of the metre of verse. Each iambic foot or metre, is marked by a swell of the voice, concluding abruptly in an accent, or interruption, on the last sound of the foot; or, in metres of the trochaic order, in such words as dandy, handy, bottle, favor, labor, it begins with a heavy accented sound, and declines to a faint or light one at the close. The line is thus composed of a series of swells or waves of sound, concluding and beginning alike. The accents, or points at which the voice is most forcibly exerted in the feet, being the divisions of time, by which a part of its musical character is given to the verse, are usually made to coincide, in our language, with the accents of the words as they are spoken; which diminishes the musical character of our verse. In Greek hexameters and Latin hexameters, on the contrary, this coincidence is avoided, as tending to monotony and a prosaic character. Thus in the line from Virgil:

Corpora curàmus fèssos sòpor irrigat artus,"

to be read metrically

languages, the French for example, seem to be without accent; and as the prosaic stress of voice is variable and arbitrary, good readers of verse make it as little conspicuous as possible.

As it frequently happens that word and verse accent fall differently, so is it with the division of the sounds by syllables: the verse syllables, like the verse feet, differ in the prosaic and metrical reading of the line. Thus, in the verse,

"How cunningly the sorceress displays,"

the metrical structure requires us to read, Howcunn-inglyth-ěsorc-ĕressd-isplays;

or in the following,

"That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,"

which it is necessary to read,

Thattheshr-ewdmeddl--ingelfd-ělightst―

ŏmake;"

àrtus,

two of the accents are thrown out of their natural places by the breaking of the words into feet. But, in such cases, by reading the line with regard merely to time, and the joining of the syllables in feet, the prosaic accents may be introduced beside; but this can be done only by a person possessed of a very nice ear.

Although this interference of the word. and verse accents is most noticeable in the Latin hexametrical metre, it is very frequent in Milton. Take, for example, the lines:

"Scatter your leaves before the mèllowing year, Bitter constraint and sàd occàsion dear;"

to be read metrically thus,

Scattè-ryourleàvesb-&c. Bittèrc-onstraint-&c.

But after all, it does not seem to be necessary to verse, that the time accents be marked all that is required is to give time, and fullness, to the long metrical syllables, and not to give the prose accent

ing the quantities. The word the, for example, is short, standing by itself, and we should read,

That the shrewd, &c. ;

but, remembering that in a line of verse the feet, and not the words, are to be separated, we write,

Thattheshrewd, &c.,

by which it appears that the first foot is a very heavy spondee, instead of being, as might appear, if we read it thus, That the, a trochee.

It seems, from an examination, by the ear, of the structure of Greek, Latin, and English verse, that the metrical are perfectly distinct from the prosaic properties of verse; the most melodious verse may be composed of sounds devoid of meaning; a line of meaningless sounds such as the following,

Nootalmonalltaidoughrǎplantipall,

illustrates as perfectly the properties of

These lines, from the blank verse of the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, are drama, of the blank verse of Sophocles examples of the heroic verse of that generally. They prove that metre, like musical harmony, is an affair of the senses merely, and not of any ingenious predetermination by rule.

In each of the lines we observe six

divisions, or feet; and of the syllables, fire are short in quantity. The distribution of the short syllables is not the same in all ; for in the first example the spondaie foot is the third, in the next it is the fourth. in the next, third, in the next, fifth, in order. variety is given to this verse, by varying Thus it is perceived, that the necessary the position of the one spondaic foot.

Again, in the last example given, a new arrangement appears, namely, the putting of two short syllables in the fourth foot of the verse, and inserting two spondaic

which read,

Polinm-ěnéik-aimeebl-epeisphr-oneisd

ŏmos.

Another,

Rusai dè pau mìasmà ton tèthneekòtos; which read,

Rusai-děpaum-iasm-atont--ethncek--ŏtós.

Another,

Rusai seauton kai polin rusai d'emee ; which read,

Rusais-eaut--onkaip-olinr-usaid-ěmee.

Another,

filled out with the requisite quantity of sounds, and a greater variety introduced. In a word, the lines have all the same quality, or metrical duration, as in bars of music, but the short syllables are variously distributed.

If we measure the duration of time by one metrical short syllable, taken as a unit of measurement, then the verse of Sophocles is just nineteen metrical units in length; which may be distributed in an infinite variety of ways, provided the iambic form be always preserved. Thus in the last example given, there are seren instead of five short metrical syllables, arranged thus,

such as may be interested in the inquiry to prove, or disprove, what is asserted, by farther examples, we venture to say, that the first principle of metrical, is the same with that of musical verse, namely, that the line taken for a rule, or model, though the number of its syllables may vary, will always be of the same metrical length, or in other words, will be equal to the same number of metrical units, or short times; and if a line varies from this measure, it is either an alexandrine or a curt line, introduced for variety, or it is falsely measured and out of time. We intend, also, that if these principles, with the others previously expressed, are true in the given instances, they are equally true for all languages and all varieties of metre, even to the denial that any poetic metres, founded on other principles, can properly exist. And this, of course, is directly opposed to a favorite theory of some writers, that good verse may be composed in our language by accents alone, without regard to quantity. It maintains that good English verse is as thoroughly quantitative as the Greek, though it be much more heavy and spondaic.

We conclude with a few

EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH METRES.

Flavia's ǎ wit, has too much sense to pray. POPE.

In this line there are four short (metrical) syllables. The first foot, -, has the form of a hexametrical dactyl, but as the metrical accent of that dactyl falls on the first, but that of this upon the last (metrial) syllable, it may be called an iambic lactyl, formed by the substitution of two short for one long time in the last portion of the foot. Iambic spondees and dactyls are to be distinguished by the metrical accent falling on the last syllable. The ine consists of eleven syllables, although ot longer in quantity than a spondaic one of nine, or an ordinary iambic line of ten; leven syllables, four of which are short, eing equal in quantity to nine long; or o ten, of which two are short.

ield not your truth || though gold you persuade, equal in quantity to the regular iambic, ut has a peculiar character and accent.

Flavia's ǎ wit, but á wit or harsh or keen,

there are twelve syllables; but equal in metrical quantity to the more usual verse of ten syllables, two short. Six of the syllables being short and six long, the whole together equal two shorts and eight long, or eighteen times, or units; which is the invariable quantity of all English, heroics of this form, except alexandrines. It does not often happen that more than two shorts are used in this line, and in good verse rarely more than four.

"Flavia's à wit, has too much sense to pray;
To toast our wants and wishes is her way;
Nor asks of God, but of her stars to give
The mighty blessing, while we live to live.
Then all for death, that opiate of the soul,
Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl.
Say what can cause such impotence of mind?
Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to
A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind?
please;

With too much spirit to be ere at ease;
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common
thought;

You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but the rage to live."
POPE.

The first of these verses has a supernumerary syllable; an addition very usual in the heroic verse of Sophocles, Euripides, Shakspeare and Milton. The quantity of the blank verse of Milton and Shakspeare equals eighteen times, or metrical units, and, with the supernumerary, nineteen or twenty times. That of Sophocles, with even greater variety of structure, equals nineteen, and with the supernumerary, twenty, or twenty-one, short times, arranged in twelve, thirteen, or fourteen syllables, in every

form that is consistent with the iambic accents.

It is now a part of courtesy to thank the author of the work before us, for offering, at once, an apology and occasion for what has been said. The views supported in the work itself are not, indeed, such as we would subscribe to, nor can we admit the numerous analyses of English metres which it contains to be correct; yet, as it is as complete in design and execution as anything that has yet appeared or the subject, and well calculated to excite the attention, and direct the inquiries, of English scholars, to the study of our own metres, we shall even pass it by without a word of criticism. The book is a small. well printed volume, cheap enough, and well worth its price, if it were only for the numerous beautiful specimens of verse which it contains. J. D. W.