author, and he gives an instance of the softer or Ovidian hexameter, with a line accompanying it of another measure, the pentameter or five-footed line: "In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, In the pentameter aye falling in melody back." However, the poet was not left to follow his own will and taste arbitrarily. The said heroic line was divided regularly into feet, each foot consisting of so many syllables; and there were laws for the numbering and arrangement of these feet which could not be transgressed. Still, a certain numerical variety of syllables was allowed by the Greeks and Latins. Such is not the case in regard to regular or normal English Verse, the most determinate characteristic of which, certainly, is Uniformity of Syllabic Structure. RHYME, indeed, is a common but not an essential adjunct, some of our noblest poems being composed in unrhymed or Blank Verse. MEASURE, RHYTHM, ACCENT, and PAUSE, are all features of much moment in English versification, but they cannot be reduced to absolutely uniform rules. The variations to which they are subject are many and important. Of the positive and correct signification of the terms Rhyme, Measure, Rhythm, Accent, and Pause, it is needful to give some explanation. RHYME consists in a likeness or uniformity of sound in the closing syllable, or syllables, of successive or contiguous lines of verse. We find used, in English poetry, three several sorts of rhymes, namely, Single, Double, and Treble. Of the first or one-syllabled rhyme, the following is an example: "O, mortals, blind in fate, who never know To bear high fortune, or endure the low!" The closing word, however, is not necessarily a monosyllable. There may be two syllables, as here: "What though his mighty soul his grief contains, Or three: 66 Seeking amid those untaught foresters, Or four: "We might be otherwise-we might be all 66 66 Or there might be any number in this kind of verse under ten, if the long and short (accented and unaccented) syllables were rightly placed, and if the penultimate syllable, in particular, was short or unaccented. It is only to be observed further, that it is the sound in which uniformity is required, and not the spelling. Thus, the following words make good rhymes:-made, plaid, and stayed; course, force, and hoarse; ride, lied, dyed; be, glee, lea; lo, blow, foe; beer, clear, here; and so forth. The most perfect single rhymes in our language, however, are those in which the rhyming vowels of two lines, and their closing letter or letters (if there be any), are exactly the same. "So" and "no," day" and "say," "content" and "unbent," " oculist" and "humorist," ambassadress" and "unhappiness"-all of these are perfect rhymes, seeing that the consonant preceding the rhyming vowel varies in each pair of words, all being alike after it. This is the criterion of an absolutely perfect rhyme. However, such rhymes as "away" and sway," strain" and drain," "tress" and " dress," are not unfrequently used in good poetry. But those rhymes are held decidedly bad which merely repeat the same sounds, whether the words spell alike or not. Thus, "amid" and "pyramid," "light" and "satellite," "maid" and "made," are defective rhymes. In short, it may be laid down as a rule, that, where the immediate consonants are not varied before the vowels in two rhyming lines, the letters before these consonants must be markedly different, as in "strain" and "drain," to make the rhymes at all good. "Away" and "sway," or "loud" and "cloud," though tolerated, are imperfect in a strict sense. No rhymes are more uncertain, it may be observed, than those of words ending in y, as "privacy," "remedy," and the like. In monosyllables and dissyllables so ending, as "try" and rely," the termination always rhymes to ie, as in "vie" or "hie;" and it seems right that y should always so be rhymed. Nevertheless, it as often rhymes to an e, as in "be" and "she." The plural of nouns in y, again, having their termination in "ies," rhyme very uncertainly. They are sometimes placed to correspond with "lies," and sometimes with "lees." There is no fixed rule on this subject. 66 On many other points, also, the student of English poetry must gather information for himself from reading and ob servation. Of Double Rhymes it is not necessary to say much here. They are formed by adding a short or unaccented syllable to the measure of ordinary verses of any kind, and composing the rhyme out of it and the preceding syllable, now the penultimate one. Thus 66 "Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 66 Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking." In grave poetry, which uses the double rhyme occasionally, but on the whole sparingly, the last or short syllable should be entirely alike in double rhymes, and to the penultimate or accented one the same rules should apply as in the case of perfect single rhymes. That is to say, the consonants preceding the accented vowels should be varied, though licenses are taken in this respect. Trading" and degrading," for example, would be held a passable rhyme. The unison of sound, and not the spelling, largely guides the formation of double rhymes, even in serious verse. Liquor" and "thicker," ," "ever" and "river," "motion" and " ocean," ," "debtor" and better," are instances in proof; and many, many worse cases pass muster occasionally. Faulty double rhymes are rendered faulty much in the same way as single ones. Thus, " minion" and " dominion," "million" and "vermilion," are bad rhymes. In burlesque and satiric poetry, a great deal of freedom is used in the composition of double rhymes. Butler often frames them most amusingly in his " Hudibras." For example 66 "When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, Was beat with fists, instead of a stick." "Though stored with deletery medicines, Which whosoever took is dead since." Occasionally in the highest serious verse, we find the double rhyme composed of two several words, as in the following specimen from Wordsworth: "Through many a long blue field of ether, In light or burlesque pieces, however, as Butler shows, the double rhyme is compounded in any way which gives the sound required. The Treble Rhyme is only found in such pieces. Butler says: "There was an ancient sage philosopher, Who had read Alexander Ross over." But, as the treble rhyme occurs but three or four times even in "Hudibras," it need not be dilated on here. The word MEASURE, when employed in reference to poetry, indicates the length of line and general syllabic structure of peculiar kinds and forms of verse. Thus, a piece written in lines of eight syllables is said to be in the octo-syllabic measure, and one of ten-syllabled lines in the deca-syllabic measure. The term RHYTHM, again, denotes the arrangement of the syllables in relation to one another, as far as accentuation is concerned, and the particular cadence resulting from that arrangement. All the common measures of verse have a prevailing and normal rhythm—that is, long and short, or accented and unaccented, syllables follow each other in a certain order of succession. Thus, the normal octo-syllabic measure consists of short and long alternately, as does also the decasyllabic. But variations, as will be shown, occur in these respects. What rhythm, again, is to measures of verse in the aggregate, ACCENT nearly is to each line specifically and individually. In one and all has the accent its peculiar seat; and the more that seat is varied, generally speaking, the more beautiful is the verse. The PAUSE is another feature of some importance in English poetry. In every line a point occurs, at which a stop or rest is naturally made, and this independently of commas or periods. It will be found impossible to read poetry without making this pause, even involuntarily. The seat of it varies with the accent, seeing that it always follows immediately after the accent. From the want of a right distribution of accent and pause, verse becomes necessarily and unpleasingly monotonous. On the whole, English poetry, as remarked, has not one well-marked and unvariable characteristic of structure, saving that syllabic uniformity which distinguishes it in all its accurate forms and phases. However, this feature of our verse has been far from stamping it with anything like sameness. Though our bards have habitually measured their verses by the syllabic scale-with the exception of our old ballad writers, and a few moderns, who have written professedly after their exemplars-yet no language in the world contains stores of poetry more varied than the English in respect of construction. Lines of all lengths, containing from three syllables to twenty, have been tried by our poets, and, in general, pleasingly and successfully. Fletcher has even attempted tri-syllabic verses, though, as may be supposed, only in a slight choral form. "Move your feet To our sound, In verses of four syllables, again, pretty long poems have actually been composed, and particularly by John Skelton, a poet of the time of Henry VIII. Much of what he wrote was sheer doggrel, no doubt, being rendered so partly by the nature of his own talents and disposition, and partly because his chosen form of verse would scarcely admit of the conveyance of serious sentiments. Now and then, however, he does contrive to make his miniature lines interesting, as in the following address to Mistress Margaret Hussey: It will be observed that Skelton, while taking four syllables for the basial structure of his lines, uses five occasionally, forming either a dissyllabic ending, or giving two short syllables for a long one, as in the lines "Gentle as falcon, Or hawk of the tower." At the same time it will be noticed, that the same number of accents, or accented syllables, is kept up throughout. This will be found to be the case with most of our irregular or ballad compositions. They vary as to the number of syllables, but not of long ones or accents. Scott's romantic poetry exemplifies the same fact, which is a striking one, and explains why the melody of ballad-verses is so little affected by their syllabic irregularities. This law of |