O, et præsidium et dulce decus meum,

Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum

Collegisse juvat, metaque fervidis

Evitata rotis, palmaque nobilis

Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos.

 

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:

 

Mæce | nas ata | vis | edite | regibus |

O et | præsidi' | et | dulce de | cus meum |

Sunt quos | curricu | lo | pulver' O | lympicum |

Colle | gisse ju | vat | metaque | fervidis |

Evi | tata ro | tis | palmaque | nobilis |

Terra | rum domi | nos | evehit | ad Deos. |

 

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 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.

 

With the sense of these lines I have nothing to do. When a poet is in a ›fine frenzy,‹ 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, –

 

Among | trunks grouped | in my | riads round.

 

Finding it 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 imbedded 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.