Part 190 (1/2)
But as they ritten before the poetical language of the English tongue was fixed, and as the rules of verse were not then settled, these works can be of little practical utility”--_Preface_, p 1 The works thus excepted as of _reliable authority without practical utility_, are ”a short tract by _Gascoyne_,” doubtless _George Gascoigne's_ 'Notes of Instruction concerning the lish,' published in 1575, and Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetry,' dated 1586, neither of which does the kind exceptor appear to have ever seen! Mention is next made, successively, of Dr Carey, of Dryden, of Dr Johnson, of Blair, and of Lord Kauides_,” or at least to the last two, ”the author is indebted for many valuable hints;” yet he scruples not to say, ”Blair betrays a paucity of knowledge on this subject;”--”Lord Kames has slurred over the subject of Quantity,” and ”shown an unpardonable ignorance of the first principles of Quantity in our verse;”--and, ”Even Dr Johnson speaks of syllables in such a manner as would lead us to suppose that he was in the same error as Kames These inaccuracies,” it is added, ”can be accounted for only froht _Quantity_ of sufficient importance to merit their attention”--See _Preface_, p 4-6
OBS 18--Everett's Versification consists of seventeen chapters, numbered consecutively, but divided into two parts, under the two titles Quantity and Construction Its specimens of verse are numerous, various, and beautiful Its h perhaps generally correct, are sometimes questionable, and not always consonant with the writer's own rules of quantity Froht expect from this author such an exposition of quantity, as nobody could eitherplatforularly curt and incoiven a _definition_ of quantity
He opens his subject thus: ”VERSIFICATION is the proper arrange to _their quantity_, and the disposition of _these lines in_ couplets, stanzas, or in blank verse, in such order, and according to such rules, as are sanctioned by usage--A FOOT is a co or short--A LINE is one foot, or more than one--The QUANtitY of each _word_ depends on its _accent_ In words of , and all unaccented syllables are short Monosyllables are long or short, according to the following Rules:--1st All Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, and Participles are long--2nd The articles are always short--3rd, The pronouns are long or short, according to _eenerally long, but sometimes _made short by emphasis_--5th Prepositions and Conjunctions are al by elish Versification_, p 13
None of these principles of quantity are unexceptionable; and whoever follows theht, but from their author himself in the analysis of verses Nor are they free froonisms ”Emphasis,” as here spoken of, not only clashes with ”accent,” but contradicts itself, byand some short; and, what is more mysteriously absurd, the author says, ”It _frequently happens_ that syllables _long by_ QUANtitY beco Versif_, 1st Ed, p 99 Of this, he takes the first syllable of the following line, namely, ”the word _bids_,” to be an example:
”B~ids m~e l=ive b~ut t=o h=ope f~or p~ost=er~it~y's pr=aise”
OBS 19--In the American Review, for May, 1848, Everett's Systey and occasion”--not for a critical examination of this or any other scheation of a new one, a rival theory of English metres, ”the principles and laws” of which the writer promises, ”at an other time” more fully ”to develop” The article referred to is entitled, ”_The Art of Measuring Verses_” The writer, being designated by his initials, ”J D
W,” is understood to be Ja Everett's principal doctrines to be radically erroneous, this critic nevertheless excuses the better! ”The views supported in the work itself,” says his closing paragraph, ”_are not, indeed, such as ould subscribe to, nor can we adlish metres which it contains to be correct_; yet, as it is as co that has yet appeared on 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”--_American Revie Series_, Vol I, p 492
OBS 20--Everett, although, as we have seen, he thought proper to deny that the student of English versification had any well authorized ”rules to guide hiues that, ”The laws of our verse are just as fixed, and e of the great Poets, as are the laws of our syntax”--_Preface_, p 7 But this critic, of the Ah he is in lish Prosody has either authorities or principles which one ought to respect; and accordingly cares so little whom he contradicts, that he is often inconsistent with himself Here is a sample: ”As there are _no established authorities_ in this art, and, indeed, _no acknowledged principles_--every rhy permitted to _invent_ his own _method_, and write by _instinct_ or _imitation_--the critic feels quite at liberty to say just what he pleases, and _offer his private observations_ as though these were really of some moment”--_A, ”_to invent_,” and _to ”inant ideas; and so are, _after a ”ain, what sense is there inone's ”private observations” to depend on the presumed absence of rivals? That the author did not lack confidence in the general applicability of his speculations, subversive though they are of the best andon this subject, is evident fro sentence: ”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”--_Ib_, p 491
OBS 21--J D W is not one of those who discard quantity and supply accent in expounding the nature of metre; and yet he does not coincide very nearly with any of those who have heretofore made quantity the basis of poetic nu in several respects _peculiar_, I purpose briefly to notice theh so Verses_,” should rather be quoted under the head of _Scanning_, to which they
”Of every species of beauty,” says this author, ”and more especially of the beauty of sounds, _continuousness_ is the _first elereeable, only when the breaks or intervals cease to be heard” Again: ”Quantity, or the _division into measures of time_, is a _second element_ of verse; each line must be _stuffed out with sounds_, to a certain fullness and plumpness, that will sustain the voice, and force it to dwell upon the sounds”--_Rev_, p 485 The first of these positions is subsequently contradicted, or very largely qualified, by the following: ”So, the line of significant sounds, in a verse, is also marked by _accents_, or _pulses_, and divided into portions called _feet_ These are necessary and natural for the very sireatest pleasure arises from the union of continuity with _variety_ [That is, with ”_interruption_,” as he elsewhere calls it!] In the line,
'Full many a tale their music tells,'
there are at least four accents or stresses of the voice, with faint _pauses_ after theh to separate the continuous stream of sound into these four parts, to be read thus:
Fullman--yataleth--eirmus--ictells,[503]
by which, new coularly musical character It is evident from the inspection of the above line, that the division of the feet by the accents is quite independent of the division of words by the sense The sounds are reeable to the musical ear”--_Ib_, p 486
Undoubtedly, the due for of so of others, in a manner unknown to prose; but still we have the authority of this writer, as well as of earlier ones, for saying, ”Good verse requires to be read _with the natural quantites [sic--KTH] of the syllables_,” (p 487,) a doctrine hich that of the _redivision_ appears to clash If the exaard to the _caesural pause_, as undoubtedly it should be, the _th_ of _their_ cannot be joined, as above, to the word _tale_; nor do I see any propriety in joining the _s_ of _music_ to the third foot rather than to the fourth
Can a theory which turns topsyturvy the whole plan of syllabication, fail to affect ”the _natural quantities_ of syllables?”
OBS 22--Different e the quantities of very , as well as a just theory of measure, is essential to correct scansion, or a just discrimination of the poetic feet It is a very colish verse has but few spondees; and the doctrine of Brightland has been rarely disputed, that, ”_Heroic Verses_ consist of five _short_, and five _long_ Syllables _intermixt_, but not so very strictly as never to alter that order”--_Gra a heavy reader, will have each line so ”_stuffed out with sounds_,” and the consonants so syllabled after the vowels, as to give to our heroics three spondees for every two ia, which, with the elisions, I should resolve into four iambuses, and without them, into three iambuses and one anapest, he supposes to consist severally of four spondees:--
”'When coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah! whither strays the i to this prosodian,
”Whencoldn--esswrapsth--issuff'r--ingclay, Ah! whith--erstraysth'--immort--almind?”
”The verse,” he contends, ”is perceived to consist of _six_ [probably he ht_] heavy syllables, each coroup of consonantal sounds, the whole measured into four equal feet Thea foot of two heavy sounds The absence of short syllables gives the line a peculiar weight and solemnity suited to the sentiment, and doubtless prompted by it”--_American Review_, Vol i, p 487 Of his theory, he subsequently says: ”It hly quantitative as the Greek, though it be _much more heavy and spondaic_”--_Ib_, p
491[505]
OBS 23--For the deter of quantities and feet, this author borrows froht inapplicable to our tongue, and,the that the ”Art of Measuring Verses” requires yet the production ofthe essence of his principles, it is proper to state them _in his oords_: ”A short vowel sound followed by a double consonantal sound, usuallyvowel like _y_ in _beauty_, before a consonant The _metrical accents_, which _often differ from the prosaic_, ed in reading_, and never slurred or lightened, unless to help out a bad verse
In our language _the groupings of the consonants furnish a great nue, especially its more ancient forrand and solemn character One vowel followed by another, unless the first be _naturally , makes a short quantity, as in _th[=e] old_ So, also, a short vowel followed by a single short consonant, gives a short _tireat variety of rules for the detection of long and short quantities _have yet to be invented_, or applied froes they are of course the saanization; but it is as absurd to suppose that the Greeks should have a syste in principle from our own, as that their rules of musical harmony should be different from the an of speech_, and are consequently _the saes and nations”--_Am Rev_, Vol i, p 488
OBS 24--QUANtitY is here represented as ”_time_” only In this author's first mention of it, it is called, rather less accurately, ”_the division into ard for either of these conceptions, he next speaks of it as including both ”_time and accent_”
But I have already shown that ”_accents_ or _stresses_” cannot pertain to _short_ syllables, and therefore cannot be ingredients of quantity The whole article lacks that _clearness_ which is a prime requisite of a sound theory Take all of the writer's next paragraph as an example of this defect: ”The two eleether constituting _quantity_, are _equally_ elements of the metre of verse Each _iambic_ foot orabruptly in an _accent_, or _interruption_, on the _last sound_ of the foot; or, [omit this 'or:' it is improper,] in metres of the _trochaic_ order, in such words as _dandy, handy, bottle, favor, labor_, it [the foot] begins with a heavy accented sound, and declines to a faint or light one at the close The line is thus co and beginning alike_ The _accents_, or points at which the voice isthe divisions of tiiven to the verse, are _usually e, with the accents of the words as they are spoken; which [coincidence] 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”--_Ibid_