Part 196 (1/2)
(2)
”_Weave the | warp, and | weave the | woof_, The wind | -ing-sheet | of Ed | -ward's race
Give ah, The char | -acters | of hell | to trace
_Mark the |year, and | ht_, When Sev | -ern shall | re-ech | -o with | affright”
”_The Bard, a Pindaric Ode_;”
_British Poets_, Vol vii, p 281 and 282
OBSERVATIONS
OBS 1--Trochaic verse without the final short syllable, is the same as ia quite plain, that iaer But trochaic, retrenched of its last short syllable, is trochaic still; and can no otherwise beof a short syllable to the line Feet, and the orders of verse, are distinguished one froeneral by two only; the number of syllables taken as a foot, and the order of their quantities
Trochaic verse is always as distinguishable frorammarians and prosodies who contrive to confound them--or who, at least, mistake catalectic trochaic for catalectic ia affects only the last foot, and makes it perhaps but a common and needful caesura
OBS 2--To suppose that iambic verse may drop its initial short syllable, and still be iale long syllable for a foot, not only to recognize a pedal caesura at the _beginning_ of each line, but utterly to destroy the only principles on which iambics and trochaics can be discriminated Yet Hiley, of Leeds, and Wells, of Andover, while they are careful to treat separately of these two orders of verse, not only teach that any order est that the iambic _may drop_ a syllable ”fro the nu the succession of quantities,--without disturbing theof iambics,) ”a syllable is cut off from the first foot; as,
Praise | to God, | immor |-tal praise, For | the love | that crowns | our days”[--BARBAULD]
_Hiley's E Gram_, Third Edition, London, p 124; _Wells's_, Third Edition, p 198
OBS 3--Now this couplet is the precise exemplar, not only of the thirty-six lines of which it is a part, but also of the most common of our trochaic metres; and if this may be thus scanned into iambic verse, so may all other trochaic lines in existence: distinction between the two orders must then be worse than useless But I reject this doctrine, and trust that ht just as well scan all ia each initial short syllable to be hypermeter For, surely, if deficiency _ of measurement, so may redundance But if neither is to be looked for before the measurement ends, (which supposition is certainly more reasonable,) then is the distinction already vindicated, and the scansion above-cited is shown to be erroneous
OBS 4--But there are yet other objections to this doctrine, other errors and inconsistencies in the teaching of it Exactly the same kind of verse as this, which is said to consist of ”_four iambuses_” from one of which ”a syllable _is cut off_,” is subsequently scanned by the sa composed of ”_three trochees_ and an _additional_ syllable; as,
'Haste thee, | Ny with | _thee_ Jest and | youthful | Jolli |-_ty_'--MILTON”
_Wells's School Grammar_, p 200
”V=it~al | sp=ark of | he=av'nly | _fl=me_, Q=uit ~oh | q=uit th~is | lish Grammar_, p 126
There is, in the works here cited, not only the inconsistency of teaching two very differentthe same species of verse, but in each instance the scansion is wrong; for all the lines in question are _trochaic of four feet_,--single-rhy with a caesura, or elision In no metre that lacks but one syllable, can this sort of foot occur _at the beginning_ of a line; yet, as we see, it is soined_ to be there, by those who have never been able to find it _at the end_, where it oftenest exists!
OBS 5--I have hinted, in the raph above, that it is a common error of our prosodists, to underrate, by one foot, the le rhyross, that of taking for hypermeter, or mere surplus, the whole rhyme itself, the sound or syllable most indispensable to the verse
”(For rhyme the _rudder_ is of verses, With which, like shi+ps, they steer their courses)”--_Hudibras_
Ia ree of course in both the number of feet and the nuhtly redundant with double rhyle rhyme; yet, the number of feet may, and should, in these cases, be reckoned the sa says, ”Trochaic verse, with an additional long syllable, is the same as iambic verse, without the initial short syllable”--_N Butler's Practical Gram_, p 193 This instruction is not quite accurate Nor would it be right, even if there could be ”iambic verse without the initial short syllable,” and if it were universally _true_, that, ”Trochaic verse _ syllable”--_Ibid_ For the addition and subtraction here suggested, will inevitably make the difference of a foot, between the measures or verses said to be the same!
OBS 6--”I doubt,” says T O Churchill, ”whether the _trochaic_ can be considered as a legitiiven by Johnson have an additional long syllable at the end: but these are _iambics_, if we look upon the additional syllable to be at the beginning, which is y of music”--_Churchill's New Gra in support of it, the author seriously endeavours to raise into a general conviction _that we have no trochaic order of verse!_ It can hardly be worth while to notice here all his re syllable”_ Johnson never drea”--or anywhere else For he discriht to have done, but by the number of _syllables_ he found in each line His doctrine is this: ”Our _iambick_ ht,--Of ten Our _trochaick_ measures are--Of three syllables,--Of five,--Of seven These are the measures _which are now in use_, and above the rest those of seven, eight and ten syllables Our ancient poets wrote verses sometimes of twelve syllables, as Drayton's Polyolbion; and of fourteen, as Chapman's Homer” ”We have another s, which overn roiser and better as life wears away' _Dr Pope_
”In this measure a syllable is often retrenched from the first foot, [;] as [,]
'When present we love, and when absent agree, I th'nk not of I'ris [] nor I'ris of me' _Dryden_
”These measures are varied by s_, either with or without rhyme, as in the _heroick_ measure
”Tis the divinity that stirs _within us_, 'Tis heaven itself that points out an _hereafter_' _Addison_
”So in that of eight syllables,