APPENDIX. ON ENGLISH METRES. 1. THERE exists no work of any authority, so far as I am aware, upon the metres used by our poets, except Dr. Guest's History of English Rhythms, which is too long and too intricate for general use. In the absence then of better guidance, the following brief remarks on prosody, and classification of English metres, may be of use to students. 2. Accent is the emphasis which the speaker of a language which he thoroughly understands naturally lays on a particular syllable in each word. In conversation or reading, all words are accented except certain particles, which, as being simply links or connecting. rods, the voice desires to pass over as quickly as possible. 3. Every line containing more than three accents is divisible into two sections. The break between them is called the pause, or cæsura; it may be indicated by: [On the basis of the metrical section, Dr. Guest has erected a system of natural prosody for English rhythms, which explains and provides for them far better than the old classical prosody. Accent and contra-position are the soul of the natural system, feet and quantity of the classical system. But Dr. Guest's long and discursive work is not always clear, nor is it methodised so as to serve the purposes of the teacher. Provisionally, therefore, the classical system is retained in the following rules.] Metre is the arrangement into verse of definite measures of sounds, definitely accented. Thus the hexameter is the arrangement in lines of six equivalent quantities of sound, called feet, each of which consists, or has the value, of two long syllables, and is accented on the first syllable. The English heroic metre, when strictly regular, is the arrangement in rimed couplets of five feet, each foot being equivalent to an iambus (a short and a long syllable), and accented on the last syllable. In practice, spondees and trochees are often introduced, the accent is often laid on the first syllable of a foot, and there are frequently not more than four, sometimes not more than three, accents in a line. 4. Rime is the regular recurrence in metre of similar sounds. There are four principal kinds: the perfect, the alliterative, the 1 Originally published in 1838; but a re-issue has lately appeared under the efficient editorship of Professor Skeat. assonantal, and the consonantal. In the perfect rime, the riming syllables correspond throughout; in other words, they are identical. It is common in French poetry, but rare in English, e.g. :Selon divers besoins, il est une science D'étendre les liens de notre conscience.-MOLIÈRE. 5. The alliterative rime is the correspondence of the initial consonants of the riming syllables. This is the ordinary rhythm of the Anglo-Saxon, and also of the Scandinavian poetry, e.g. :Her Eadward cing: engla hlaford Sende sothfæste: sawle to criste On godes wiera: gast haligne. He on worulda hér: wunode prage On cyneprymme: cr'æftig ræda ; feower and twentig: freolic wealdend wintra gerimes: weolan brytnode.1 These lines, which represent the most common of Anglo-Saxon rhythms, have each four accents, and either three or two alliterative riming syllables, which are always accented. The alliterative letters are printed in italics. When the riming syllables begin with vowels, these vowels are usually different, though not always. 6. The assonantal rime is the correspondence of the cowels merely in the riming syllables. It is of two kinds: in the first the vowel ends the syllable; in the second it is followed by a consonant, or a consonant and vowel. The first kind occurs continually in English poetry; the second never; but it is a favourite rime with the Spanish poets. Examples: (1) If she seem not so to me, What care I how good she be? (2) Ferid los, cavalleros, por amor de caridad: Yo soy Ruy Diaz el Cid, Campeador de Bibar.—- 7. The consonantal rime is the ordinary rime of English poetry; it is the correspondence both of the vowel and the final consonant, or consonants, in the riming syllables. Example: Golden boys and girls all must, Like chimney sweepers, come to dust. 8. All that has been said hitherto applies only to single rimes, 1 At this time king Edward, lord of the Engle, Sent his righteous soul to Christ, According to God's covenant, a spirit holy. In kingly pomp, skilled in counsels. 2 Smite them, knights, for the love of charity; the masculine rime of the Italians. The double, or feminine rime, which is that commonly used in Italian poetry, is also common with The first syllables form always a consonantal or assonantal (No. 1) rime, the second syllables a perfect rime. Examples: us. Ecco da mille voci unitamen-te, Geru. Liber. And join with thee calm Peace and Qui-et, 9. In the triple rime, called sdrucciola by the Italians, the first syllables follow the same rule as in the double rime; the second and third must be, in English poetry at least, perfect rimes. Example:Kings may be blest, but Tam was glo-ri-ous, O'er all the ills of life victo-ri-ous. 10. Before proceeding further, it is necessary to enumerate the principal kinds of feet used in English poetry. A long syllable is represented by the mark (-), a short syllable by the mark (~).1 Two short syllables are equivalent to, or have the metrical value of, one long syllable; except at the end of a line, where one, two, and even occasionally three short syllables may be introduced ex abundanti, or by way of redundancy; and must be considered as having no metrical value. The feet most used are, English metres may be divided into, 1, the unrimed; 2, the rimed. UNRIMED METRES. 11. These, in which a comparatively small portion of our poetry is written, may be quickly disposed of. They are of three kinds, hexameters, blank verse, and choral metres. (1.) Hexameters.-The general rule governing the formation of English hexameters has been already given (see § 3); it need only 1 In English poetry, length or quantity depends almost entirely upon accent. Accented syllables are long, unaccented short. In Greek and Latin poetry, as is well known, quantity is something intrinsic in each syllable, and depends upon the nature of the vowel and the consonant or consonants following it. Our ears, trained to mark the accents only, take little notice of this kind of quantity; yet those poets who utterly neglect it, are felt to write roughly and unmelodiously, though most of us could not explain distinctly the grounds of the feeling. A Roman ear could not have endured such a dactyl as far in the, because to it the in would be made irredeemably long by position. This we scarcely notice; but even an English ear would stumble at such a dactyl, as e.g., far midst the. 2 Using the analogy of the Homeric déñas áμþɩkúreλdor I have, for the sake of convenience, substituted this term for the more usua amphibrachys,' from which it is impossible to form an adjective. be added that the last or sixth foot must always be a spondee, and the fifth ordinarily a dactyl, though a spondee is also admissible. Example: Felt she in myriad | springs her sources | far in the mountains | Stirring, collecting, | heaving, uprising, | forth out-flowing. CLOUGH. This is the only kind of English hexameter which is endurable; in it, as before observed (§ 3), the accent in each foot is on the first syllable. The words must therefore be so selected that the natural accent in each shall correspond with that required by the metre. If the lines given above be examined, this rule will be found to be observed; on whatever syllable of a word the metrical accent falls, that syllable will be found to be one which the voice naturally accentuates. Whether this was originally the case with the Greek and Latin hexameters, we do not know. So far as the present accentuation of Greek is concerned, if we admit that it represents the natural accent of the words as used by Homer, we must allow, either that Homer disregarded the natural accents, or that he did not follow our modern rule of invariably placing the metrical accent on the first syllable of each foot. Latin hexameters we pronounce to this day on the principle of always preserving what we suppose to be the natural accent of each word, whether that correspond to the metrical accent or not. The second line of the first Eneid is pronounced by us as follows: Italiam falto profulgus, La|vinaque | venit. That is, we disregard the metrical accent, which should fall on the first syllable of each foot (and actually does so in the fifth and sixth), and in reading the line give effect to the natural accents only, as we conceive them, of the words Italiam, fato, profugus. When English hexameters were first written, they were constructed in the same manner: they were to be read in the same way as Latin hexameters. The natural accent, except in the last two feet, overruled the metrical. Take, for instance, the following lines from Stanihurst's translation of the Eneid: Either here are couching some troops of | Greekish assembly, For to pry, surmounting the town; some practice or other If, in reading these lines we were to observe the rule given in § 3, and now always observed by those who write English hexameters, -of placing the accent on the first syllable of each foot,—the effect would be ridiculous, because the natural accent of the words would jar with that which we gave to them. They must therefore be read according to the natural accent; the effect is then rough and unpleasant, but not, as in the other case, absurd. Many hexameters of this description were written by Sidney, Phaier, and others. 12. (2) Blank verse.-This is a continuous metre, consisting, in its most perfect form, of lines containing five iambuses, each iambus |