And the voice of the | nightingale | never is | mute Where the | virgins are soft as the | roses they | twine And | all save the | spirit of | man is divine 'Tis the | land of the | East 'tis the | clime of the | Sun Can he smile on such | deeds as his | children have | done Oh | wild as the | accents of lovers' fare | well Are the | hearts that they | bear and the | tales that they tell. 66 Here "crime" and "tell" (italicised) are cæsuras, each having the value of a dactyl, four short syllables; while "fume Wax," "twine and,” and “done Oh," are spondees which, of course, being composed of two long syllables, are also equal to four short, and are the dactyl's natural equivalent. The nicety of Byron's ear has led him into a succession of feet which, with two trivial exceptions as regards melody, are absolutely accurate-a very rare occurrence this in dactylic or anapæstic rhythms. The exceptions are found in the spondee twine And," and the dactyl, "smile on such." Both feet are false in point of melody. In "twine And,” to make out the rhythm, we must force "And" into a length which it will not naturally bear. We are called on to sacrifice either the proper length of the syllable as demanded by its position as a member of a spondee, or the customary accentuation of the word in conversation. There is no hesitation, and should be none. We at once give up the sound for the sense; and the rhythm is imperfect. In this instance it is very slightly so;-not one person in ten thousand could, by ear, detect the inaccuracy. But the perfection of verse, as regards melody, consists in its never demanding any such sacrifice as is here demanded. The rhythmical must agree, thoroughly, with the reading, flow. This perfection has in no instance been attained-but is unquestionably attainable. "Smile on such," the dactyl, is incorrect, because "such," from the character of the two consonants ch, cannot easily be enunciated in the ordinary time of a short syllable, which its position declares that it is. Almost every reader will be able to appreciate the slight difficulty here; and yet the error is by no means so important as that of the "And" in the spondee. By dexterity we may pronounce "such" in the true time; but the attempt to remedy the rhythmical deficiency of the And by drawing it out, merely aggravates the offence against natural enunciation, by directing attention to the offence. My main object, however, in quoting these lines, is to show that, in spite of the Prosodies, the length of a line is entirely an arbitrary matter. We might divide the commencement of Byron's poem thus: Know ye the land where the | cypress and | myrtle are. | or thus: Know ye the land where the | cypress and | myrtle are | emblems of. | In short, we may give it any division we please, and the lines will be good-provided we have at least two feet in a line. As in mathematics two units are required to form number, so rhythm, (from the Greek apiuos, number,) demands for its formation at least two feet. Beyond doubt, we often see such lines as Know ye the- Land where the- lines of one foot; and our Prosodies admit such; but with impropriety; for common sense would dictate that every so obvious division of a poem as is made by a line, should include within itself all that is necessary for its own comprehension; but in a line of one foot we can have no appreciation of rhythm, which depends upon the equality between two or more pulsations. The false lines, consisting sometimes of a single cæsura, which are seen in mock Pindaric odes, are of course rhythmical" only in connection with some other line; and it is this want of independent rhythm which adapts them to the purposes of burlesque alone. Their effect is that of incongruity (the principle of mirth;) for they include the blankness of prose amid the harmony of verse. My second object in quoting Byron's lines, was that of showing how absurd it often is to cite a single line from amid the body of a poem, for the purpose of instancing the perfection or imperfection of the line's rhythm. Were we to see by itself Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle, we might justly condemn it as defective in the final foot, which is equal to only three, instead of being equal to four, short syllables. In the foot (flowers ever) we shall find a further exemplification of the principle of the bastard iambus, bastard trochee, and quick trochee, as I have been at some pains in describing these feet above. All the Prosodies on English verse would insist upon making an elision in "flowers," thus (flow'rs,) but this is nonsense. In the quick trochee (many are thě) occurring in Mr. Cranch's trochaic line, we had to equalize the time of the three syllables (ny, are, the,) to that of the one short syllable whose position they usurp. Accordingly each of these syllables is equal to the third of a short syllable, that is to say, the sixth of a long. But in Byron's dactylic rhythm, we have to equalize the time of the three syllables (ers, ev, er,) to that of the one long syllable whose position they usurp, or, (which is the same thing,) of the two short. Therefore the value of each of the syllables (ers, ev, and er) is the third of a long. We enunciate them with only half the rapidity we employ in enunciating the three final syllables of the quick trochee which latter is a rare foot. The "flowers ever,” on the contrary, is as common in the dactylic rhythm as is the bastard trochee in the trochaic, or the bastard iambus in the iambic. We may as well accent it with the curve of the crescent to the right, and call it a bastard dactyl. A bastard anapast, whose nature I now need be at no trouble in explaining, will of course occur, now and then, in an anapastic rhythm. In order to avoid any chance of that confusion which is apt to be introduced in an essay of this kind by too sudden and radical an alteration of the conventionalities to which the reader has been accustomed, I have thought it right to suggest for the accent marks of the bastard trochee, bastard iambus, etc., etc., certain characters which, in merely varying the direction of the ordinary short accent () should imply, what is the fact, that the feet themselves are not new feet, in any proper sense, but simply modifications of the feet, respectively, from which they derive their names. Thus a bastard iambus is, in its essentiality, that is to say, in its time, an iambus. The variation lies only in the distribution of this time. The time, for example, occupied by the one short (or half of long) syllable, in the ordinary iambus, is, in the bastard, spread equally over two syllables, which are accordingly the fourth of long. But this fact-the fact of the essentiality, or whole time, of the foot being unchanged, is now so fully before the reader, that I may venture to propose, finally, an accentuation which shall answer the real purpose-that is to say, what should be the real purpose of all accentuation—the purpose of expressing to the eye the exact relative value of every syllable employed in Verse. 2 I have already shown that enunciation, or length, is the point from which we start. In other words, we begin with a long syllable. This then is our unit; and there will be no need of accenting it at all. An unaccented syllable, in a system of accentuation, is to be regarded always as a long syllable. Thus a spondee would be without accent. In an iambus, the first syllable being "short," or the half of long, should be accented with a small 2, placed beneath the syllable; the last syllable, being long, should be unaccented; the whole would be thus (control.) In a trochee, these accents would be merely conversed, thus (manly.) In a dactyl, each of the two final syllables, being the half of long, should, also, be accented with a small 2 beneath the syllable; and, the first syllable left unaccented, the whole would be thus (happiness.) In an anapæst we should converse the dactyl thus, (in the land.) In the bastard dactyl, each of the three concluding syllables being the third of long, should be accented with a small 3 beneath the syllable and the whole foot would stand thus, (flowers ever.) In 3 3 4 4 2 2 3 3 3. 2 2 the bastard anapast we should converse the bastard dactyl thus, (in the rebound.) In the bastard iambus, each of the two initial syllables, being the fourth of long, should be accented, below with a small 4; the whole foot would be thus, (in the rain.) In the bastard trochee, we should converse the bastard iambus thus, (many a.) In the quick trochee, each of the three concluding syllables, being the sixth of long, should be accented, below, with a small 6; the whole foot would be thus, (many are the.) The quick iambus is not yet created, and most probably never will be; 6 6 for it will be excessively useless, awkward, and liable to misconception-as I have already shown that even the quick trochee is : -but, should it appear, we must accent it by conversing the quick trochee. The cæsura, being variable in length, but always longer than "long," should be accented, above, with a number expressing the length, or value, of the distinctive foot of the rhythm in which it occurs. Thus a cæsura, occurring in a spondaic rhythm, would be accented with a small 2 above the syllable, or, rather, foot. Occurring in a dactylic or anapæstic rhythm, we also accent it with the 2, above the foot. Occurring in an iambic rhythm, however, it must be accented, above, with 1; for this is the relative value of the iambus. Occurring in the trochaic rhythm, we give it, of course, the same accentuation. For the complex 11, however, it would be advisable to substitute the simpler expression which amounts to the same thing. In this system of accentuation Mr. Cranch's lines, quoted above, would thus be written: In the ordinary system the accentuation would be thus: Many are the | thoughts that | côme tŏ | mē In my lonely musing, | and they drift so | stränge ånd | swift | There's no time for | choosing | Which to follow, | fōr to | leave It must be observed, here, that I do not grant this to be the ordinary" scansion. On the contrary, I never yet met the man VOL. II.-12. |