A PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO
ENGLISH VERSIFICATION.

PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO
English Versification.

WITH A COMPENDIOUS DICTIONARY OF RHYMES,

AN EXAMINATION OF CLASSICAL MEASURES

AND COMMENTS UPON BURLESQUE AND COMIC VERSE,

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ, AND SONG-WRITING.

By TOM HOOD.

A New and Enlarged Edition.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

BYSSHE'S "RULES FOR MAKING ENGLISH
VERSE," &c.

LONDON:
JOHN HOGG, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1877.

PREFACE.

I am anxious at the first outset that the object of this work should not be misunderstood. It does not assume to be a handbook for poets, or a guide to poetry. The attempt to compile such a book as is implied by either of those titles would be as absurd as pretentious.

A Poet, to paraphrase the Latin, is created, not manufactured. Cicero's "nascimur poetæ, fimus oratores," is, with some modification, even more to the point. In a word, poetical genius is a gift, but education and perseverance will make almost any man a versifier.

All, therefore, that this book aims to teach is the art of Versification. That art, like Logic, is "ars instrumentalis, dirigens mentem inter cognitionem rerum." As Logic does not supply you with arguments, but only defines the mode in which they are to be expressed or used, so Versification does not teach you how to write poetry, but how to construct verse. It may be a means to the end, but it does not pretend to assure its attainment. Versification and Logic are to Poetry and Reason what a parapet is to a bridge: they do not convey you across, but prevent you from falling over. The difference is that which exists between τεχνη and ἐπιστήμη.

This definition is rendered necessary by the Dogberry spirit which is now abroad, and which insists that "to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune,"—fortune in the sense of wealth, I presume,—"but to write and read comes by nature;" in fact, that to be "a poet" a man needs to be advantageously placed in the world, but that any one can "write poetry."

With this conviction, I have discarded the title of a guide for "Poets," feeling that there is much real poetry that is not in verse, and a vast deal of verse that is not poetry; and that therefore "a hard and fast line" was of the first importance to mark the boundary of my undertaking. Poetry is far less a question of manner than of matter, whereas versification is purely a question of form. I will even venture to say that some of our noblest poems are in prose; and that many great poets have been but inferior versifiers. But what these last wrote has possessed qualities compared with which the mere mechanism of their verse is as nothing. The poet gives to the world in his sublime thoughts diamonds of the purest water. It would be idle to quibble about minor points of the polishing and setting of such gems—they would lose in the process! But the writer of verse does not—and should not—pretend to give us diamonds. He offers paste-brilliants; and therefore it the more behoves him to see to the perfection of the cutting, on which their beauty depends.

The thoughts presented by the poet may be rough-hewn; the fancies of the versifier must be accurately finished, and becomingly set. Poetry, therefore, abounds in licences, while Versification boasts only of laws.

To enumerate, explain, and define these laws is the object of this work. Nor is such a task a waste of time, as those may be inclined to think, who argue that if one cannot write poetry, 'tis absurd to try to write verse. Yet versification is an elegant accomplishment to say the least—"emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros." But it is something more than an elegant accomplishment—much more.

In the dead languages—leaving in abeyance the question of classical versus mathematical education—nothing gives such scholarly finish as the practice of Greek and Latin verse-writing, nothing such an intimate knowledge and understanding of the genius of either language.

Were English versification taught in our schools, I believe the boys would acquire a better understanding and appreciation of their own tongue. With such training, a lad would shrink from a mispronunciation as he does from a false quantity in Latin or Greek. He would not fall into the slipshod way of pronouncing "doing" as if it were spelt "doin'," "again" as if "agen," and "written and spoken" as if "writtun and spokun." He would not make dissyllables of words like "fire" and "mire," or of the trisyllable "really." Nor would he make another mistake (very common now, as revealed in magazine verse where such words are put to rhyme, "before" and "more") of pronouncing "ure" as "ore,"—"shore" and "asshore" for "sure" and "assure," of which, of course, the correct pronunciation is "shewre," "ashewre."[^[1]]

The purging of our pronunciation would be of general benefit. At present it is shifting and uncertain—because it is never taught. The dropping of the "h" is almost the only error in pronunciation that is ever noticed at school; and there being no standard set up, the pronunciation of English becomes every day more and more degraded by the mere force of the majority of uneducated vulgar. The Americanising of our language—which seems to me a less remote and no less undesirable possibility than "the Americanising of our institutions," about which we hear so much—can only be checked by some such educational system. Surely the deterioration of our language is not a minor matter, and when it can be removed by the encouragement of verse-writing at our schools, strictly and clearly taught, it seems astonishing that no effort has been made in that direction.[^[2]]

However, whether, by establishing a system of English versifying at our schools, we shall ever endeavour to give fixity to our pronunciation, is a question hardly likely, I fear, to be brought to the test yet awhile. That English versifying is a strong educational power, I do not doubt, and in that belief, have endeavoured to render this handbook as complete as possible. I have therefore laid down the most stringent rules and the clearest formulæ in my power.

Verse is but the A B C of Poetry, and the student must learn his alphabet correctly. We should not allow a child to arrange the letters as he chose,—"A, Z, B, G, C,"—nor must the beginner in verse dream of using any licences of a similar kind. I should fail in my duty if I admitted anything of the kind; for while it would be presumption to lay down laws for poets, it would be incapacity to frame licences for versifiers.

I therefore conclude these prefatory remarks by adducing the two chief regulations for the student.

First, That he must use such rhymes only as

are perfect to the ear, when correctly pronounced.

Second, That he must never write a line

which will not sooner or later in the

stanza have a line to correspond with a rhyme.

To these I may add, as a rider, this piece of advice (somewhat in the style of the whist maxim, "When in doubt, play a trump"): If you have reason to choose between two styles of versification, select the more difficult.

It is only by sustaining your verse at the highest elevation that you can hope even to approach poetry.

"Be bold—be bold—but not too bold!"

And bear in mind the words of Sir Philip Sidney:—"Who shootes at the midday Sonne, though he be sure he shall neuer hit the marke; yet as sure he is, he shall shoote higher than who aymes but at a bush."

T. H.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
VERSE GENERALLY.

There is no better text for this chapter than some lines from Pope's "Essay on Criticism":—

"But most by numbers judge a poet's song,

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:

These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid do join;

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:

While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,

With sure returns of still recurring rhymes;

Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,'

In the next line it 'whispers through the trees:'

If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,'

The reader's threaten'd—not in vain—with 'sleep.'

Then at the last and only couplet, fraught

With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, to know

What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;

And praise the easy vigour of a line

Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learnt to dance.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar:

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line, too, labours, and the words move slow.

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."

Johnson sneers somewhat at the attempt at what he styles "representative metre." He quotes "one of the most successful attempts,"—

"With many a weary step, and many a groan,

Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;

The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,

Thunders impetuous down and smokes along the ground."

After admitting that he sees the stone move slowly upward, and roll violently back, he says, "try the same numbers to another sense—

"While many a merry tale and many a song

Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.

The rough road then returning in a round

Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground."

"We have now," says the Doctor, "lost much of the delay and much of the rapidity." Truly so!—but why? The choice of words has really altered the measure, though not the number of syllables. If we look at the second line of the first extract, we see how the frequent use of the aspirate, with a long sound after it, gives the labour of the ascent. There is nothing of this in the corresponding line, where the "r" gives a run rather than a halt to the measure. But Johnson more decidedly shows how he was mistaken when he finds fault with Pope's—

"The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine."

His objection to this is, that the same sequence of syllables gives "the rapid race" and "the march of slow-paced majesty;" and he adds, "the exact prosodist will find the line of swiftness by one time longer than that of tardiness." By this it is to be presumed he alludes to the trisyllabic nature of the first foot of the first line—"varying." But it is just that which gives the rapidity. The other half of the line is not meant to give rapidity, but "resounding." The second line, by the repetition of the "a" in "march" and "majesty," gives the tramp of the march to admiration.

So much for Johnson's objections. We will now see how far the lines of Pope can guide us in the construction of verse.

Line Third indicates the necessity—which Pope himself, even, did not adequately recognise—the necessity of varying the fall of the verse on the ear. Pope did this by graduating his accents. The line should scan with an accented syllable following an unaccented one—

"And smo´oth or ro´ugh, with the´m, is ri´ght or wro´ng."

Pope varied this by a sort of compromise—

"And the´ smooth strea´m in smo´other nu´mbers flo´ws,"

would be the right scansion. But the accent passes in a subdued form from "the" to "smooth," which pleasantly modulates the line, and gives the flow required for the figure treated of.[^[3]]

But there was another means of varying the verse which was not in those days adopted. It was not then recognised that there were some cases in which the unaccented syllable might have two "beats." Pope wrote,

"The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit."

Had he written "generous," it might have stood, and would have given a variety. And this would have saved the eyesore of such lines as—

"T' admire superior sense and doubt our own."

Line Fourth does not exactly describe the fault it commits. "The open vowel" is no offence, but rather a beauty, though like all beauty it must not be too lavishly displayed. The fault of the line really lies in the repetition of the same broad sound—"o." The same vowel-sounds should not be repeated in a line.[^[4]] This especially holds good where they are so associated with consonants as to form a rhyme, or anything approaching to it.

Line Fifth points out an inelegance which no one with any ear could be guilty of—the use of "do" and "did," to eke out a line or help a rhyme.

Line Sixth indicates a practice which those who have studied Latin versification would avoid without such a hint, since the nature of the cæsura compels the avoidance of monosyllables.

Line Ninth, with the following three lines, warns against an error which naturally becomes the more frequent the longer English verse is written, since rhymes become more and more hackneyed every day.

Line Sixteenth. The Alexandrine will come under discussion in its place among metres.

Line Twenty-first might well serve for a motto for this little treatise. If a poet said this of poetry, how much more does it apply to versification!

Line Twenty-fifth. Here, and in the following line, by delicate manipulation of the accent, Pope gets the desired effect. Instead of "So so´ft the stra´in," he attracts the ear with "So´ft is," and the unexpected word gives the key-note of the line.

Line Twenty-seventh. It is almost needless to point out how in this, and the next line, the poet, by artful management of accent and careful selection of onomatopoetic words, gives the required assonance to the lines.

Line Twenty-ninth. The broad vowels here give the requisite pause and "deliberation" to the verse. In the following line, the introduction of "too"—(under some circumstances it might well come under the condemnation of Line Fifth)—makes the line labour, and the open "o" at the end of the line "tires the ear."

Line Thirty-first. Here the poet gets the slide of the "s" to give the idea of motion. In the following line by the elision and the apt introduction of short syllables he repeats the notion. In my opinion the artistic skill of Pope is peculiarly observable in the last few couplets. In the first line in each instance the effect is produced by the use of a different artifice from that employed in the second.

These rules were of course intended by Pope to apply only to the measure called "heroic," i.e., decasyllabic verse. But, mutatis mutandis, they will be equally applicable to general verse.

Coleridge in his "Christabel" struck out what he considered a new metre, which he describes as "not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four." This was a decided step in the right direction, being in truth a recognition of the principle that measure in English was not exhausted—was, indeed, hardly satisfied—by the old rule of thumb; that, in short, it needed a compromise between accent and quantity.

Southey in his "Thalaba" essayed a new style of versification, of which he writes as follows:—

"It were easy to make a parade of learning by enumerating the various feet which it admits; it is only needful to observe that no two lines are employed in sequence, which can be read into one. Two six-syllable lines (it will perhaps be answered) compose an Alexandrine; the truth is, that the Alexandrine, when harmonious, is composed of two six-syllable lines. One advantage this metre assuredly possesses; the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord.... I do not wish the improvisatore time, but something that denotes the sense of harmony; something like the accent of feeling; like the tone which every poet necessarily gives to poetry."

Of course, by "six syllables" Southey means "six feet." He was evidently struggling for emancipation from the old rule of thumb.

Of late many eccentricities of versification have been attempted after the manner of Mr Whitman, but for these, like the Biblical echo of Mr Tupper's muse, there seem to be no perceptible rules, even should it be desirable to imitate them.

I would here add a few words of advice to those who, by the study of our greatest writers, would endeavour to improve their own style. For smoothness I should say Waller, in preference even to Pope, because the former wrote in far more various measures, and may challenge comparison with Pope, on Pope's own ground, with "The Ode to the Lord Protector," in decasyllabic verse. For music—"lilt" is an expressive word that exactly conveys what I mean—they cannot do better than choose Herrick. Add to these two George Herbert, and I think the student will have a valuable guide in small space.

CHAPTER II.
CLASSIC VERSIFICATION.

There is little doubt that the best and easiest way of learning English grammar is through the Latin. That English versification cannot be similarly acquired through the Latin is due to the fact that the Latin system depends on quantity, and the English chiefly on accent and rhyme. Nevertheless, a slight acquaintance with the classic measures will prove useful to the student of English verse. In the absence of all teaching of English versification at our schools, they have done good service in giving our boys some insight into the structure of verse.

The structure of Latin and Greek verse depends on the quantity—the length or shortness expressed by the forms — ᴗ. A long syllable is equal in duration to two short syllables, which may therefore take its place (as it may take theirs) in certain positions. The combinations of syllables are called feet, of which there are about nine-and-twenty. Twelve of the most common are here given:—

Of the styles of verse produced by combinations of these feet the most important are the Heroic, or Hexameter; the Elegiac, alternate Hexameters and Pentameters; and the Dramatic or Iambic. All others may be classed as Lyrics.

The Cæsura (division) is the separation of each verse into two parts by the ending of a word in the middle of a certain foot.[^[5]] It may be here noted that this principle (the ending of a word in the middle of a foot) applies generally to the verse, it being an inelegance to construct lines of words of which each constitutes a foot. The well-known line of Virgil, marked to show the feet, will explain this at a glance—

"Arma vi|rumque ca|no || Tro|jæ qui | primus ab | oris."

In this the cæsura occurs in the third foot, between cano and Trojæ. But in no case is one foot composed of one word only.

The Hexameter line consists of, practically, five dactyls and a spondee or trochee. A spondee may take the place of each of the first four dactyls—and sometimes, but very rarely, of the fifth. The cæsura falls in the third foot at the end of the first—and sometimes at the end of the second—syllable of the dactyl. In some cases it is in the fourth foot, after the first syllable. The last word in the line should be either a dissyllable or trisyllable.

The Pentameter is never used alone, but, with a Hexameter preceding it in the distich, forms Elegiac Verse. It consists of two parts, divided by a cæsura, each part composed of two dactyls (interchangeable with spondees) and a long syllable.[^[6]] The last place in the line should be occupied by a dissyllabic word—at least it should not be a monosyllable or trisyllable.

The Iambic is most commonly used in a six-foot line of iambics (the trimeter iambic, vide note on last paragraph). In the first, third, and fifth place a spondee may be substituted, and there are other licenses which we need not here enter upon, as the measure is not of much importance for our purposes. The cæsura occurs in the third or fourth foot.

The Lyrics are, as a rule, compound verses; different sorts of feet enter into the formation of the lines; and the stanzas consist of lines of different kinds, and are styled strophes.

The chief of the lyric measures are the Sapphic and Alcaic.

The Sapphic is a combination of three Sapphic verses with an Adonic.

Lines 1, 2, 3, — ᴗ | — — | — || ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ

Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — —

The double line represents the cæsura, which in rare instances falls a syllable later.

The Alcaic is, like the Sapphic, a four-line stanza. Its scheme is—

Lines 1 and 2, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — || — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ —ᴗ

Line 3, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — — | ᴗ — | —ᴗ

Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ

That is to say, it consists of two eleven-syllable, one nine-syllable, and one ten-syllable Alcaic lines (Alcaici hendeka-, ennea-, and deka-syllabici). Much of the success of the stanza depends on the flow of the third line, which, according to the best models, should consist of three trisyllables (or equivalent combinations, e.g. a dissyllable noun with its monosyllabic preposition).

When it is stated that Horace wrote in four or five-and-twenty lyric measures, it will be obvious that I cannot exhaust, or attempt to exhaust, the list of measures in a work like this. The reader will have acquired some notion of the nature of classic versification, from what I have stated of Latin composition applying with unimportant differences to Greek. Those who have the leisure or the inclination might do worse than study Greek and Latin poetry, if only to see if they can suggest no novelties of metre. I can recall no English verse that reproduces Horace's musical measure:—

"Mĭsĕrār' est | nĕqu' ămōrī dărĕ lūdūm | nĕqŭe dūlcī

Mălă vīnō | lăvĕr' āut ēx|ănĭmārī | mĕtŭēntēs

Pătrŭǣ vēr| bĕră līnguǣ."

Greek verse seems a less promising field than Latin at a first glance. But one of the choruses in Aristophanes's "Plutus" has an exact echo in English verse.

"ἄνδρες φίλοι κὰι δημόται κὰι τοῦ πονεῖν ἐραστάι."

may fairly run in a curricle with

"A captain bold of Halifax who lived in country quarters."

The great difficulty of finding a corresponding measure in English for Latin or Greek verse, on the accepted theory that the English acute accent answers to the Latin long quantity, and the grave accent to the short, will be found in the spondee. We have no means of replacing the two longs in juxtaposition, and are compelled to find refuge in what, according to the accent-quantity theory, is either an iamb or a trochee.

I subjoin the following attempts to render a few Latin metres, commencing with a translation of the Horatian measure just alluded to:—

"Hapless lasses who in glasses may not drown those pangs of passion,

Or disclose its bitter woes, it's—so they tell you—not the fashion."

Yet this, in spite of the sub-rhymes which give the swing of the Ionicus ( ᴗ ᴗ — ´ — ) may well be read as a succession of trochees—that is to say, according to the quantity-accent system.

Here is an attempt at the Sapphic:—

"Never—ah me—now, as in days aforetime

Rises o'erwhelming memory—'tis banish'd!

Scenes of loved childhood, cannot ye restore time,

Though it has vanish'd?"

The Alcaic measure is essayed in the following:—

"Ah woe! the men who gallantly sallying

Strode forth undaunted, rapidly rallying—

No longer advancing attack-ward,

Rush'd a disorderly tumult backward."

In these, again, the difficulty of exactly replacing quantity by accent is great—if not insurmountable. Hence it is that, as a rule, the attempts at giving the exact reproductions of Latin measures have failed. Nevertheless I believe that corresponding measures, suitable to the genius of our language, may be suggested by a study of the classics.

The often-quoted lines of Coleridge on the hexameter and pentameter appear to me faulty:—

"In the hex|ameter | rises || the | fountain's | silvery | column—

In the pen|tameter | aye || falling in | melody | back."

The first feet of both lines are less dactyls than anapæsts. The cæsura of the first line is not the "worthier" cæsura. In the second line the monosyllable is inadmissible in the last place.

Here I may as well point out what seems to me to be a difficulty of English versification which has given much trouble. The substitution of accent for quantity is not all that is required to make the best verse. Quantity enters into the consideration too. A combination of consonants, giving an almost imperceptible weight to the vowel preceding them, goes far to disqualify it for a place as an unaccented syllable. To my thinking "rises a" would be a better English dactyl than "rises the," and "falls it in" than "falling in." But no agglomeration of consonants can make such a syllable accented. Two lines from Coleridge's "Mahomet" will evidence this—

"Huge wasteful | empires | founded and | hallowed | slow

perse|cution,

Soul-wither|ing but | crush'd the | blasphemous | rites of

the | Pagan."

"Huge wasteful" is not a dactyl, and "ing but" is certainly not a spondee—nor is "crushed the." "Hallowed," by force of the broad "o," is almost perfect as a spondee, on the other hand; as is "empires" also. Longfellow, in his "Evangeline," has perhaps done the best that can be done to give an exact rendering of the Latin hexameter; but Tennyson, in portions of "Maud," has caught its spirit, and transfused it into an English form. No poet, indeed, has done so much as the Laureate to introduce new or revive old forms of versification, and enrich the language with musical measure.

It may be well to note here that the classic poets did not forget the use of the maxim which Pope expresses in the line—

"The sound must seem an echo to the sense."

In this they were greatly assisted by the use of the quantity, which enabled them the more readily to give rapidity or weight to their lines. Nothing could more admirably represent a horse's gallop than the beat of the words—

"Quadrupedante putrem sonittu quatit ungula campum."

The unwieldiness of the Cyclops is splendidly shadowed in the line—

"Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum."

And again the beat of the Cyclopean hammers is well imitated in the verse—

"Illi inter sese magnâ vi brachia tollunt."

Too much stress may easily be laid on this adornment, and some poets have carried it to excess. But the beginner in verse will do well not to overlook it.

Note.—The Poet Laureate, whose mastery of metre is remarkable, has given us alcaics in his lines to Milton—

"Oh, mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,

Oh, skill'd to sing of time and eternity,

God-gifted organ-voice of England—

Milton, a name to resound for ages."

I would especially commend to those whom these remarks have interested in any way, the perusal, with a view to this particular object, of "Father Prout's Reliques."

CHAPTER III.
GUIDES AND HANDBOOKS.

The earliest handbook of verse appears to be that of Bysshe, who is, by the way, described in the British Museum Catalogue as "the Poet." The entry is the only ground I can find for so describing him. He is, however, amusingly hard on simple versifiers. "Such Debasers of Rhyme, and Dablers in Poetry would do well to consider that a Man would justly deserve a higher Esteem in the World by being a good Mason or Shoe-Maker, than by being an indifferent or second-Rate Poet." Furthermore, with touching modesty, he says, "I pretend not by the following sheets to teach a man to be a Poet in Spight of Fate and Nature." His "Rules for making English Verse" are reprinted in the Appendix.

His dictionary of rhymes is better than those of his successors,—perhaps I should say "that" of his successors, for Walker's has been repeated with all its errors, or nearly all, in every subsequent handbook. Bysshe is to be praised for setting his face against what Walker styles "allowable" rhymes, such as "haste" and "feast."[^[7]]

Bysshe's theory of verse was "the seat of the accent, and the pause," as distinguished from quantity—that is, it depended on the number of syllables. As a result of this undivided devotion, he misses much of the power to be attained by making the sound the echo of the sense, as Pope puts it. He proposes to alter a line of Dryden's from

"But forced, harsh, and uneasy unto all."

into

"But forced and harsh, uneasy unto all."

One would fancy the merest tyro would see the intentional harshness of the line as Dryden wrote it, and its utter emasculation as Bysshe reforms it.

Bysshe is strongly in favour of clipping syllables, a very pitiable error, for the chief drawback of English as a poetical language is the preponderance of consonants. He prefers to make "beauteous" dissyllabic, and "victorious" trisyllabic. He recommends the elision which makes "bower," "Heaven," "Prayer" and "higher," monosyllables, and advises the use of such abortions as "temp'rance," "fab'lous," "med'cine," "cov'nant," and even "wall'wing," for wallowing! To compensate for these clippings, however, he considers "ism" a dissyllable!

As a consequence of his narrowing verse to a question of syllable and accent only, he vulgarises many words unnecessarily. The student of verse who considers quantity as well as accent will find no difficulty in reading the following lines without eliding any vowels.

"From diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold."—Milton.

"A violet by a mossy stone."—Wordsworth.

"With vain but violent force their darts they threw."—Cowley.

"His ephod, mitre, well-cut diadem on."—Cowley.

"My blushing hyacinth and my bays I keep."—Dryden.

Bysshe cuts down to "di'mond," "vi'let," "vi'lent," "di'dem," "hy'cinth," words which need no such debasing elision. As in music two short sharp beats are equivalent to one long one (two minims = one semi-breve) so in verse two brief vowels, or syllables even, are admissible—indeed, at times desirable for the sake of variety in lieu of one.

Among less questionable maxims of Bysshe's is one, "avoid a concourse of vowels," instanced by—

"Should thy Iambics swell into a book."

This means, it is to be presumed, "avoid a concourse of repetitions of one sound," a very necessary rule. Some poets are careful not to get the same vowel sound twice in any line. "Avoid ending a verse with an adjective whose substantive follows in the next line" is another sound precept, instanced by—

"Some lost their quiet rivals, some their kind

Parents."

The same rule applies to the separation of a preposition from the case which it governs, as exemplified in—

"The daily lessening of our life shows by

A little dying," &c.

With less reason Bysshe condemns alliteration. It is an artifice that can be overdone, as is often the case in Poe's poems, and those of Mr Swinburne,[^[8]]

Following the example of the old Gradus ad Parnassum, Bysshe gives an anthology with his guide. An anthology in a guide to English verse is worse than useless, for it serves no purpose save to provoke plagiarism and imitation. Any one who wishes to write verse will do little unless he has a fair acquaintance with English poetry—an acquaintance for which an anthology can never be a substitute; while it will but cripple and hamper his fancy and originality by supplying him with quotations on any given subject, from "April" to "Woman."

Walker's Rhyming Dictionary has greater faults, but also greater merits than Bysshe's Art of Poetry. Walker admits and defends "allowable" rhymes. "It may be objected," he says, "that a work of this kind contributes to extend poetical blemishes, by furnishing imperfect materials and apologies for using them. But it may be answered, that if these imperfect rhymes were allowed to be blemishes, it would still be better to tolerate them than cramp the imagination by the too narrow boundaries of exactly similar sounds." Now, it is perfectly true, of course, that a poet may well be allowed to effect the compromise of sacrificing a rhyme for a thought; but the versifier (for whom Walker's book is meant) must have no such license. He must learn to walk before he runs. Yet apart from this, Walker's argument is singularly illogical;—there can be no need to catalogue the blemishes, even on the ground he urges, since the imagination would suggest the license, not the license stimulate the imagination. Walker's book being simply mechanical should have been confined to the correct machinery of verse, and imagination should have been allowed to frame for itself the licenses, which it would not dream of seeking in a handbook.

But for this defect, Walker's Dictionary would be the best book of the sort possible. It contains, beside an Index in which rhymes are arranged under various terminations, as in Bysshe's work, a terminational dictionary of three hundred pages; a dictionary, that is, in which the words are arranged as in ordinary dictionaries, save that the last and not the first letter of the word is that under which it is ranged.

Walker's Index is by no means exhaustive. In arranging the index of this little book I have added about a hundred terminations to his list, beside subdividing headings which have two sounds (as ASH, in "cash" and "wash"). Walker's Dictionary of rhymes, though by no means exhaustive, is useful, and is the only one extant. His Index of rhymes has been copied so servilely by all compilers of "handbooks of poetry" that, in dismissing it now, we dismiss all so-called rhyming dictionaries of later date.

Of these recent books there are but two of any note or importance. One claims to be a "complete practical guide to the whole subject of English versification"—"an exhaustive treatise," in which the writer, by way of simplifying matters, proposes to supersede the old titles of spondee, dactyl, &c., by the titles of "march," "trip," "quick," and "revert," and makes accents intelligible by calling them "backward" and "forward," with such further lucidities as "hover," "main," "midabout," and other technicalities afford. Its chief characteristic, however, is a decided condemnation of rhyme altogether, and a suggestion of the substitution of "assonance," under which "path" and "ways," and "pride" and "wife" would do duty for rhyme! The treatise, though spoiled by pedantic aiming after novelties of nomenclature, and too assertive language, is worth perusal. But as "a practical guide" it is at present useless, and will remain so until English rhyme is disestablished and disendowed by Act of Parliament. Although its author modestly describes it as "the first treatise of the kind ever completed," and considers it "will in no mean degree serve to advance" the study of English verse, it is to be feared that there is little danger of its setting the Pierian spring on fire.

A more practical "Handbook of Poetry" is the best work of the kind I have met with, but it is full of grave errors. It begins with a definition of "Poetry" which makes it identical with "Verse," and it tends too much to the side of license in consequence, from the fact of permitting to the versifier freedoms which poets only can claim. On rhyme it is singularly inconsistent. It pronounces as no rhyme "heart" and "art," which to any but a cockney ear are perfect rhymes. Yet, a few paragraphs farther on, its only objection to the coupling of "childhood" and "wildwood" as a double rhyme, is that it is hackneyed; whereas it is not a double rhyme at all! In a chapter on "Imagery," though "metaphor" is catalogued, "simile" is omitted, and both together reappear under the needless subdivision "tropes." An anthology is added, and a dictionary of double and treble rhymes—as if it were possible to give anything like an exhaustive list of them in twenty pages!

Such being the imperfections, whether of shortcoming or excess, of the various existing handbooks, I venture to hope that this little treatise may plead some excuse for its appearance.

CHAPTER IV.
OF FEET AND CÆSURA.

The feet most often met with in English verse are those corresponding with the trochee and iambus,[^[9]] that is approximately. The iambic is most common perhaps, represented by two syllables with the accent on the last syllable. The trochee has two syllables, with the accent on the first. An example of a line in each metre will show the difference—

Four Foot Iambic.

"To fai´r Fide´le's gra´ssy to´mb."

Four Foot Trochaic.

"No´t a si´ngle ma´n depa´rted."

Dactyls (an accented followed by two unaccented syllables) and anapæsts (two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one) are most frequently used in combination with the other feet—

Anapæstic.

"O´r the wo´rld | from the hou´r | of her bi´rth."

Dactylic.

"Ma´ke no deep | scru´tiny

I´nto her | mu´tiny."

It appears to me preferable to retain the classic names for these feet, rather than to try and invent new titles for them. One writer on versification has attempted to do this, and calls the iambic "march" measure, and the trochaic "trip." This seems to me to render the nature of the measure liable to misconstruction, as if the former only suited elevated themes, and the latter light ones; whereas the metre of Hudibras is iambic, and Aytoun's ballad of the "Battle of Flodden" is trochaic. The truth is, that the form of the foot has little to do with the "march" or "trip" of the verse, for "The Bridge of Sighs" is written in a dactylic form; and, according to the authority just alluded to, if the trochee be a "trip," the dactyl must be a "jig"!

By the combinations of these feet in certain numbers a line is constituted. Those in which two, three, and four feet occur—dimeters, trimeters, and tetrameters—are not so general as lines of more feet, and in these latter a new feature has to be recognised and provided for—the cæsura or pause. Strictly, the cæsura causes poetry to be written in lines, the end of each being a cæsura; but there are other cæsuras in the line, one or more according to its length. In the best verse they correspond with a natural pause in the sense of the words. When they do not, the artificial punctuation injures the harmony with which the sound and the sense should flow together. It is by varying the fall of the cæsura that the best writers of blank decasyllabic verse contrive to divest it of monotony. In some of the more irregular forms of verse, especially when it is unrhymed, the cæsura is all-important, giving to the lines their rise and fall—a structure not altogether unlike what has been termed the parallelism of Hebrew versification.

It is scarcely possible to lay down rules for the use of the cæsura, or pause, in English verse. It differs from the classic cæsura in falling at the end of both foot and word. Of its possible varieties we may gain some idea when we note that, in the decassyllabic line, for instance, it may fall after each foot, and it is by the shifting of its place that in this, as in blank verse, monotony is avoided. In shorter measures, especially of a lyric nature, it generally falls midway in the line.

The plan of giving to our accentual feet the titles given to the classical quantitative feet has been strongly condemned by some writers. I venture to think they have hardly considered the matter sufficiently. It must be better to use these meaningless terms (as we use the gibberish of Baroko and Bramantip in logic) than to apply new names which, by aiming at being expressive, may be misleading. But there is something more than this to be considered. There is in accent this, in common with quantity, that just as two shorts make a long, and can be substituted for it, so two unaccented syllables may take the place of one rather more accented; or perhaps it will be found that the substitution is due less to the correspondence in accent alone, than to correspondence of quantity as well as accent. To put it briefly, these resolutions of the foot into more syllables are—like similar resolutions in music—a question of time, and time means quantity rather than accent. As an instance of this, I may give the much-quoted, often-discussed line—

"Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes."

The ordinary method of scanning this is to make a dissyllable of "tired," as if it were "ti-erd," a vulgarism of which its author would never have been guilty. The truth is, that the long "i" and the roll of the "r" correspond in time to a dissyllable, and by changing the run of the line, carry out perfectly Pope's notion of the sound echoing the sense.

These resolutions, therefore, need a most accurate ear, and no slight experience. The versifier will do well, as a beginner, to refrain from attempting them. When he has gone on writing verse by rule of thumb until he begins to discover a formality in them that would be the better for variation, he may fairly try his hand at it—but not until then. Before that, his redundancy of syllables would be the result of faulty or unfinished expression, not the studied cause of a change in run.

CHAPTER V.
METRE AND RHYTHM.

I t was scarcely possible to explain what the feet in verse are without assuming the existence of lines, in order to give intelligible examples of the various feet. But the consideration of the construction of lines really belongs to this chapter.

A line is composed of a certain number of feet, from two to almost any number short of ten or so—if indeed we may limit the number exactly, for there is nothing to prevent a man from writing a line of twenty feet if he have ingenuity enough to maintain the harmony and beat necessary to constitute verse. As a rule, we seldom meet with more than eight feet in a line.

A line may consist of feet of the same description, or of a combination of various feet. And this combination may be exactly repeated in the corresponding line or lines, or one or more of the feet may be replaced by another corresponding in time or quantity. Here is an instance—

"I knew | by the smoke that so gracefully curled ...

And I said | 'if there's peace to be found in the world.'"

Here the iambic "I kne´w" is resolved into the anapæst, "and I sa´id,"[^[10]]—or rather (as the measure is anapæstic) the iambic takes the place of the anapæst.

When only two feet go to a line, it is a dimeter. Three form a trimeter, four a tetrameter, five a pentameter, six a hexameter, seven a heptameter, eight an octameter, which, however, is usually resolved into two tetrameters. If the feet be iambics or trochees, of course the number of syllables will be double that of the feet—thus a pentameter will be decasyllabic. When dactyls or anapæsts are used, of course the number of syllables exceeds the double of the feet. But there is no necessity for enlarging on this point: I have given enough to explain terms, with which the student may perhaps meet while reading up the subject of versification. As he may also meet with the terms "catalectic" and "acatalectic," it may be as well to give a brief explanation of them also. A catalectic line is one in which the last foot is not completed. An acatalectic is one in which the line and the foot terminate together. An extract from the "Bridge of Sighs," a dactylic poem, will illustrate this.

"Make no deep | scrutiny

Into her | mutiny;

Rash and un|dutiful,

Past all dis|honour;

Death has left | on her

Only the | beautiful.

Take her up | tenderly,

Lift her with | care;

Fashion'd so | slenderly

Young and so | fair."

Here the fourth and fifth, the eighth and tenth lines are catalectic. In the first two the last foot needs one syllable, in the others it requires two. It is scarcely necessary to point out how such variations improve and invigorate the measure, by checking the gallop of the verse.

We have now seen that the line may be composed of various numbers of the different feet. The next step to consider is the combination of lines into stanzas.

Stanzas are formed of two or more lines. Two lines are styled a couplet, three a triplet, and four a quatrain, while other combinations owe their titles to those who have used them first or most, as in the case of the Spenserian stanza.

The reader will see at once that, each of these kinds of stanzas being constructible of any of the styles of line before enumerated, each style of line being in its turn constructible of any of the sorts of feet described in a previous chapter, to make any attempt to give an exhaustive list of stanzas would be to enter upon an arithmetical progression alarming to think of.[^[11]] I shall therefore only enumerate a few, giving, as seems most useful for my purpose, examples of the most common form of a peculiar stanza, as in the case of the decasyllabic couplet of Pope, and the nine-line stanza of Spenser, or the least common, as when, in the quatrain, it appears preferable to give, instead of the alternate-rhymed octosyllabic tetrameters which have been repeated ad nauseam, such fresh forms as will be found in the extracts from "The Haunted House," or Browning's "Pretty Woman."

EXAMPLES.

THE COUPLET OR DISTICH.[^[12]]

Dimeter (four-syllabled).

"Here, here I live

And somewhat give."

—Herrick, Hesperides.

Tetrameter (eight-syllabled).

"His tawny beard was th' equal grace

Both of his wisdom and his face."

—Butler, Hudibras.

Tetrameter (seven-syllabled).

"As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May."

—Shakespeare.

Pentameter (ten-syllabled, "Pope's decasyllable").

"Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,

And fools who came to scoff remained to pray."

—Goldsmith, Deserted Village.

Hexameter (twelve-syllabled).

"Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil:

That serving not—then proves if he his scent may foil."

—Drayton, Polyolbion.

Heptameter (fourteen-syllabled).

"Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are;

And glory to our sovereign liege, king Henry of Navarre."

—Macaulay, Battle of Ivry.

The couplet may also be formed of two lines of irregular length.

"Belovëd, O men's mother, O men's queen!

Arise, appear, be seen."

—Swinburne, Ode to Italy.

"Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles

Miles on miles."

—Browning, Love among the Ruins.

"Morning, evening, noon, and night,

'Praise God,' sang Theocrite."

—Browning, The Boy and the Angel.

"Take the cloak from his face and at first

Let the corpse do its worst."

—Browning, After.

"Or for a time we'll lie