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 propositions 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.

 

Oh thou whate | ver ti | tle please | thine ear |

Dean Dra | pier Bick | erstaff | or Gul | iver |

Whether | thou choose | Cervan | tes' se | rious air |

Or laugh | and shake | in Rab | elais' ea | sy chair. |

 

Were any one weak enough to refer to the prosodies for the 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 synœresis 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 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

 

or laugh | and shake | in Rab | elais' ea | sy chair, |

 

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 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 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 syllable is enunciated. That the syllables elais' ea do not compose an anapæst is evident, and the signs (aaa) of their accentuation are erroneous. The foot might be written thus (aaa), the inverted crescents expressing double quick time; and might be called a bastard iambus.

Here is a trochaic line:

 

See the delicate | footed | rein-deer. |

 

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 (aaa) 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 Messrs. 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

 

That binds him to a woman's delicate love –

In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm –

With its invisible fingers my loose hair.

 

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.