Historical Manual of English Prosody

In comparison with Southey's and Coleridge's remarks, and still more with the practice of the latter in Christabel and the Ancient Mariner, the preceptist prosody of the extreme end of the eighteenth century, and the first third of the nineteenth becomes, except for exhaustive students of the subject, a mere curiosity, and not a very interesting one. Prosodic remarks, mostly erroneous or inadequate, found their way into popular handbooks, such as Walker's Dictionary (almost wholly wrong) and Lindley Murray's Grammar (partially right). The musical theories of Steele were taken up by others, such as Odell, Roe, and, above all, the republican lecturer Thelwall, who, escaping the consequences of his earlier extravagances, became a teacher of elocution. The new Reviews gave opportunity for occasional critical remarks on the subject—the most notable of which was the Quarterly review, by Croker, of Keats's Endymion,—usually embodying the cramped and ignorant doctrinairism of the preceding century. Southey's hexameters started a large amount of writing on that subject. In 1816 John Carey, compiler of the best-known Latin Gradus and author of many "cribs" and school editions, repeated most of the errors of Bysshe, but did grudgingly allow trisyllabic feet; and in 1827 William Crowe, a minor poet and Public Orator at Oxford, wrote a treatise of English Versification—good in method, but bad in principle—condemning the adjustment of very short to longer lines, etc. Nothing of this period comes in importance near to that second edition of Mitford (1804, with most of the historical matter added) which has been noticed.

But in 1838—after the appearance of Tennyson and Browning, but when no public attention had been paid to them—appeared the most elaborate, ambitious, and, partly at least, valuable work that had yet been written on the subject—the History of English Rhythms, by Edwin Guest, then Fellow, afterwards Master, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Guest took nearly two years between the publication of the first and second volumes of his book, and admittedly changed his opinions on some points, but his main theories are unmistakable. He goes entirely by accent, denying metrical quantity in English altogether, and imposing curious arbitrary rules (such as that two adjoining syllables cannot be accented without a pause) on accent itself. But he possessed an immense and truly admirable knowledge of English verse—Old, Middle, and Modern—up to his time; and he lavished this, in a manner useful, indeed invaluable, to the present day, on the support of general theories which, unfortunately, are quite unsound.

For Guest seems to have conducted his work under the influences of three different obsessions, no one of which he ever worked out thoroughly in all its bearings, which do not necessarily imply each other, and two of which are even rather contradictory.

The first[146] was the belief that our verse is wholly dependent upon accent, and that "the principles of accentual rhythm," whatever they are, govern it exclusively.

The second[147] was that the laws of English versification generally are somehow not only dependent on those of Old English versification, but identical with them, and always to be adjusted to them.

The third[148] was that, somewhere about the early thirteenth century, and increasingly till the end of the fourteenth, there took place a succession of alien invasions which never resulted in a coalescence or blending, but merely in the presence of two hostile elements; and that while the perfect English versifier will cling to the older and only genuine one, he must, if he does not so cling, give it up altogether, and have nothing to do with anything but "the rhythm of the foreigner."

Now what has been already and will be later given in this book seems to show that these propositions are in fact false.

In the first place, though accent plays a large part in English prosody, that prosody is as far as possible from being purely or exclusively accentual.

In the second, the oldest English poetry and its younger varieties are so utterly different that the same laws cannot, except per accidens, apply to them.

In the third, instead of two jarring elements, we find before us, from the thirteenth century, at least, onwards, a more and more distinct and harmonious blend of language, resulting, of necessity, in a more and more distinct and harmonious blend of prosody.

But there is also a fourth principle, which he adds to, rather than deduces from, the other three:—

That the collocation of accented and unaccented syllables forms sections,[149] which in turn form, and into which can be reduced, all English verse.

On these principles he went through the whole body of English verse from Caedmon to Coleridge, arranging it with infinite trouble on the "sectional" system, and classifying the verses as those of "four accents," those of "five," and so on, with suitable distinctions for stanzas, etc. Unfortunately—to mention only the crowning and fatal fault which makes mention of all others in such a book as this unnecessary—he finds himself in perpetual conflict with the practice of the greatest English poets in their most beautiful passages. Shakespeare and Milton go "contrary to every principle of accentual rhythm," and use devices which "they have no right" to use. Coleridge and Burns employ sections which "have very little to recommend them." Spenser's verse is "wanting in good taste," and Byron's versification "has never been properly censured." It may seem incredible that a writer of learning and acuteness should not have seen the absurdity of his position when he tells beautiful poetry—sometimes admitted by himself as such—that it has no business to be beautiful because it does not suit his rules. But the fact disposes of him, and of the rules themselves, without its being necessary—though it would be easy—to prove their want of intrinsic justification.

CHAPTER III
LATER NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROSODISTS

The amount of prosodic writing during the last seventy years has been very large. In the earliest and latest parts of the period it was principally devoted to the subject of English hexameters—in the first, in regard to the accentual attempts of Longfellow, to which Evangeline gave immense popularity; in the last, to the counter-attempts at "quantitative" versification, in which the feet are constructed, not with reference to accent or to the way in which the words are ordinarily pronounced, but to independent and even opposed temporal value derived from the special sound attached to the vowel ("īdol," long; "fĭddle," short, etc.), or, on semi-classical principles, to what is called "position." To analyse the individual views of critics on these two bodies of questions would be here impossible, and reference must be made to the larger History, to Mr. Omond's treatises, or to the original works, the most important of which will be found duly entered in the Bibliography. But we may summarise results under three heads.

I. The "accentual" or Evangeline hexameter has, as has been said, been at times far from unpopular; but it has always dissatisfied nicer ears by a certain inappropriateness which has been differently appraised, but which is evidently pointed at by the apology of its first extensive practitioner, Southey, that he could not get spondees enough, and had to be content with trochees. This inappropriateness has since been characterised by an unsurpassed expert in theory and practice—Mr. Swinburne—in the blunt assertion that to English "all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent."

II. On the other hand, the so-called quantitative verse is repulsive to the same ears (unless, like Tennyson's experiments, it is accommodated to ordinary pronunciation) by the very fact that it sets that pronunciation expressly at defiance, and makes sheer jargon of the language.

III. Considering these facts, some (among whom the present writer is included) regard an apparent English hexameter, such as that of Kingsley's Andromeda, and, still more, that of certain verses of Mr. Swinburne himself, as an admirable and glorious metre, but as not dactylic at all—scanning it as a five-foot anapæstic with anacrusis (odd syllable at the beginning) and hypercatalexis (ditto at the end).[150]

Of more general prosodic inquiry some selection-summary must be given. Guest's original work does not seem to have produced much effect, save on specially scholarly writers interested in the subject, like Archbishop Trench; though the reprint of it, forty years later, had, as we shall see, a great deal of influence. Except on the hexameter matter, there was little done between 1840 and close upon 1870. It was, however, unfortunate that, at the very opening of this time, Latham's English Language embodied some very inadequate remarks on prosody, including the symbol xa for an iamb, which has too much permeated English text-books since. The works of Archdeacon Evans and E.S. Dallas, both published in 1852, are important only to very thorough-going students. The latter was acute, but fanciful and inclined to jargon. The former, regarding stress as the only basis of modern versification, indulged in a curious undervaluation of English poetry generally: we must "forget all about classical poetry to be satisfied with blank verse"; English lyric has been "under an evil genius, and always a blank"; and Shakespeare and Milton "gained exceedingly" by translation into Greek and Latin. Any intelligent reader can judge of such a tree by such fruits.

Of really earlier date than these (for their author died in 1846) were Sidney Walker's remarks on Shakespeare's Versification, posthumously published in 1854, which contain some useful metrical observations.[151] Dallas's book produced at least two important reviews, each of which extended itself into a more important prosodic tractate. The first of these was by the late Professor Masson, who afterwards rearranged his prosodic ideas in a minute and very scholarly study of Milton's versification, appearing in his larger edition of the poet. Professor Masson perhaps admitted some unnecessary feet, such as the amphibrach, but his views are on the whole extremely sound. The other essay was by Coventry Patmore—a poet, a man of distinct originality in many ways, and a really learned student of preceding prosodists—in fact, by far the most learned up to his time. This essay is full of suggestive and ingenious notions, but exceedingly crotchety, and, for persons not thoroughly grounded in the subject, unsafe. It has the merit of recognising the division of verse into what it calls, by a rather ponderous term, "isochronous intervals" (that is to say, feet equivalent in time), and of recognising, likewise, the important metrical as well as rhetorical part played by pause. But it exaggerates this part in an impossible fashion, making a full pause-foot at the end of every heroic line; and its attention to "accent" is also excessive and, in fact, inconsistent.

On the whole, however, it was not, as has been said, till the very eve of 1870, when the Præ-Raphaelite school had made its appearance, that any considerable amount of prosodic writing came. Then, and in the very same year, 1869, there was a remarkable outburst, including A Complete Practical Guide to the Whole Subject of English Versification (by E. Wadham), which represents a modified Bysshian system—believing in elision; thinking trisyllabic feet bad, though they may exist, especially at the cæsura; discountenancing both blank and anapæstic verse; and applying to the whole subject a new terminology which has not been generally accepted. Then came also a Manual of English Prosody by R. F. Brewer (reissued many years afterwards as Orthometry), which contains a very large amount of information on the details of the matter, but little appreciation of its more important aspects. Much briefer, but, despite some errors, sounder on the whole, and giving no bad introduction to the subject, was the Rules of Rhyme of Tom Hood, son of the poet. Greater influence than that of any of these has been exercised by the prosodic part of Dr. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, published in this year, and of his English Lessons for English People, issued (and partly written by J. R. Seeley) two years later. Unfortunately, not a few of the principles of these books are either demonstrably unsound or very doubtful, the worst of all being the insistence on "extra-metrical" syllables, or, in other words, the confession that English prosody cannot account for English poetry. 1869 also saw the beginning of a very important work, Mr. A. J. Ellis's Early English Pronunciation, which has had a great effect on some views of prosody, and contains a very elaborate scheme of syllabic values for quality and degree of force, weight, etc.

In 1874 Mr. John Addington Symonds, a critic, prose-writer, and even poet of no mean rank, published an essay, which he afterwards expanded into a tractate, on Blank Verse, denying that any preconceived metrical scheme will explain this, and arguing that each line must be treated separately according to its own sense. More minute than any book since Guest's, and written with definite purpose to teach poets their business, was Mr. Gilbert Conway's Treatise of Versification (1878), which reverts to eighteenth-century theories, not merely of the scansion but of the pronunciation of words like "ominous" and " delicate"; thinks Milton "capricious" and "inconsistent"; and proceeds entirely on the principle that the base and backbone of English prosody is accent. Two years later Mr. Ruskin issued his Elements of English Prosody, employing musical notation, but using the names of feet very strangely applied. And a year later Mr. Shadworth Hodgson published a paper on "English Verse," perhaps not uninfluenced by Guest, and advocating (as several writers about his time began to do) "stress" systems of scansion, the stress being allotted according to various considerations of sense and otherwise. Another stress-man—still more influenced, though partly in the way of correction, by Guest—was the late Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who in 1883 wrote in the Saturday Review some papers, republished after his death, and advocating "sections," of which there may be as many as four in a normal heroic line, though this may, on the other hand, have as many as seven or even eight "beats" on strong syllables. Much sounder than any of these—indeed, on practical matters almost irreproachable—was Professor J. B. Mayor's Chapters on English Metre (1886), on which he founded later a Handbook of the subject (1903).

In the last twenty or thirty years there has been an increasing number of books on prosody, the names of the most important of which will be found in the Bibliography. The most important of all is perhaps Mr. Robert Bridges' Prosody of Milton, increased in subsequent editions to something like a manual of Stress Prosody, and containing material also for estimating the recent attempts, by Mr. Bridges himself and by the late Mr. W. J. Stone, to revive the writing of English hexameters on a quantitative, not an accentual, basis. There have also been many attempts (of which perhaps the most remarkable is a treatise on monopressures, taken up and applied by Professor Skeat) which would reduce prosody to a branch of medical physics or physiology, by basing it on the mechanical action of the glottis or larynx. And strong and repeated efforts have also been made to bring the subject entirely under the supervision of music—using musical notation, musical terms such as "bar," and the like. The most widely influential of these was the work of the American poet and critic Sidney Lanier; the most recent, that of Mr. William Thomson of Glasgow. On the other hand, the writings of Mr. Omond, though some doubt may be entertained as to details, have the merits of absolute soundness on the general principles of the subject, and may be studied with ever-increasing advantage.

These principles—general, and in relation to the methods of treatment more especially dealt with in the last paragraph or two—may be briefly summarised before this sketch of our prosodist history is closed. Systems of stress prosody are unsatisfactory, because the unstressed syllables of the line, and their connection or grouping with the stressed ones, are of quite as much importance to total effect as stresses themselves, and because attention to stress seems to beget the notion that regularity of time and time-interval is of no importance.[152]

Physiological-mechanical systems are altogether insufficient, even if not wrong, because they only refer to the raw material of prosody; because, in their nature, they must be applicable to verse and prose alike, and to all kinds of verse; with the additional disadvantage that, as actually explained by their advocates, they usually make verse-arrangements of the most inharmonious and unpoetical character.[153]

This latter objection applies with even greater force to the musical theorists, whose explanations of verse invariably confuse rhythm or overturn it altogether, while their whole system ignores the fact, that music and prosody are quite different things—that they may perhaps be accommodated in particular cases, but that this accommodation is by no means frequent.

In some cases, chiefly those of foreigners who have undertaken the study of English verse, return has been attempted to the rigid syllabic methods of Bysshe and his followers. But it is usually admitted by these persons that the method does not suit nineteenth-century poetry, and they are open therefore to the fatal charge of having to suppress part, and a most important part, of the historical life of the subject.

On the other hand, the system of corresponding foot-division, with equivalence and substitution allowed, which has been followed in this book, is open to none of these objections. It neither neglects nor suppresses any part of the line in any case, but accounts fully for all parts. It applies to poetry only, and, to a large extent at least, explains the difference between good poetry and bad. It adjusts itself to the entire history of English verse, since the English language took the turn which made it English in the full sense. It requires no metrical fictions, no suppression of syllables, no allowance of extra-metrical ones, no alteration in pronouncing, no conflict of accent and quantity. No period or kind of English poetry is pronounced by it to be wrong, though it may allow that certain periods have exercised their rights and privileges more fully than others. In short, it takes the poetry as it is, and has been for seven hundred years at least; bars nothing; carves, cuts, and corrects nothing; begs no questions; involves no make-believes; but accepts the facts, and makes out of them what, and what only, the facts will bear.

BOOK IV
AUXILIARY APPARATUS

CHAPTER I
GLOSSARY

(The miniature glossary which I prefixed to my larger History having been found useful, and indeed some complaints having been made that it was not fuller, I have determined to go to the other extreme here, with a special view to those readers who may be approaching the subject for the first time. Excepting words like "trisyllabic," etc., which can hardly be thought to require explanation, an attempt has been made to include almost every technical, and especially every disputed, term.)

Accent.—This term, which is perhaps the principal centre of dispute in matters prosodic and which, even outside strict prosody, is not a little controversial, may be defined, as uncontroversially as possibly in the words of a highly respectable book of reference,[154] "A superior force of voice, or of articulative effort, upon some particular syllable." It is prosodically used as equivalent (with some slight differences) to "stress," and is regarded by a large—perhaps the most numerous—school as constituting the foundation-stone of English prosody. The inconveniences and insufficiencies of this view will be found constantly indicated throughout this book. On the question, almost more debated, what constitutes, and in different languages and times has constituted, accent itself—whether it is loudness, duration, "pitch," or what not of sound—no pronouncement has been or will be attempted in this volume.

Acephalous.—A term applied to a line in which the first syllable, according to its ordinary norm or form, is wanting, as in Chaucer's

Acrostic.—An arrangement, not perhaps strictly prosodic, by which the initial syllables of the lines of a poem make words or names of themselves, as in Sir John Davies's Astræa, where these initials in every piece make "Elizabetha Regina." The process is now chiefly confined to light verse; but there is nothing to be said against it, unless the sense is strained or perverted to get the letters.

Alcaic.—A Greek lyrical measure, used by and named after the famous lyrical poet Alcæus, but most familiar in the slightly altered Latin form of Horace. Like all these forms, it is only a curiosity in English, and, even as such, has shared the endless and hopeless controversies as to accentual and quantitative metre. No one, however, is ever likely to get nearer to the real thing than Tennyson in

The strict Horatian form (the last syllables being, as usual, common) is:

Alexandrine.—A line of twelve syllables or six iambic feet. This measure (traditionally said to have taken its name from the Old French poem on Alexander) became the favourite metre for the chansons de geste or long narrative poems in that language, and then practically the staple of French verse to the present day. But though it is early traced—as a whole or as two halves—in English, it never established itself as a continuous metre with us. Only two pieces of importance, Drayton's Polyolbion and Browning's Fifine at the Fair, so employ it. On the other hand, it is constantly found scattered about early English verse; appears—questionably according to some, unquestionably according to the present writer—in Chaucer; was an ingredient in the "poulter's measure" (v. inf.), so popular with the poets of the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century; was used by Sidney continuously in sonnet; forms, as a concluding line, the distinguishing feature of the great Spenserian stanza; is very frequent in Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan dramatists; and was adopted by Dryden (though latterly, and then not quite always, rejected by Pope) as a relief and variation to the heroic couplet. It also supplies a frequent ingredient in Pindaric verse and in various lyrical stanzas. For its perfection it almost requires a central cæsura at the sixth syllable.

In Dryden (probably from insufficient information), in Warton (less excusably), and in some more modern writers (without any excuse at all), "long Alexandrine," or sometimes even Alexandrine by itself, is used to designate the fourteener, "seven-beat," or seven-foot iambic line. This ignores the derivation, contravenes the established use of French, the special home of the metre, and introduces an unnecessary and disastrous confusion.

Alliteration.—The repetition of the same letter at the beginning or (less frequently) in the body of different words in more or less close juxtaposition to each other. This, which appears slightly, but very slightly, in classical poetry, has always been a great feature of English. During the Anglo-Saxon period universally, and during a later period (after an interval which almost certainly existed, but the length of which is uncertain) partially, it formed, till the sixteenth century, a substantive and structural part of English prosody. Later, it became merely an ornament, and at times, especially in the eighteenth century, has been disapproved. But it forms part of the very vitals of the language, and has never been more triumphantly used than in the late nineteenth century by Mr. Swinburne.

Amphibrach.—A foot of three syllables—short, long, short (  ̆   ̄   ̆  )—literally "short on each side." According to some, this foot is not uncommon in English poetry, as, for instance, in Byron's

as well as individually for a foot of substitution. Others, including the present writer, think that these cases can always, or almost always, be better arranged as anapæsts—

and that the amphibrach is unnecessary, or, at any rate, very very rare in English.

Amphimacer ("long on both sides").—Long, short, long (  ̄   ̆   ̄  )—an exactly opposite arrangement to the amphibrach, also, and more commonly, called Cretic. It is more than doubtful whether this arrangement, as an actual foot, ever occurs in English verse or is suitable to English rhythm; but the name (preferably Cretic) is sometimes useful to designate a combination of syllables belonging to more feet than one, and possessing a certain connection, as expressing either the quantity of a single word or that of a rhetorical division[155] of a line.

Anacrusis.—A syllable or half-foot prefixed to a verse, and serving as a sort of "take-off" or "push-off" for it. This, frequent in Greek, is by no means rare in English, though there are numerous disputes as to its application. It has sometimes been proposed to call it with us "catch"; and, whatever it be called, it comes into great prominence in connection with the question whether the general rhythm of English verse is iambic or trochaic, while it is almost the hinge of the whole matter on the other question whether the English hexameter is really dactylic or anapæstic.

Anapæst.—A trisyllabic foot consisting of two shorts and a long (  ̆   ̆   ̄  ). Almost as soon as English poetry proper makes its appearance, this measure or cadence appears too; for a time chiefly as an equivalent to the iamb. In the revived alliterative metre it to a great extent ousts the trochee, and to one almost as great dominates the doggerel of the fifteenth century. As a continuous metre the early examples of it are well marked, though not very numerous; but in the sixteenth century it seems (no doubt with the help of music) to have caught the popular ear, and from the late seventeenth has been thoroughly established in literature. It is perhaps the chief enlivening and inspiriting force in English poetry, and, while powerful for serious purposes, is almost indispensable for comic.

Anti-Bacchic Or Anti-Bacchius.—A trisyllabic foot opposite to the Bacchic as a definite foot—a short followed by two long (  ̆   ̄   ̄  ). Of very doubtful occurrence anywhere in English verse; though the same remark applies to it as to the amphibrach, the amphimacer, other trisyllabic feet, and all tetrasyllabic, in regard to secondary or rhetorical use.

Antispast ("pulling against").—A four-syllabled foot—short, long, long, short (  ̆   ̄   ̄   ̆  )—opposed to the choriambic. Like all four-syllabled feet, it is not wanted in English poetry, being always resolvable into its constituents, the iamb and trochee. But the combined effect may sometimes be represented by it—with this caveat, as in other cases.

Antistrophe.—See Strophe.

Appoggiatura.—A musical term which has no business whatever in prosody, but which has been used by some (e.g. Thelwall) to evade the allowance of equivalence, and the substitution of trisyllabic for dissyllabic feet. Its definition in music is "a short auxiliary or grace-note forming no essential part of the harmony." The nearest actual approach to it in English verse would appear to be the extra syllables found (by licence very rare until recently) in such lines as Scott's in the "Eve of St. John," Moore's in "Eveleen's Bower" and elsewhere, and Macaulay's in "The Last Buccaneer"—e.g.:

Arsis and its opposite, Thesis, are two terms much used in prosody, though unfortunately with meanings themselves attached in diametrical opposition to the same word. The words literally mean "lifting up" and "putting down" respectively. At first, among the Greeks themselves, the metaphor seems to have been taken from the raising and putting down of the foot or hand; so that "arsis" would make a light or short, and "thesis" a heavy or long syllable. By the Latins, and by the great majority of modern prosodists in reference even to Greek, the metaphor is transferred to the raising or dropping of the voice, so that "arsis" lengthens and "thesis" shortens. This, which, whether the older or not, seems to be the better use, is followed here.

Assonance.—An imperfect form of rhyme which counts only the vowel sound of the chief rhyming syllable. This principle was the original one of rhyme in French, and has always held a considerable place in Spanish. But in English it has never established itself in competent literary poetry; though it is frequent in the lower kind of folk-song, and though attempts to naturalise it—in forms even further degraded—were made by Mrs. Browning, and have been suggested since. As an instrument of vowel-music, very delicately and judiciously used at other parts of the line than the end, it has its possibilities, but must always be an offensive substitute in rhyming verse, and an almost equally offensive intruder in blank.

Atonic ("without accent").—When employed in prosody, is applied to those languages which, though they may use accentual symbols, have nothing in the pronunciation that can be made the base of an actual scansion—the chief example being French.

Bacchic or Bacchius.—A three-syllable foot—long, long, short (  ̄   ̄   ̆   )—the opposite of anti-Bacchic and subject to the same observations.

Ballad (rarely Ballet).—A word common to most European languages, but used very loosely, and to be carefully distinguished from Ballade (see following item). Its original connection is with singing and dancing (Italian ballare), and it came, centuries ago, to be used for any short poem of a lyrical character. It has, however, a special application to short pieces of a narrative kind; and "The Ballads" has, as a phrase of English literary history, frequent reference to the body of such compositions of which the pieces about Robin Hood are early examples. It is most commonly, though not universally, written in the "ballad metre" described below.

Ballade, on the other hand, is a term arbitrarily restricted to a measure originally and mostly French, but frequently written in English during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and revived in the nineteenth. It consists usually of three stanzas and a coda or envoi, written on the same recurrent rhymes, with a refrain at the end of each. (See example above, p. 126.)

Ballad Metre or Common Measure.—The most usual quatrain in English poetry, consisting, in its simplest form, of alternate octosyllables and hexasyllables; the even lines always rhyming, and the odd ones very commonly. In the best examples, old and new (but less frequently in the late sixteenth, early seventeenth, and almost whole eighteenth century), the lines are largely, equivalenced, and it is not unusual for the stanza to be extended to five or more. The most perfect example of ballad metre is Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

Bar and Beat.—Two musical terms used by stress-prosodists and others who refuse the foot-system. "Bar" is strictly the division between groups of "beats," loosely the groups themselves. "Beat" is the unit of time or measure. On a sound and germane system of prosody neither is needed.

Blank Verse, on the analogy of blank cartridge, etc., might be held to designate any kind of verse not tipped, loaded, or filled up with rhyme. As a matter of fact, however, and for sound historical reasons, it is not usually applied to the more modern unrhymed experiments, from Collins's "Evening" onwards, but is confined to continuous decasyllabics. This measure (which, mutatis mutandis, had already been used by the Italians and Spaniards in the early sixteenth century, and of which curious foreshadowings are found in Chaucer's prose Tale of Melibee and elsewhere) was first attempted in English by the Earl of Surrey in his version of the Æneid. For a time it was very little imitated, but in the latter half of the century it gradually ousted all other competitors for dramatic use. It was still out of favour for non-dramatic purposes until Milton's great experiments in the later seventeenth; while about the same period it was for a time itself laid aside in drama. But it soon recovered its place there, and has never lost it; while during the eighteenth century it became more and more fashionable for poems proper, and has rather extended than contracted its business since.

Bob and Wheel.—An arrangement (see pp. 48, 49) by which a stanza hitherto usually alliterated, but not rhymed, finishes with one much shorter line of usually two syllables, and then a batch, usually four, of lines not quite so short, but still shorter than the staple, and rhymed among themselves.

Burden.—The same as Refrain (q.v.).

Burns Metre.—An apparently artificial but extremely effective arrangement of six lines, 8, 8, 8, 4, 8, 4, rhymed aaabab, which derives its common name from the mastery shown, in and of it, by the Scottish poet. It is, however, far older than his time, having been traced to Provençal originals in the eleventh century, and it is very common in the English miracle plays of the late fourteenth and fifteenth, and not unknown in the metrical romances, as in Octovian Imperator. Disused in Southern English by the time of the Renaissance, it seems to have kept its hold in Northern, and Burns received it either immediately from Fergusson or perhaps from Allan Ramsay. (See also below, in list of Form-origins.)

Cadence.—In general, a term applied to the combined rhythm of a line or batch of lines. In one or two early passages of Wyntoun, Gower, and others, it seems to be employed in some special sense as opposed to, or separated from, rhyme, and has been conjectured to signify alliterative rhythm. But this is very uncertain, rather improbable, and in the Gower case impossible. (See p. 233.)

Cæsura ("cutting").—A term applied, in classical prosody, to the regular provision of a word-ending at a certain place in the line, usually coinciding with a half-foot. The commonest cæsuras in Greek and Latin are penthemimeral ("fifth half"), or in the middle of the third foot, and hepthemimeral ("seventh half"), at the middle of the fourth. At one time, in the earlier writers on English prosody (e.g. Dryden), there grew up a strange habit of using the term "cæsura" to express elision or hiatus—to neither of which has it the least proper reference. Correctly used, it is, in English, equivalent to "pause" (q.v.), but restricted to the principal pause in a line.

Carol.—A term, like "ballad," of rather loose application, but generally confined to religious lyrics of a definite song-kind. The original O.F. karole referred to a rather elaborate dance with singing, and from this there has been a certain tendency to associate the carol with much broken and indented measures in prosody.

Catalexis ("leaving off").—A term of great importance, inasmuch as there is no other single one which can replace it; but a little vague and elastic in use. Strictly speaking, a catalectic line is one which comes short, by a half-foot or syllable, of the full normal measure; a brachycatalectic ("short leaving off"), one which is a whole foot minus; and a hypercatalectic ("leaving over"), one which has a half foot (or perhaps a whole one in rare cases) too much. The terms "catalexis" and "catalectic" are sometimes used loosely to cover all these varieties of deficiency and redundance in their several developments. Acatalectic means a fully and exactly measured line, without either excess or defect.

Catch.—See Anacrusis. The sense of "catch" as referring to a song in parts, with much substitution and repetition, is musical, not prosodic.

Chant-Royal.—A larger and more elaborate ballade: five stanzas of eleven verses each and an envoi of from five to eight.

Choriamb.—A four-syllabled foot consisting of a trochee (or "choree") followed by an iamb (  ̄   ̆   ̆   ̄  ). Although the remarks made on other four-syllabled feet apply here, as far as the ultimate analysis of English verse is concerned, the great frequency of juxtaposed trochees and iambs in English, and the natural way in which they seem to cohere, make choriambic cadence or rhythm suggest itself more frequently than any other of the compound feet. Mr. Swinburne wrote intentional and continuous choriambics of great beauty.

Coda ("tail").—A musical term used in prosody by analogy, and signifying a final stanza or batch of verses, often couched in a form differing from the rest of the poem, such, for instance, as the final octave of Lycidas.

Common.—The quantity or quality in a syllable which makes it susceptible of occupying either the position of a "long" one or that of a "short." This gift, well recognised and frequent enough in Greek and Latin prosody—especially in regard to Greek proper names,—is still more widely spread in English. Almost all monosyllables, other than nouns, are common; and in a very large number of others the syllable can be raised or lowered to long or short by considerations of arsis, thesis, stress, emphasis, position, etc.

Common Measure (for shortness, especially in reference to hymns, "C.M.").—The same as ballad metre, but usually restricted to eights and sixes without substitution. (See also below, Chapter IV.)

Consonance.—In strictness merely "agreement of sound"; but sometimes used to designate full rhyme by vowel and consonant, as opposed to "assonance," i.e. rhyme by vowel only.

Couplet.—In proper English use this refers to a pair of verses only; and it probably should be, though it is not always, limited to cases where the members of the pair are exactly similar, as in the heroic couplet, the octosyllabic couplet. The original French word is much more elastic, and is applied to the long mono-rhymed tirades of Old French poems, to stanzas of more verses than two, and even to whole lyrics, usually of a light description. (See also Distich.)

Cretic.—See Amphimacer.

Dactyl.—A trisyllabic foot—long, short, short (  ̄   ̆   ̆ ). This foot, thanks to the great position of the dactylic hexameter in Greek and Latin, disputes, in those prosodies, the place of principal staple with the iambic; and, from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, almost constant endeavours have been made at imitating that metre in English, and consequently at working the dactyl in our language. It was, however, early discovered, even by favourers of classical "versing," that there is something awkward about the English dactyl. And in fact, though we have a very large number of words which are fair dactyls regarded separately, they are no sooner set in a verse than they seem to slip or waggle into other measures, and especially the anapæst. When, by some chance or by some sleight of the poet, they are found, they are usually either continuous, or in connection with, and substituted for, the trochee. To the classical combination of dactyl and spondee English is obstinately rebellious.

Di-iamb.—A double iamb—short, long, short, long ( ̆   ̄   ̆   ̄ ). Not wanted in English; and not even expressing, as some of the four-syllable feet do, a quasi-real compound effect.

Dimeter.—A combination of two couples of the same foot, iambic, trochaic, or anapæstic. Thus the ordinary octosyllable is an iambic dimeter, and the familiar swinging four-foot anapæst, a dimeter anapæstic. In ancient prosody, "-meter" was never used in this kind of combination, with reference to single-feet metres, unless these feet were in places specifically different. Thus "hexameter" means a line of six single feet, of which, though the first four may vary, the fifth must normally be a dactyl and the sixth a spondee; "pentameter," a line of five feet, dactyls or spondees, but rigidly distributed in two halves of two and a half feet each. Of late years, in modern English prosody-writing, though fortunately not universally, a most objectionable habit has grown up of calling the heroic line a "pentameter," the octosyllabic iambic a "tetrameter." This is grossly unscholarly, and should never be imitated, for the proper meaning of the terms would be ten feet in the one case, eight in the other.

Dispondee.—Double spondee (  ̄   ̄   ̄   ̄ ). Even more than the di-iamb, and much more than the ditrochee, this combination is not wanted in English.

Distich.—A synonym for "couplet," but of wider range, as there is no reason why the verses should be metrically similar. There is, however, in the practical use of the word, an understanding that there shall be a certain completeness and self-containedness of sense.

Ditrochee.—A double trochee—long, short, long, short (  ̄   ̆   ̄   ̆ ).—The remarks on the di-iamb apply here, but not quite so strongly. There are a few exceptional cases in Milton, as in the famous "Ūnĭvērsăl reproach," where the ditrochaic effect, whether beautiful or not, is too noticeable not to deserve specific definition.

Dochmiac.—A foot of five syllables, admitting, with the possible permutations of long and short in the five places, a large number of variations. This foot, not strictly necessary even in Greek prosody, is quite unknown in English, and, if used, would simply split itself up into batches of two and three. But it probably has a real existence in the systematisation of English prose rhythm.

Doggerel.—A word (the derivation of which can be only, though easily, guessed) as old as Chaucer; always used with depreciating intent, but with a certain difference, not to say looseness, of exact connotation. Doggerel is often applied to slipshod or sing-song verse; sometimes to verse burlesque or feeble in sense and phrase. But it is better restricted to verse metrically incompetent by false rhythm and quantification, or by insufficient or superfluous provision of syllables and the like.

Duple.—A term used by some prosodists in combination with "time" and in contradistinction to "triple," to express a characteristic of verse which is nearest to music, and which perhaps is musical rather than really prosodic. Controversies are sometimes carried on in regard to the question whether trisyllabic feet (such as anapæsts, dactyls, and tribrachs) are, when substituted for dissyllabic, in "duple" or in "triple" time; but this question appears to the present writer irrelevant and extraneous.

Elision.—The obliteration of a syllable, for metrical reasons, when a vowel at the end of a word comes before one at the beginning of another. This strict classical meaning of the term is extended ordinarily, in the English use of it, to the omission of a syllable within a word, or the fusion of two in any of the various ways indicated by the classical terms crasis ("mixture"), thlipsis ("crushing"), syncope ("cutting short"), synalœpha ("smearing together"), synizesis ("setting together"), synecphonesis ("combined utterance"), and others. Perhaps the most useful phraseology in English indicates "elision" for actual vanishing of a vowel (when it is usually represented by an apostrophe), and "slur" for running of two into one. These two processes are of extreme importance, for upon the view taken of them turns the view to be held of Shakespeare's and Milton's blank verse, and of a large number of other measures.

End-Stopped.—A term largely applied, especially in Shakespearian discussion, to the peculiar self-contained verse which is noticeable in the early stage of blank-verse writing, and which Shakespeare was one of the first to break through. In the text of the present volume this form is called "single-moulded," its characteristics not appearing to be confined to the end.

Enjambment.—An Englishing, on simple analogy, of the French technical term, enjambement, for the overlapping, in sense and utterance, of one verse on another, or of one couplet on another. Enjambment of the couplet appears in Chaucer and other writers early; was overdone and abused in the first half of the seventeenth century; was rejected by the later seventeenth and still more by the eighteenth, but restored to favour by the Romantic movement.

Envoi.—The coda of a ballade, etc., with the especial purpose of addressing the poem to its subject.

Epanaphora ("referring" or "repetition").—The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive lines. This, originally a rhetorical figure, becomes, especially with some of the Elizabethans and with Tennyson, a not unimportant prosodic device; and, in the hands of the latter, assists powerfully in the construction of the verse-paragraph.

Epanorthosis ("setting up again," with a sense also of "correction").—Also a rhetorical figure, and meaning the repetition of some word, not necessarily at the beginning of clause or line. This also can be made of considerable prosodic effect; for repetition, especially if including some slight change, is necessarily associated with emphasis, and this emphasis colours and weights the line variously.

Epitrite.—A four-syllabled foot consisting of three long syllables and one short (  ̄   ̄   ̄   ̆  ). The shifting of this latter from place to place makes four different kinds of epitrite. Like its congeners, it is not needed in English poetry, though spondaic substitution (in the trochaic tetrameter, etc.) may sometimes simulate it; and the fact that few English words have clusters of definitely long syllables makes it rare even in prose.

Epode.—The third and last member of the typical choric arrangement in a regular ode. See Strophe.

Equivalence means, prosodically, the quality or faculty which fits one combination of syllables for substitution in the place of another to perform the part of foot, as the dactyl and spondee do to each other in the classical hexameter, and as various feet do to the iamb in the Greek iambic trimeter and other metres. It is, with its correlative, Substitution itself, the most important principle in English prosody; it emerges almost at once, and, though at times frowned upon in theory, never loses its hold upon practice.

Eye-Rhyme.—A practice (most largely resorted to by Spenser, but to some extent by others) of adjusting the spellings of the final syllables of words so as to make the rhyme clear to the eye as well as to the ear. It is sometimes forced, and perhaps never ought to be necessary; but it is so associated with the beauties of the Faerie Queene as to become almost a beauty in itself, though hardly to be recommended for imitation.

Feminine Rhyme—Feminine Ending.—Terms applied to the use of words at the end of a line with the final (now mute) e. "Feminine" rhyme is sometimes extended to double rhyme in general, but this is not strictly correct.

"Fingering."—A term used in this book for the single and peculiar turn and colour given to metre by the individual poet.

Foot.—The admitted constituent of all classical prosody, and, according to one system (that adopted preferentially in this book), of English likewise, though with variations necessitated by the language. "Foot" (πους, pes) is "that upon which the verse runs or marches." A Greek foot is made of Greek "long" and "short" syllables; an English foot of English. The possible combinations of these have Greek names which are convenient, and the fact that the conditions of "length" and "shortness" are different in the two languages need cause no misunderstanding whatever. But a comparatively small number are actually found in English poetry. All, however, are separately described in this Glossary, and for convenience' sake a tabular view of them is given on the next page.

It should, moreover, perhaps be added that, at most periods of English poetry, monosyllabic feet, such as hardly exist in classical prosody, are undoubtedly present. These can be regarded, if any one pleases, as made up to dissyllabic value by the addition of a pause or interval. Nor is there any valid objection to the admission of a "pause foot" entirely composed of silence. These two kinds of feet, however, are comparatively rare, and require no specific names.

TABLE OF FEET