A long penultimate, in short, cannot brook elision. When the letters s and c, with a sequent vowel, happen to be between two syllables, and the first is accented, elisions are common, as in prisoner and medicine, changed to pris'ner and med'cine. When the infinitives of verbs end in a liquid (1 or n), preceded by an unaccented vowel, elisions are frequent in the present participles, as travel, trav'lling, lessen, less'ning. Many present participles, in verbs variously formed, are liable to similar contractions, the only fixed rule in the matter being, that the last syllable of the infinitive should be short or unaccented. Thus, what occurs with travel does not with dispel, which forms dispelling. Verbs in ow often suffer the like curtailment, as follow, foll'ing. What has been already said on the license of elision in regard to er, applies almost universally. Our nicer poets, however, have shown themselves chary of carrying the license too far, and indeed rather eschew it in their loftier efforts. As for readers of verse, such contractions for the most part come to them even more naturally, it must be allowed, than full pronunciation. The word every, for example, sounds most easily as a dissyllable. All elisions, indeed, that cause the slightest shade of harshness in the utterance should most certainly be avoided. This ought to be the rule of guidance to young versifiers.

As for that very common order of elisions, consisting of 'tis, 'twas, 'twere, 'twill, and 'twould, examples thereof are to be discovered in plenty in our gravest poets of past days; but the best moderns have agreed in using them more sparingly, and they have done so rightly. They are dangerous to the dignity of verse. Other elisions of a kindred sort are still more so; as by't for by it, do't for do it, was't for was it, was'nt for was not, in't for in it, isn't for is not, and such-like others. The elision of the i in is used to be exceedingly frequent in poetry of all kinds, and particularly in the cases of he is and she is, turned to he's and she's. With other nominatives the is was often treated in the same way, as The Lord 's my shepherd," and so on. Such contractions as the following, again, abounded once in the most serious verse:-we're, you're, they're; I'll, I'd, he'll, he'd, she'll, she'd, who'll, who'd; you've, we've, they've; can't, I'm, let's, and the like. "O! reform it wholly!" The familiarity

66

of these modes of speech renders nearly all of them but dubious ingredients in high-reaching poetry; and our best poets do not employ them now-a-days so freely as was once done. No doubt, there are some of the curtailments here quoted less objectionable than others. 'Twas, and I'll, and He's may not be so mean in sound as do't, isn't, and can't; but the poetical neophyte would do well to evite such elisions almost wholly in his more ambitious assaypieces. Even 'tween, 'twixt, 'mong, 'mongst, 'gainst, and 'bove are contractions not to be over freely used, though of a more allowable kind, certainly. As to 'fore and 'cause, for before and because, they are tolerable only in Dogberry's sense of toleration. Elisions of the vowels in to and the, before words beginning with a vowel, were formerly common, and are so still, though not to the same extent. The moderns, however, do not mark the vowel as excised, or thus-t' impute, th' air; they set down to impute and the air, leaving the reader to note and make the elision voluntarily. The o in to was sometimes taken out before w, as in t' which. At times, too, the vowel in the used to disappear even before consonants; and then did the indefinite article run into the preceding word, as in "to th' wall," or "in th' wall," for in and to the wall. The was still more frequently unvowelled before h, as th' heroic prince. But a more complicated sort of elision was wont to be made of in the, and of the, which were condensed to i' th' and o' th', and held single syllables. This practice has now become obsolete, always excepting in dramatic writing, where authors unable to cope in genius with the giants of the early English stage, are seemingly content to copy such quaintnesses of diction as these mentioned. In this respect the moderns still deserve the sarcasms of Pope, who tells us that, in his day, a play was pronounced perfectly Shaksperian from the style of one line

"And so good morrow t'ye, good Master Lieutenant."

Equally frequent of old with a th' and o' th', were to's, by's, in's, for's, in which cases the adjective pronoun his was grievously shorn of its fair proportions. Before all manner of words commencing with vowels, he, she, they, we, and who suffered vowel-elisions. In this particular Cowley

sinned especially. Such lines as the following occur far t co often in his works:

“Timely k' obeys her wise advice, and strait

To unjust force sh' opposes just deceit.”

Of the great majority, in fine, of these varieties of elision, it may with truth be said, that they are now disapproved, and have grown nearly obsolete. By novices in the Art of Poetry, above all, they should be dealed in sparingly, if not avoided wholly, in all grave and aspiring compositions. If even the splendida vitia of the famous bards of the past are not allowable objects of imitation, much less can it be pronounced right or wise to copy their deformities, and make their examples the plea for so doing. It is a smaller fault, at the outset, to versify stiffly than loosely. Time will bring ease in the one case; in the other, it will be but too apt to fix habits of licentious composition ineffaceably.

Some yet unnoticed cases there are, it should not be forgotten, in which elisions are not only customary in English verse, but are still held perfectly proper and defensible. The words concerned here are chiefly such as consist of two syllables, the last being er, or en, unaccented. Within this category fall prayer, higher, power, flower, tower, bower, shower, heaven, seven, even, eleven, and other words of the like construction. The elision of the e is indeed at this day the rule, and the retention the exception. But the words are usually set down uncontracted, and the elision left to the enunciation. When the poet counts these words as dissyllabic, custom or propriety decides against him in most instances. This is the case when they occur in the middle of lines; at the close, many such words form double rhymes only.

Of another class of contractions, if they cannot be called elisions, mention was made in discussing the proper syllabic lengths of such words as glorious and igneous; and the practice of our best poets was then stated. Some of the latter have carried curtailment into other cases, where it was clearly wrong. Thus, Dryden says,

"Their riot ascends above their lofty towers."

Riot is here made monosyllabic, contrary to propriety. Whenever two such open vowels follow one another in two,

syllabled words, and the first is always accented in ordinary speech-as in lion, poet, and quiet (the u here is mute) -the writer of verse should not presume to take the liberty which Dryden has done. Where words, however, containing more than two syllables, present a similar juxtaposition of open vowels, the case is so far altered. With regard to diamond, violet, violent, diadem, and hyacinth, examples of this class of terms, the great bards of England have left no fixed rule to their successors. Milton uses diamond as trissyllabic in this line:—

"With frontispiece of diamond and gold.”

There can be no doubt here about the syllabic length, and as little in the following case:

"The o'erfraught sea would swell, and th' unsought diamonds." As if to obviate all obscurity, he thus makes dimonds to close as a blank-verse line, which is permitted on the same principle justifying double rhymes in ordinary rhymed. poetry. A simpler line in Comus shows also the curtailed use of diamond:

"Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks."

The license taken by Milton was taken by others of our old poets; and the purest versifiers of our own time have followed their example. Wordsworth, for instance, uses violet occasionally as a dissyllable:—

"A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye."

But, in general, he gives full weight to every vowel in words of this description; and it can but be said here, in fine, that such is the more tasteful and correct way of doing at all times. To complete this notice of elisions and contractions, let it be observed that beginners in versewriting are apt to make two syllables of words ending in arm and ism. Though poets of note have at times done the like, as in the deca-syllabic line

"I rheumatisms send to rack the joints"—

the practice is erroneous, and vilely vulgar. Another common contraction, deserving of mention, is many. Before a word commencing with a vowel, the closing y is ever absorbed or elided.

One of the rules of Bysshe, in a chapter on the "Beauties of Versification," condemns the following line of Dryden,

"Till then a helpless, hopeless, homely swain."

The poet has here sinned, we are told, “in making use of several words in a verse that begin with the same letter;" which proceeding, it seems, "is wrong." It is plain that Bysshe wrote before Pope spoke of "apt alliteration's artful aid." Alliteration, skilfully employed, is now held to be a decided beauty in verse, and rightly so. Wordsworth often uses it finely; and John Wilson, in his poetical prose, wields it like a weapon of power. But, when overdone, alliteration makes the gravest poetry burlesque. It should therefore be used with due consideration.

The Art of Versification has now been pretty fully discussed in all its departments. With respect specially to the following Dictionary of Rhymes, without overvaluing its possible and probable utility, it may yet be found, perhaps, to merit the modest commendation bestowed by worthy Mr Bysshe on his own lexicon, which, with the aid of Walker, has founded the present one. Bysshe says, that as, even in conversation, we often find ourselves at a loss for an apt word to express our meaning, and as similar difficulties must naturally occur still more often in versewriting, it is reasonable to assume that those engaged in the latter task will scarcely fail to reap some advantage from a dictionary of rhymes, since in a moment, and without trouble, they may there find words which might not suggest themselves, for a long time, through the mere process of reflection. This is a simple and fair argument. That such dictionaries have been of actual use to poets, is scarcely to be doubted, and Byron, at least, has been candid enough (in his Don Juan) to acknowledge the obligation. What the Abbé Dubos once said of the French poets, is probably true of not a few English ones; to wit, that, “whatever they might say, they all kept some such book in their private workshops." It is clear, indeed, that a rhyming dictionary may not only be useful in supplying rhymes when wanted for the expression of thoughts already formed, but may suggest entirely new thoughts and images. Many of the most exquisite fancies of Keats, and, above all, in his "Endymion," have obviously been prompted by the ne