in such cases as Milton's "the infernal doors"=th' infernal; and in his

"Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,"

when there is also a case of slurring in ethereal. It is, perhaps, possible to substitute in these cases for elision a very rapid slurring. Where elision does not take place, we have Hiatus.

CHAPTER VII.

METRES OF ENGLISH VERSE.

§ I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

HAVING Considered the elements which make up our versification, it remains to treat English Metres themselves. The task is not easy. There is an infinite amount of contradiction about the very foundations of our verse. Mr. Ruskin asserts that stress "may be considered as identical with quantity" (preface to his Eng. Prosody). Mr. Henry Sweet, while granting that accent tends to lengthen a short syllable, and lack of accent tends to shorten a long syllable, says emphatically that quantity can not "be identified with stress." The union of quantity and accent is only a tendency; and Schipper's statement (quoted on p. 138) may be accepted as true. In all cases, we should base a metrical rule on observed facts; not, as the late Mr. Lanier did in his Science of English Verse, force a theory on all possible facts, whether carefully analyzed and tested, or not. Thus, there is much justice in Mr. Ruskin's statement that "the measures of verse have for second and more important function that of assisting and in part compelling clearness of utterance, thus enforcing with noble emphasis, noble words, and making them, by their audible symmetry, not only emphatic but memorable"; but it is only a statement, an observation, -nothing upon which we may found any rule. The

only method that can lead to good in the study of English verse is to make the study historical and analytical. Every conclusion must be based on a careful study of facts.

Then we have this difficult matter of nomenclature. Certain names for "feet" in classical metres — iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl—were long ago applied to English verse. But every one knows, or ought to know, that the classical iamb or dactyl is very different from the iamb or dactyl of modern poetry. Is it right, then, to apply to verse based on accents a term which properly applies only to verse based on quantity? The answers vary. Some say we may so apply the terms, bearing always in mind the difference of the two systems of verse. Others propose to drop the old terms, and substitute the "rising" foot of two or of three syllables (iamb, anapest), and the "falling" foot of two or of three syllables (trochee, dactyl). Still another class propose that we give up any distinction between iamb and trochee, or rising and falling, and in all cases begin the first foot of the verse with the first stress-syllable. The character of the verse will then be regulated (1) by the number of metrical stresses: as 3-accent verse, 5-accent, etc.; (2) by the presence or absence of a syllable or syllables before the first stress; and (3) by the number and distribution of unaccented syllables or of pauses. In marking the feet of a verse, some writers use upright lines to denote the relative stress: thus, iamb, trochee ||, anapest |||, dactyl |||. The old system is, however, retained by many :

Of these three answers, the advantage would lie with the last, were it not that it lacks precision when we

apply it to actual verse.

If we retain the old names,

we are able by a single word to give the general character of the verse. We may venture the decision that while it is productive of little good to insist on precise terms for the separate feet, we are justified in applying these old names to the general movement of the whole verse. We need not waste our time in establishing such results as Mr. Spedding's distinction of "quantity" as a dactyl, and “quiddity" as a tribrach. But we shall find it profitable and, in the present state of things, necessary, to speak of iambic or trochaic or anapestic or dactylic verse; - though in regard to the last Mr. Swinburne tells us (Studies in Song, p. 68) that "dactylic. . . forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent" to the English language. Our chief concern, therefore, will be for the metrical scheme underlying the verse. No one can read Pope, or even Shakspere and Milton, without being conscious of such a definite metrical scheme. In the so-called "heroic" verse used by these poets, the reader feels that the general scheme is a regular alternation of light and heavy syllables, opening with light and ending with heavy, this last stress being the fifth from the beginning. Remembering that quantity has only a general and "regulative” office here, and that accent is "the grave governour of numbers," there is no harm in calling this scheme iambic. The use of such a metrical scheme depends on the regularity of the verse. For long poems, and for those which follow Pope's advice about "smooth numbers," terms like iambic or dactylic apply very well. But a great mass of lyric verse is difficult to bring under definite metrical systems; for these poems, our only test

is to count the accents, and note the number and distribution of light syllables. In Milton's L'Allegro, out of 142 regular verses, 86 have the iambic, 56 the trochaic movement. But it is all practically the same metre. A trochaic movement, by the way, is not simply a verse which begins with an accented syllable. verse is

"Scatter the reár of dárkness thín,"

but it is iambic. There is trochaic movement in

"Stóutly strúts his dámes befóre."

Such a

But all "trochaic means here is that the light syllable of the first foot is dropped.

There is technically a change of movement from trochaic to iambic in the couplet,

"Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green;

but it is a very slight change. Cf. for shorter lyric work, William Blake's Tiger. - We conclude that the use of such terms as iambic or trochaic is, for these short lyric verses, of doubtful advantage. The unit of a modern verse is a stress-syllable together with one or two (rarely three) unaccented syllables. From two to (say) eight of these units may be combined to form a verse. Verses of more than eight "groups," or "bars," or "feet," cannot easily be recognized by the ear; four and five are popular numbers. Now, when each of these feet contains the same number of unaccented syllables (it must have one, and only one, rhythmically accented syllable), the verse is regular. When the number varies, the verse is irregular. The poem (L'Allegro) just cited is regular; the movement is a