Horne (of England), the author of »Orion,« one of the noblest epics in any language, thought it necessary to preface his »Chaucer Modernized« by a very long and evidently a very elaborate essay, of which the greater portion was occupied in a discussion of the seemingly anomalous foot of which we have been speaking. Mr. Home upholds Chaucer in its frequent use; maintains his superiority, on account of his so frequently using it, over all English versifiers; and, indignantly repelling the common idea of those who make verse on their fingers, that the superfluous syllable is a roughness and an error, very chivalrously makes battle for it as ›a grace.‹ That a grace it is, there can be no doubt; and what I complain of is, that the author of the most happily versified long poem in existence, should have been under the necessity of discussing this grace merely as a grace, through forty or fifty vague pages, solely because of his inability to show how and why it is a grace – by which showing the question would have been settled in an instant.

About the trochee used for an iambus, as we see in the beginning of the line,

 

Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,

 

there is little that need be said. It brings me to the general proposition that in all rhythms, the prevalent or distinctive feet may be varied at will, and nearly at random, by the occasional introduction of equivalent feet – that is to say, feet the sum of whose syllabic times is equal to the sum of the syllabic times of the distinctive feet. Thus the trochee whether, is equal in the sum of the times of its syllables, to the iambus, thou choose, in the sum of the times of its syllables; each foot being, in time, equal to three short syllables. Good versifiers, who happen to be, also, good poets, contrive to relieve the monotone of a series of feet, by the use of equivalent feet only at rare intervals, and at such points of their subject as seem in accordance with the startling character of the variation. Nothing of this care is seen in the line quoted above – although Pope has some fine instances of the duplicate effect. Where vehemence is to be strongly expressed, I am not sure that we should be wrong in venturing on two consecutive equivalent feet – although I cannot say that I have ever known the adventure made, except in the following passage, which occurs in »Al Aaraaf,« a boyish poem, written by myself when a boy. I am referring to the sudden and rapid advent of a star:

 

Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes

Alone could see the phantom in the skies,

When first the phantom's course was found to be

Headlong hitherward, o'er the starry sea.

 

In the ›general proposition‹ above, I speak of the occasional introduction of equivalent feet. It sometimes happens that unskilful versifiers, without knowing what they do, or why they do it, introduce so many ›variations‹ as to exceed in number the ›distinctive‹ feet; when the ear becomes at once balked by the bouleversement of the rhythm. Too many trochees, for example, inserted in an iambic rhythm, would convert the latter to a trochaic. I may note here, that, in all cases, the rhythm designed should be commenced and continued, without variation, until the ear has had full time to comprehend what is the rhythm. In violation of a rule so obviously founded in common-sense, many even of our best poets, do not scruple to begin an iambic rhythm with a trochee, or the converse; or a dactylic with an anapæst, or the converse; and so on.

A somewhat less objectionable error, although still a decided one, is that of commencing a rhythm, not with a different equivalent foot, but with a ›bastard‹ foot of the rhythm intended. For example:

 

Many a | thought will | come to | memory. |

 

Here many a is what I have explained to be a bastard trochee, and to be understood should be accented with inverted crescents. It is objectionable solely on account of its position as the opening foot of a trochaic rhythm. Memory, similarly accented, is also a bastard trochee, but unobjectionable, although by no means demanded.

The farther illustration of this point will enable me to take an important step.

One of the finest poets, Mr. Christopher Pease Cranch, begins a very beautiful poem thus:

 

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.

 

›A losing‹ to Mr. Cranch, of course – but this en passant. It will be seen here that the intention is trochaic, although we do not see this intention by the opening foot, as we should do – or even by the opening line. Reading the whole stanza, however, we perceive the trochaic rhythm as the general design, and so, after some reflection, we divide the first line thus:

 

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

 

Thus scanned, the line will seem musical. It is – highly so. And it is because there is no end to instances of just such lines of apparently incomprehensible music, that Coleridge thought proper to invent his nonsensical system of what he calls ›scanning by accents‹ – as if ›scanning by accents‹ were any thing more than a phrase. Wherever »Christabel« is really not rough, it can be as readily scanned by the true laws (not the supposititious rules) of verse as can the simplest pentameter of Pope and where it is rough (passim), these same laws will enable any one of common-sense to show why it is rough, and to point out, instantaneously, the remedy for the roughness.

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.