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are, in no case, lines of poetry, or verses; but hemistics, [hemistichs,] or half lines. The shortest metre of which iambic verse is composed, in lines successively, is that of three feet; and this is the shortest metre which can be denominated lines, or verses; and this is not frequently used."

In ballads, ditties, hymns, and versified psalms, scarcely any line is more common than the iambic trimeter, here denied to be "frequently used;" of which species, there are about seventy lines among the examples above. Dr. Young's poem entitled "Resignation," has eight hundred and twenty such lines, and as many more of iambic tetrameter. His "Ocean" has one hundred and forty-five of the latter, and two hundred and ninety-two of the species now under consideration; i. e., iambic dimeter. But how can the metre which predominates by two to one, be called, in such a case, an occasional diversification of that which is less frequent?

Lines of two iambs are not very uncommon, even in psalmody; and, since we have some lines yet shorter, and the lengths of all are determined only by the act of measuring, there is, surely, no propriety in calling dimeters "hemistichs," merely because they are short. The following are some examples of this measure combined with longer ones:

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Joys ask'd of none!

XXX.

The soul refin'd
Is most inclin'd

To ev | -ěrý mōr | -al ex | -cellence;
All vice is dull,

A knave's a fool;

And Virtue is | the child | of Sense.

XXXI.

The virtuous mind
Nor wave,

nor wind,

Which Time's and For | -tune's arrows miss; Nor civ | -il rage, | nor tyrant's frown,

Joys that subsist,

Though fates resist,

An un-precarious, end | -less bliss!

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The shak

Nor plan en ball,

-ets' fall,

From its firm ba | -sis can | dethrone." YOUNG'S "OCEAN:" British Poets, Vol. viii, p. 277.

There is a line of five syllables and double rhyme, which is commonly regarded as iambic dimeter with a supernumerary short syllable; and which, though it is susceptible of two other divi

sions into two feet, we prefer to scan in this manner, because it usually alternates with pure iambics. Twelve such lines occur in the following extract :

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And like a treasure

We'd hug the chain.

LOVE TRANSITORY.

But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, formed for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season

But let that season

Be only spring."

LORD BYRON: See Everett's Versification, p. 19; Fowler's E. Gram., p. 650.

MEASURE VIII.-IAMBIC OF ONE FOOT, OR MONOMETER.

"The shortest form of the English Iambic," says Lindley Murray, "consists of an Iambus with an additional short syllable: as,

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We have no poem of this measure, but it may be met with in stanzas. The Iambus, with this addition, coincides with the Amphibrach."-Murray's Gram., 12mo, p. 204; 8vo, p. 254. This, or the substance of it, has been repeated by many other authors. Everett varies the language and illustration, but teaches the same doctrine. See E. Versif., p. 15.

Now there are sundry examples which may be cited to show, that the iambus, without any additional syllable, and without the liability of being confounded with an other foot, may, and sometimes does, stand as a line, and sustain a regular rhyme. The following pieces contain instances of this sort:

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[This singular arrangement of seventy-two separate iambic feet, I find without intermediate points, and leave it so. It seems intended to be read in three or more different ways, and the punctuation required by one mode of reading would not wholly suit an other.]

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To serve

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ANONYMOUS: Sundry American Newspapers, in 1849. Example III-Umbrellas.

"The late George Canning, of whom Byron said that 'it was his happiness to be at once a wit, poet, orator, and statesman, and excellent in all,' is the author of the following clever jeu d'esprit:" [except three lines here added in brackets:]

"I saw a man | with two | umbrellas,
(One of the lon | -gest kind of fellows,)
When it rained,

Meet ǎ | lady

On the shady

Side of thirty-three,

Minus one of these rain [-dispellers.

'I see,' Says she,

[Not slow to comprehend an inkling,

His eye with wag | -gish hu | -mour twinkling,]

Replied he, 'Ma'am,

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'Your quality of mercy is not strain- 'Tis plain

ed.

I. SPRING.

See The Essex County
Example IV-Shreds of a Song.

"The cuckoo then, | on ev | -ery tree,
Mocks married men, for thus | sings he,
Cuckoo';

Cuckoo', cuckoo',- | O word | of fear,
Unpleasing to | a mar | -ried ear!"

II. WINTER.

"When blood | is nipp'd, | and ways be foul, Then nightly sings | the star | -ing owl, To-who;

To-whit, to-who, | a mer | -ry note,

While greasy Joan | doth keel | the pot." SHAKSPEARE: Love's Labour's Lost, Act v, Sc. 2.

Example V-Puck's Charm.

[When he has uttered the fifth line, he squeezes a juice on Lysander's eyes.]

"On the ground,

Sleep sound:

I'll apply

To your eye,

Gentle lover, | remedy.

When thou wak'st,

Thou tak'st

True delight

In the sight

Of thy former | lady's eye."*

IDEM: Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act iii, Sc. 2.

ORDER II.-TROCHAIC VERSE.

In Trochaic verse, the stress is laid on the odd syllables, and the even ones are short. Single-rhymed trochaic omits the final short syllable, that it may end with a long one; for the common doctrine of Murray, Chandler, Churchill, Bullions, Butler, Everett, Fowler, Weld, Wells, Mulligan, and others, that this chief rhyming syllable is “additional” to the real number of feet in the line, is manifestly incorrect. One long syllable is, in some instances, used as a foot; but it is one or more short syllables only, that we can properly admit as hypermeter. Iambics and trochaics often occur in the same poem; but, in either order, written with exactness, the number of feet is always the number of the long syllables.

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"Ruin | seize thee, | ruthless | king!
Confusion on | thy ban -ners wait,
Though, fann'd | by Con | -quest's crim | -son
wing,

They mock the air | with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's | twisted | mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, ty |-rant, shall |
avail.

(2.)

"Weave the warp, and weave the | woof,
The wind-ing-sheet | of Ed | -ward's race.
Give ample room, and verge | enough,
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and | mark the | night,
When Severn shall re-ech |-0 with |
affright."

"The Bard, a Pindaric Ode:" British Poets, Vol. vii, p. 281 and 282.
OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.-Trochaic verse without the final short syllable, is the same as iambic would be with out the initial short syllable;-it being quite plain, that iambic, so changed, becomes trochaic, and

• These versicles, except the two which are Italicized, are not iambic. The others are partly trochaic; and, according to many of our prosodists, wholly so; but it is questionable whether they are not as properly amphi. macric, or Cretic.

is iambic no longer. But trochaic, retrenched of its last short syllable, is trochaic still; and can no otherwise be made iambic, than by the prefixing of a short syllable to the line. Feet, and the orders of verse, are distinguished one from an other by two things, and in general by two only; the number of syllables taken as a foot, and the order of their quantities. Trochaic verse is always as distinguishable from iambic, as iambic is from any other. Yet have we several grammarians and prosodists who contrive to confound them-or who, at least, mistake catalectic trochaic for catalectic iambic; and that too, where the syllable wanting affects only the last foot, and makes it perhaps but a common and needful cæsura.

OBS. 2.-To suppose that iambic verse may drop its initial short syllable, and still be iambic, still be measured as before, is not only to take a single long syllable for a foot, not only to recognize a pedal cæsura at the beginning of each line, but utterly to destroy the only principles on which iambics and trochaics can be discriminated. Yet Hiley, of Leeds, and Wells, of Andover, while they are careful to treat separately of these two orders of verse, not only teach that any order may take at the end "an additional syllable," but also suggest that the iambic may drop a syllable "from the first foot," without diminishing the number of feet,—without changing the succession of quantities,-without disturbing the mode of scansion! "Sometimes," say they, (in treating of iambics,) "a syllable is cut off from the first foot; as,

Praise to God, | immór | -tal práise,

For the love that crowns | our days."[-BARBAULD.]

Hiley's E. Gram., Third Edition, London, p. 124; Wells's, Third Edition, p. 198. OBS. 3.-Now this couplet is the precise exemplar, not only of the thirty-six lines of which it is a part, but also of the most common of our trochaic metres; and if this may be thus scanned into iambic verse, so may all other trochaic lines in existence: distinction between the two orders must then be worse than useless. But I reject this doctrine, and trust that most readers will easily see its absurdity. A prosodist might just as well scan all iambics into trochaics, by pronouncing each initial short syllable to be hypermeter. For, surely, if deficiency may be discovered at the beginning of measurement, so may redundance. But if neither is to be looked for before the measurement ends, (which supposition is certainly more reasonable,) then is the distinction already vindicated, and the scansion above-cited is shown to be erroneous.

OBS. 4.-But there are yet other objections to this doctrine, other errors and inconsistencies in the teaching of it. Exactly the same kind of verse as this, which is said to consist of "four iambuses," from one of which "a syllable is cut off," is subsequently scanned by the same authors as being composed of "three trochees and an additional syllable; as,

'Haste thee, Nymph, and | bring with | thee
Jest and youthful | Jolli |-ty.'-MILTON."

"Vital spark of | heav'nly | flame,

Wells's School Grammar, p. 200.

Quit oh quit this | mortal | frame."*[-POPE.]

Hiley's English Grammar, p. 126.

There is, in the works here cited, not only the inconsistency of teaching two very different modes of scanning the same species of verse, but in each instance the scansion is wrong; for all the lines in question are trochaic of four feet,--single-rhymed, and, of course, catalectic, and ending with a cæsura, or elision. In no metre that lacks but one syllable, can this sort of foot occur at the beginning of a line; yet, as we see, it is sometimes imagined to be there, by those who have never been able to find it at the end, where it oftenest exists!

OBS. 5.-I have hinted, in the main paragraph above, that it is a common error of our prosodists, to underrate, by one foot, the measure of all trochaic lines, when they terminate with single rhyme; an error into which they are led by an other as gross, that of taking for hypermeter, or mere surplus, the whole rhyme itself, the sound or syllable most indispensable to the verse. "(For rhyme the rudder is of verses,

With which, like ships, they steer their courses.)"-Hudibras.

Iambics and trochaics, of corresponding metres, and exact in them, agree of course in both the number of feet and the number of syllables; but as the former are slightly redundant with double rhyme, so the latter are deficient as much, with single rhyme; yet, the number of feet may, and should, in these cases, be reckoned the same. An estimable author now living says, "Trochaic verse, with an additional long syllable, is the same as iambic verse, without the initial short syllaable."--N. Butler's Practical Gram., p. 193. This instruction is not quite accurate. Nor would it be right, even if there could be "iambic verse without the initial short syllable," and if it were universally true, that, "Trochaic verse may take an additional long syllable."-Ibid. For the addition and subtraction here suggested, will inevitably make the difference of a foot, between the measures or verses said to be the same!

OBS. 6. "I doubt," says T. O. Churchill, "whether the trochaic can be considered as a legitimate English measure. All the examples of it given by Johnson have an additional long syllable at the end: but these are iambics, if we look upon the additional syllable to be at the beginning, which is much more agreeable to the analogy of music."-Churchill's New Gram., p. 390. This doubt, ridiculous as must be all reasoning in support of it, the author seriously endeavours to raise into a general conviction that we have no trochaic order of verse! It can hardly be worth while to notice here all his remarks. "An additional long syllable" Johnson never dreamed of-" at the * See exercises in Punctuation, on page 786, of this work.-G. B.

ten.

end”—“at the beginning”—or anywhere else. For he discriminated metres, not by the number of feet, as he ought to have done, but by the number of syllables he found in each line. His doctrine is this: "Our iambick measure comprises verses-Of four syllables,—Of six,—Of eight.—Of Our trochaick measures are Of three syllables,-Of five,Of seven. These are the measures which are now in use, and above the rest those of seven, eight and ten syllables. Our ancient poets wrote verses sometimes of twelve syllables, as Drayton's Polyolbion; and of fourteen, as Chapman's Homer." "We have another measure very quick and lively, and therefore much used in songs, which may be called the anapestick.

'May I govern my pássion with absolute sway,

And grow wiser and better as life wears away.' Dr. Pope.

"In this measure a syllable is often retrenched from the first foot, [;] as [,]

"These measures are

or without rhyme, as

'When présent we love, and when ábsent agrée,

I think not of I'ris [.] nor I'ris of me.' Dryden.

varied by many combinations, and sometimes by double endings, either with in the heroick measure.

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us,

'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter.' Addison.

"So in that of eight syllables,

"In that of seven,

'They neither added nor confounded,

They neither wanted nor abounded.' Prior.

'For resistance I could fear none,

But with twenty ships had done,

What thou, brave and happy Vernon,

Hast achieved with six alone.' Glover.

"To these measures and their laws, may be reduced every species of English verse."-Dr. Johnson's Grammar of the English Tongue, p. 14. See his Quarto Dict. Here, except a few less important remarks, and sundry examples of the metres named, is Johnson's whole scheme of versification. OBS. 7.-How, when a prosodist judges certain examples to "have an additional long syllable at the end," he can "look upon the additional syllable to be at the beginning," is a matter of marvel; yet, to abolish trochaics, Churchill not only does and advises this, but imagines short syllables removed sometimes from the beginning of lines; while sometimes he couples final short syllables with initial long ones, to make iambs, and yet does not always count these as feet in the verse, when he has done so! Johnson's instructions are both misunderstood and misrepresented by this grammarian. I have therefore cited them the more fully. The first syllable being retrenched from an anapest, there remains an iambus. But what countenance has Johnson lent to the gross error of reckoning such a foot an anapest still?-or to that of commencing the measurement of a line by including a syllable not used by the poet? The preceding stanza from Glover, is trochaic of four feet; the odd lines full, and of course making double rhyme; the even lines catalectic, and of course ending with a long syllable counted as a foot. Johnson cited it merely as an example of "double endings," imagining in it no "additional syllable," except perhaps the two which terminate the two trochees, "fear none" and "Vernon." These, it may be inferred, he improperly conceived to be additional to the regular measure; because he reckoned measures by the number of syllables, and probably supposed single rhyme to be the normal form of all rhyming verse.

OBS. 8.-There is false scansion in many a school grammar, but perhaps none more uncouthly false, than Churchill's pretended amendments of Johnson's. The second of these-wherein "the old seven[-] foot iambic" is professedly found in two lines of Glover's trochaic tetrameter—I shall quote:

"In the anapastic measure, Johnson himself allows, that a syllable is often retrenched from the first foot; yet he gives as an example of trochaics with an additional syllable at the end of the even lines a stanza, which, by adopting the same principle, would be in the iambic measure:

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For resistance I could fear | none,

But with twenty ships | had dōne,
'What thou, brave and happy Ver- | non,
I

Häst | achiev'd | with six | alone.

In fact, the second and fourth lines here stamp the character of the measure; [] which is the old seven[-]foot iambic broken into four and three, WITH AN ADDITIONAL SYLLABLE AT THE BEGINNING." -Churchill's New Gram., p. 391.

After these observations and criticisms concerning the trochaic order of verse, I proceed to say, trochaics consist of the following measures, or metres :—

MEASURE I.-TROCHAIC OF EIGHT FEET, OR OCTOMETER.
Example I.-"The Raven."-First Two out of Eighteen Stanzas.

1.

"Once upon a | midnight | dreary, | while I | pondered, | weak and weary,
Over maný a quaint and curious | volume of for | -gotten | lore,

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