No More Learning

This circumstance proves that the number of syllables (exclusive
of their accent or quantity) is a much' more important considera-
E
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? 50
Prosody.
decide the question in each particular case : but, how
that decision is to be obtained, I know not. In the
mean time, it may be proper to observe, that
wherever, in our Iambic metre, we find the appear-
ance of a dactyl, an anapaest, or a tribrachys, such
appearance usually presents itself in some word, or
combination of syllables, that is susceptible of syncope
or synseresis,--very rarely, if at all, in any others.
Now this circumstance alone is sufficient to authorise
a doubt whether those feet were ever intended : for,
if intended, why do they not as frequently occur in
words or combinations which admit no licence, and
in which the trisyllabic foot would evidently and
unquestionably appear ? That they do not, is cer-
tain : and this consideration naturally suggests the
following easy and simple mode of ascertaining how
far the dactyl, the anapaest, or the tribrachys, is an
ornament or a disparagement to our Iambic metre
--and, consequently, how far we ought to court or
avoid the appearance of such feet in poetic compo-
sition or recitation.
If, from any verse of ordinary construction, we
tion in our English poetry than in the Latin, where, without the
smallest difference in the metre, the heroic verse of six feet may
vary from thirteen to seventeen syllables, and the common six-
foot Iambic from twelve to eighteen. At the same time it fur-
nishes an argument against the hasty and unnecessary introduc-
tion of trisyllabic feet into our Iambic metre, to alter the number
of the syllables, on which our versification appears so much to
depend.
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? Prosody. 51
remove any number of syllables, and substitute an
equal number of others, exactly corresponding with
them in accent--although the sense may be im-
paired, the metre at least will still be perfect: e. gr.
Pelides' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
of woes unnumber'd, heav'nly goddess, sing.
The Frenchman's arts, to Spain the direful spring
of feuds and carnage, heav'nly goddess, sing.
Hark! the numbers, soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear.
Hark! the thunders, loud and clear,
Rudely burst upon the ear.
With horns and with trumpets, with fiddles and
drums,
They'll strive to divert him, as soon as he comes.
With dancing and concerts, with fiddles and drums,
They'll greet and amuse him, as soon as he comes.
Here, in three different species of verse, three dif-
ferent kinds of feet are altered : and yet, so far as
mere sound and metre are concerned, the altered lines
are equally good as the original. --Let us now apply
the same test to some of those Iambic verses, in
which a hasty reader might fancy that he perceives
some of the trisyllabic feet: e. gr.
Which ma-\-ny a bard | had chant-|-ed rnaA'ny a day.
O'er ma-\-ny afro-\-zzn,ma-\-ny afle-\-ry Alp.
In these lines, we four times discover the appear-
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? 5fi Prosody.
ance of anapaests, as marked *. If they be real ana-
paests, and the chastened ear approve them as such,
it will equally admit other, less questionable, ana-
paests in their stead. Let us try--
Which Ho-|->>jer the bard | had chant-l-ed once |
m hh day-
O'er hor-I-rid and fro-\-zen smo-\-king and fle-\-ij
Alps.
* I have seen these verses so scanned in print, as to make
| zeh? chmany\-e'dmany\ffer many \ -tin many | a fi% | so many
examples ? f the amphibrachys. But the amphibrachys (as well
observed by Mr. Dawes in his Miscellanea Critica) is not admis-
sible on the same footing with the spondee, the dactyl, or the
anapaest; and it is repugnant to the nature of our English versi-
fication, which requires the acaentson the first or last syllables of
Such feet as have any accent: for I cannot considrr the three
concluding- syllnbles of a double-rhiming Iambic as a single foot,
much less an amphibrachys, because the first anM second of these
syllables may be, and often are, both accented. --Besides, in the
following lines--the first from Dryden, the others from Gray--
. . . . By guns, invented since, \jtill md-\-ny a day--
Full ma-\-ny a gem | of purest ray serene
Full ma-\-ny a fiow'r | is born to blush unseen. . . .
we cannot make an amphibrachys of Full many, the word Full
requiring too strong an accent. Full ma- will necessarily be a
spondee; and, as-ny a must here, in each case, be together
t^ken into the following foot, we may heilce learn how to dis-
pose of the same syllables in the verses above quoted. --With re*
spect to the Fie- in Fiery, it must be considered as a single
syllable, and ought, indeed, (agreeably to its obvious'etymology)
to be written without the E, as Miry, Spiry, Wiry, from Mire,
Spirt, Wire.
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? Prosody. 53
If any reader, of poetic earj will seriously pro-
nounce these altered lines to be good and admissible
jesses, 1 have not one word more to say on the sub-
ject. But, if every pt i son of taste joins with me--.
as, no doubt, he will--in declaring tlujm 10 be most
detestable verses, or rather indeed no verses at all--N
then it seems to follow that the anapaest mars our
Iambic metre: for it is not merely the badness of
my anapaests that has done the mischief; as the
reader will, upon trial, experience the same result
from the introduction of any others, that have all
their syllables distinctly pronounced. In reading,
therefore, unless certain that a real anapaest occur*,
let us beware Of conjuring up anapaestic phantoms,
to scare away the metre and harmony of the lines---
especially when it is so easy to avoid them, as here, for
example, where we have only to employ a synoeresis
in ny a, and make each of those four feet an Iambus,
by rapidly pronouncing the two vowels as a single
syllable, as the IA in Britannia, Hibernia, Spa/iiaid,
Italian, Valiant, &c.
By a similar synaeresis, -ry aspires may be sounded
nearly as two syllables, to make an Iambus, in the
following line of Milton^--
. . . . Of ignominy; yet to glo-|-ry aspires--
and, in many other cases, an un-accented final vowel
may, without elision,, be made to coalesce with tl? e
initial vowel immediately following. In such words,
too, as Echoing, Following, Bellowing, the two latter
syllables may be rapidly sounded together as one
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? 54 Prosody.
by synasresis: and, in the following lines of Milton--
Of Ate-l-rarehies, of orders, and degrees--
The great | hierar-\-cha\ standard was to move--
the syllables, hi-e, become one by synajresis, as Liar
is made by Pope to rhime with 'Squire, and Higher
by Somerville*.
Let us now examine the dactyl and tribrachys,
which may, in appearance, be both found in the
following lines of Milton--
. . . Murmuring; | and, with him, fled the shades of
night--
. . \an\x-\-merable | before th'Almighty's throne.
But let us try a real dactyl, and a real tribrachys--.
. . . Sorrbaj/w/;|and,withhim,fled the shades of night--.
. . . Distin-\-gutshable \ before th'Almighty's throne,
*Iere again the real feet most sadly limp and faulter,
,<nd the lines bear little resemblance to verse ; while,
in the original, the apparent dactyl and tribrachys
move along with steady graceful step, and the lines
' are perfectly metrical. But the fact is, that we really
do not, in the utterance of those lines, pronounce
Murmuring as three complete syllables, or Innume-
rable as five: in each case, we instinctively and
* Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'squire;
The next, a tradesman, meek, and much a liar.
A 'squire of Wales, whose blood ran higher
Than that of any other 'squire. . . .
If, however, any person prefer the use of syncope, to make
lli'rarchies, Ei'rarchul, Li'r, lligh'r} I am not disposed to con-
test the point.
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? Prosody. ' 55
imperceptibly make a syncope, which converts Mur-
muring into a trochee, and Innumerable into an Iam-
bus and a Pyrrhic, thus -
. . . Murmring; and, with him, fled the shades of
night--
. . annu-\-? n'rdble I before th' Almighty's throne.
I do not, however, deny, that, on some very rare
occasions, a real dactyl, tribrachys, or anapaest, may
be productive of beauty, in the w. iy of picturesque
or imitative harmony. But, where there is not some
particular and striking effect of that kind to be pro-
duced by the trisyllabic foot, its admission, instead
of being contributive to harmony or beauty, gene-
rally proves inimical to both In tlie latter of those
two verses, for instance, it would have been much
better to load the line with slow heavy spondees, for
the purpose of retarding the reader's progress, and
affording him time for a leisurely survey of the
countless throng, than to hurry him away on the
wings of a rapid tribrachys, before he has enjoyed
one moment's pause, to cast his eyes around.
In the following line of Milton--
::Alljudgement, whe-\-ther inheav'n | or earth or hell-
it is not at all necessary to make a trisyllabic foot:
we can reduce it to a proper Iambus by pronouncing
wheth'r in, for which a\-q have the authority of
Swift--
And thus fanatic saints, though neith'r in
Doctrine or discipline our brethren--
furnishing a hint to adopt a similar expedient in
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? S6 Protody.
many other cases, which, at first sight, are calcu-
lated to embarrass the inexperienced reader*; a3,
for example, in this line of ')rvden--
The care-l-tul De-\ vii is stili | at hnnd with means--
we can easily pronounce Dev'l is short, as we do
Dsvlish, and make the third foot an Iambus
On the whole. I recommend to my voung readers,
never, without irresistible necessitv, to make a trisyl-
labic foot in Iambic or Trochaic verse. And here I
drop the subject for the present --intending, how-
ever, to treat it more largely and minutely on a future
occasion--said observing in the mean time, that, al-
though I have, in compliance with the ideas of
others, occasionally marked in the ''KEY" a tri-
syllabic foot in Iambic metre, 1 by no means wish
them to consider it as really such, but, by shortening
it in the pronunciation, to reduce it to an Iambus, a
Trochee, or a Pyrrhic, as the case may require.
The Casura.
As already observed in page 3, the Casura
(which literally means a cutting or division) is a
* Although some instances of synaeresis and syncope, such as
I recommend, may, to the English reader, appear harsh and
portentous, I fei 1 confident that the classical scholar, accustomed
to the roucli bolder licences of Homer, will account these En-
glish licences perfectly moderate and warrantable : and, as Mil-
ton was well versed in Greek and Human literature, we need
not be surprised that he should, in these as in many other re-
spects, have copied the practice of the ancients
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? Prosody. 57
pause, which usually takes place somewhere near
the middle of the verse, affording a convenient rest
for the voice, and enabling the reader or speaker to
renew die effort necessary for the delivery of the
entire line; ten successive syllables, uttered toge-
ther in unbroken tenor, . being in general too many
to be pronounced with proper emphasis, and clue
poetic effect.
The most advantageous position for the caesura is
generally held to be after the fourth, fifth, or sixth
syllable, though it occasionally takes place, without
disadvantage, after the third or seventh. Its position
is, for the most part, easily ascertained by the gram-
matic construction and the punctuation, which na-
turally indicate the place where the sense either re-
quires or admits a pause: e gr.
The saviour comes, 4|| by ancient bards foretold.
(Pope.
From storms a shelter,5|| and from heat a shade.
(Pope.
Exalt thy tow'ry head,6 || and lift thy eyes. (Pope.
Exploring,5|| till they find their native cleep. (Boyse.
Within that mystic circle,71| safety seek. (Boyse.
When the grammatic construction does not re-
quire any pause, and there is no punctuation to mark
the place for the caesura, more accurate discrimina-
tion is requisite to ascertain it: but, even in these
cases, it is, in general, a matter of no difficulty, for
a reader of any judgement, to discover, at first sight,
the proper station for the pause: e. gr.
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? ? 8 Prosody.
Virtue alone 4 [) is happiness below. (Pope.
With all the incense 5|| of the breathing spring.
(Pope.
Nor ardent warriors meet6 || * with hateful eyes.
(Pope.
Deluded 5|| with the visionary light. (Boyse.
Yet be not blindly guided "> || by the throng.
(Roscommon.
Sometimes we see the caesura take place after the
second syllable, or the eighth, as
Happy 1|| without the privilege of will. (Boyse.
In diff'rent individuals8 || we find. . . (Boyse.
for no reader of taste would separate the adjective
from its substantive in the latter of these verses, or
the preposition from its regimen in the former.
Sometimes, moreover^ the line requires or admits
two pauses, as
His cooks,1 || through long disuse, 6 || their trade
forgot. (Dryden.
Caesar,1|| the world's great master, 7 || and his own.
(Pope.
Or pierc'd, 1|| with half so painful grief, 8 || your
breast. (Dryden.
* If, by a (not very elegant) alteration of the final syllable, this
line were converted mto
Nor ardent warriors meet w. lh hateful foes--
the caesura should be made after Warriors : but to place it so in
Pope's line above, would entirely mar and pervert the sense, as
the reader will clearly perceive, on pronouncing the words
meet with together in close conjunction.
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? Prosody. 59
And goodness,J || like the sun, 6 || enlightens all.
(Boyse
And raise thee, 5|| from a rebel,7 || to a son. (Boyse.
Most perfect,J || most intelligent,8|| most wise. (Boyse.
From the examples above quoted, and innumerable
others occurring in the works of our most admired
poets, it will evidently appear that the British Muse
is much less fastidious with respect to the caesura,
than the Muse of ancient Rome--or, at least, the
Roman grammarians, who condemned, as " un-verse"
every line, however well constructed in other respects,
which had not the caesura in such or such particular
position*. In English--thanks to Phoebus and the
Nine! --no such rigid, pedantic, tasteless lawjjfrtyet
been enacted : poets may make the caesuraJHjere they
please, and, by widely diversifying its p'cjption, may
give to their numbers a grateful variety,-which they
would not otherwise possess. J)ryden well under-
stood the value of that advantage, and judiciously
availed himself of it, to a greater extent, perhaps,
than any bard before or since his time.
* Tliose learned gentlemen (as noticed in my " Latin Pros-
ody") had tlie modesty to condemn, as not proper verses, tr-
tain lines in Virgil's most polished productions--merely because
the cssura happened not to take place in exact conformity to
their notions!
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? 00 Prosody.
A Hint on Song-writing,
in addition to the remarks in page 39, on the use of
theirrregular or avxiliaiy Feet in Iambic Metre.
Although, in other species of iambic composition,
the employment of such feet be productive of a
pleasing variety, they very frequently produce a very
disagreeable effect in songs intended for music, by
setting the notes at variance with the words. In
general, the musical composer adapts his notes only
to the first stanza: and, when this is the case, how
frequently does it happen, that, although the tune be
composed with the most consummate skill and taste
for that stanza, it does not suit any one of those
which follow! The fault here lies, not with the mu-
sician, but with the poet, who has not observed the
necessary uniformity in the structure of his stanzas.
To a songster, therefore, who intends his verses for
music, I would say: Either take no liberties whatever
in the introduction of any other than the regular
feet; or, if, in the first stanza, you. have any-where
introduced a trochee, a pyrrhic, or a spondee, by all
means contrive, if possible, to have a similar foot in
exactly the correspondent part of the correspondent
line in every succeeding stanza. --From inattention
to such minutiae, trifling in appearance, but serious
in their effects, the consequence ensues, that we often
hear those musical flourishes, which, in the first in-
stance, were happily applied to grave, sonorous, em-
phatic syllables, afterwards idly wasted on A, The,
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? Song-Writing. 61
Of, To, In, -erf, -ing, 8cc. while syllables of the for-
mer description are stinted of their due emphasis,
because they unluckily happen to correspond with
light, un-emphatic syllables in the first stanza.
Of the unpleasing effect produced by that incon-
gruity, 1 have, in my own practice, found a striking
instance, on occasion of my undertaking, some years
since, to gratify a lady with a few songs to favorite
old tunes. In my first attempts, though my lines
were written in the same metre as the original, and
(whether good or bad in other respects) were metri-
cally correct, they did not at all accord with the
music--On examination, I discovered the cause to
be an accidental difference between the original
verses and my own, in the admission of irregular
feet; and, in short, I could not satisfy either the lady
or myself, until I had so modified my lines, as to
make them perfectly agree with the original, foot by
foot, and syllable by syllable.
To place this point in a clearer light, let us sup-
pose the first stanza of Pope's Universal Prayer set
to music, and the subsequent stanzas sung to the
same tune: then, in these three corresponding lines
of different stanzas--
Fa- -thir
Thou great
To\thee,
of
jirst
whose
all, I tn ev'ry age. ,
cause,\hast understood.
tem-|-ple [is all space. . . .
the notes admitting no distinction between long and
short syllables, between accented and un-accented--
we shall hear the corresponding syllables, Fa- and
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? 6% Song-Writing.
to, made perfectly equal in musical importance, and
the same equality established between -ther, great,
and thee -- of, andfirst---m and least, &c.
Such discordance between the words and the music
is a very serious defect--an evil, which cannot pos-
sibly be obviated by any thing short of perfect uni-
formity in the corresponding feet and verses of the
different stanzas, unless the musical composer shall
set the entire piece to music, from beginning to end.
--The necessity of that uniformity seems to have
been forcibly felt by Horace, the most accomplished
songster that ever tuned the Roman lyre: for, in all
his Sapphic effusions, which are pretty numerous,
there occurs not one variation of a single syllable,
though the Sapphic metre would admit some varia-
tions ; and he has, with very few exceptions, observed
the same uniform regularity in every other species of
metre throughout the entire four books of his odes.
3. 1. ? . .
. ' . . t
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? (63 )
EXERCISES.
SCANNING.
'Pure Iambic verses of eight syllables, or four feet,
having the accent uniformly placed on the second,
fourth, sixth, and eighth syllables, as
Begin, my lord, in ettrly youth,
To suffer, nay, encourage, troth.
The learner is to be taught to divide each line into
feet, and to notice each syllable, on which the accent
falls. If the pupil writs out the verses (which would
answer a better purpose than the simple act of reading
them), the divisions into feet, and likewise the accented
and tm-accented syllables, may be thus marked--
Begin, | my lord, | In ear-l-Iy" youth,
T8 sut-|-fer, nay, j encoG '-. rage truth.
{This part of the Exercises, and all as far as p. 75,
is too simple and easy to require notice in the " Key. ")
Assist me, o ye tuneful Nine,
With ease to form the flowing Mne.
And oft his voice, in accents sweet,
Shall friendship's soothing sounds repeat.
Alas! thou know'st not, winter drear
In snowy vest will soon appear.
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? 64 , Scanning.
Though ne'er to rich*, we scorn the elf
Whose only praise is sordid pelf.
* Never to ricA. --Some modern grammarians condemn
phrases of this kind, as improper, and, in their stead, recom-
mend Ever so I would very cheerfully subscribe to their
opinion, if I only could understand the latter phrase, so as to
extract from it a satisfactory meaning: but that, I own, is a task
which exceeds ray abilities. For example: "It is a fine day;
will you take a walk f"--" No: if it were EVER SO fine a day,
I would not go out. "--To discover the meaning of this reply, I
first consider that Ever signifies Always; and then I understand
it thus--" If it were ALWAYS [from the present moment
to the end of time] as fine a day as it now is, I would not go
out this day. "--Surely this cannot be what is intended by thos*
who use or recommend the phrase: they cannot mean that my
walking or not walking this day shall depend on the state of the
weather ten thousand years hence, and that, in the interim, we
are to have no nights, but, all along, one un-interrupted fine
day ! Yet such is the only meaning that I can discover in the
sentence. --But what means Never so ? On examination, it will
prove to be a beautiful phrase, and pregnant with energetic
sense. It is, in fact, an elliptic expression, as the French Non-
pareil, and the well-known English None such. --When, for ex-
ample, we say, of a lady, that " She is a none such," we cer-
tainly do not mean that she is A NONE, or A NOBODY, such
as some other lady, whose name is charitably suppressed; but
that she is a woman so good, so fair, (or whatever else may be
her praise) that none such [none equal to her in that respect]
can be found. Let us, in like manner, supply the ellipsis in the
phrase, Never so fine. " If this day were fine to such degree,
that NEVER SO FINE a day has smiled from the heavens,
1 would not go out. "--This simple and obvious interpretation
gives us good and satisfactory sense, perfectly according with the
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? Seaming.
65
Each heart, in suff'ring virtue's cause,
Shall swell amid the loud applause.
For thee shall bud the purple vine,
For thee her sparkling juice refine.
invariable import of the phrase Never to. . . ,, as used by the best
writers of past days, and, among others, by our translators
of the Bible, who have more than once employed it. Hence it
appears that we may, with equal propriety, and equally strong
significancy, use the expression, " Were the NEVER so fair,'
as " Sfie is a NONE-SUCH;" which latter, I believe, no'gram-
marian has yet ventured to change into One-such; though the
innovation might be attempted on equally good [or bad] grounds
in this case as in the former, since Never so, and None-such are
twin phrases, which must stand or fall together. In fact, Never
so fair is, as nearly as possible, equivalent to None so fair, and
None-such to Never such; the negative producing, in both
cases alike, the effect of asserting that the world has not [or ne-
ver] yet possessed her equal. --A nearly similar idea of unpa-
ralleled, and, as it were, exclusively superlative excess, was evi-
dently intended to be conveyed by the antiquated form," who
but. . . . ? as in the following passage of Dryden--
Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate ?
i. e. " Who can now be at all said to mourn, in comparison with
Arcite? --What grief could ever equal his? --Never so poignant
grief was felt by human being. ''--In like manner we are to un-
derstand these two other passages of the same poet--
Who now but Palamon exults with joy ?
Who now laments but Palamon, compell'd
No more to try the fortune of the field ?
See the note on " Exceeding" and " Exceedingly," page 38.
v3
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? 66 Scanning.
To him the joyous hours I owe,
That Bath's enchanting scenes bestow.
With joy I hear the solemn sound,
Which midnight echoes waft around.
The pilot warns, with sail and oar
To shun the much-suspected shore.
From nature too I take my rule,
To shun contempt and ridicule.
How soft the chain, the bond how sweet,
Where merit, virtue, wisdom, meet!
The man alone is truly great, >>
Who knows to conquer adverse fate.
The louring clouds portend a show'r :
With hasty steps I quit the bow'r.
The angry storm in thunder roars,
And sounding billows lash the shores.
Through woods and wilds, we vagrant roam,
And never reach our destin'd home.
s
With mingled roar, resounds the wood:
Their teeth, their claws, distil with blood.
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Adieu, ye flow'rs, so sweet and fair,
That droop for want of Myra's care.
To humbler strains, ye Nine, descend,
And greet my poor sequester'd friend.
With awe we view thy placid form.
Serene amid the raging storm.
A day as welcome, sure, to you,
As any day you ever knew.
While Ev'ning sheds her balmy dews,
I court the chaste inspiring Muse.
A cheerless waste before me lay,
Where, wand'ring, soon L lost my way.
When life's the stake for which we play,
Our lesser * int'rests all give way.
* Letter and Worser are condemned by many grammarians,
as barbarisms; and it must be owned, that, at first sight, they
might naturally enough be considered as such. But, on more
miuute examination, I humbly conceive, with all due deference
to the learning and judgement of those grammarians, that the
words may be defended. Our language is universally allowed
to be of German origin : and, on tracing the family likeness be-
tween the features of the present English and those of the Ger-
man which gave it birth, it appears to me that the expressions in
question are perfectly legitimate, and entitled to respect, or at
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