is the result of the absurd attempt of prosodians to measure English versification by feet, instead of by time and accentuation. The music of a verse is not to be ascertained by counting on the fingers, or scanning, (as it is called); but by the ear.*

English verse consists of a certain number of bars, in the same time; of which the rests or pauses are constituent parts: and it is therefore as much on the due observance of these rests, as on the accentuation of the notes or syllables, that the rhythm depends.

Take the following examples of verses scanned first according to the feet of the prosodians, counted on their fingers, and then according to the rational prosody which really governs the rhythm of English verse,—that is, time and accentuation. According to the former plan, it will be observed, that the sense is utterly sacrificed to the scanning, for want of rest or pause, however necessary it may be to the meaning or feeling of the verse; while, by the latter plan, the rhythm, sense and feeling go hand in hand, and are aided by rests.

1. Prosodial scanning by feet

IAMBICS.

On the bare earth | exposed | he lies, |

With not a friend | to close | his eyes. |
|

A mode of scanning, if adhered to in the reading, which would utterly destroy the sense and power of the lines. They should be thus barred, timed, and accented:

* See this subject diffusely and learnedly treated in Steele's Prosodia Rationalis.

On the bare | earth|ex|posed he | lies, ~ |

| | | || | . ~|~|| 2. ~| 2. ~|

With not a friend|to| close his | eyes."|

By which, we find, that these are verses of six bars, in common time, the rests filling up the bars, exactly where the sense requires a pause. And so in the following examples: in which it will be seen that verses which would be said by the prosodians to consist of four feet, are, in general, verses of six bars; and that what would, in scanning, be called by prosodians pentameters, or five-feet verses, are really lines of six, and sometimes even of eight bars.-The time, either triple or common, is denoted in the following examples by the figure 2, (common,) or 3, (triple.)

THREE BARS.

2. | Oh the | sight en | trancing |

~ When the | morning's | beam is | glancing, | |~O'er | files ar | rayed ~ |

て

|~With | helm and | blade ~|

And I plumes in the | gay wind | dancing. |

3. |~ Up | early and | láte,~|

3. | Pláce me in | régions of e | térnal" | winter | 1 Where not a blossom to the breeze can | open but | | Darkening | tempests" | closing all a | round me" | Chill the creation. |

2. | Ságe be | neath a | spreading | oak ~| 1 | Sate the | Druid | hoary | chief ~ |

| Every | burning | word he | spoke ~|

SIX AND FOUR BARS.

When | he who adores thee has | left but

|Of his | fault and his | sorrow be | hind~ |

Oh! | say wilt thou | weep when they |

P

|~ Of a | life that for | thee was re | signed ~? |

SIX BARS.

2. | ~A | chilles' | wrath to | Greece the | direful | spring~ | Of woes un number'd | heavenly | Goddess" | sing.

It will be found by reading verse according to this system, -of marking the rhythm by time and accentuation,-that it will flow much more easily than when read by prosodial scanning: nor shall we be obliged to make elisions of vowels for the purpose of preserving the apparent regularity of the line,that is, according to the plan of counting the syllables on the fingers. No poet has suffered more from this pedantic method of measuring English verse, than Shakspeare, whose commentators have not scrupled to add syllables to, or deduct syllables from his lines, in order to give them "the right butter-woman's pace to market;" and this because these learned gentlemen, instead of receiving the music of his verse through their ears, measured his lines, like tape, upon their fingers: and if they did not happen exactly to fit the prescribed length, they laid him upon the Procrustes' bed of their prosodial pedantry, and stretched him out, if too short, or cut him down, if too long! Thus they have succeeded, in some instances, in "curtailing" his verse of its beauty and "fair proportions," by the elision or blending of vowels, whose utterance really forms the music of the lines. For example, of the line

|O| Romeo! | Romeo! | wherefore | art thou | Romeo? | they would make a verse of what they would call five feet, with a redundant syllable; and, to do this, they are obliged to reduce the melodious name of Ro-me-o to two syllables; and scan it thus:

Oh Ro | myo Ro | myo where | fore art | thou Ro | myo?—— thus clipping and defacing the language, for the sake of levelling it to the standard of a false prosody.

Again, if we follow this prosodial finger-measuring of verse, what becomes of the force and depth of the heart-wrung exclamation of Samson, (Agonistes,) when he exclaims:

Oh! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!

The prosodians would thus measure it :

Oh dark | dark dark | amid | the blaze of noon |

and thus destroy all the force and passion of the line: a rational prosody, preserving the feeling, as well as the rhythm of the verse, would thus divide it into eight bars, timing it duly, and marking it with rests that add to its beauty and power.

2. | Oh | dark | dark | dark | a- mid the blaze of | noon.

Thus we preserve all the expression of the verse, and distinguish its melody and rhythm from such a verse as the following, which has exactly the same number of syllables as the above line, and would, by the prosodians, be scanned exactly in the same manner; yet it has quite a different movement:

A burdenous drone, to visitants a gaze.

If we follow the prosodians, we shall thus scan this line:

Å burd' | nous drōne | to vis | itants | a gaze.

If we follow good taste, common sense, and rhythmical accentuation, we shall thus measure it:

3. | 74 A burdenous drone to visitants a | gaze.

It is thus a line of five bars, in triple time: and the change from common time is in keeping with the expression.

The same of the following line, which owes its lightness and beauty to its accentuation and triple time:

3. Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn.

It is on the variation of time and accentuation that the verse of Milton depends so much for its force and melody. The poet has studiously adapted the time and movement of his verse to the effect intended to be produced; but the system of scanning reduces all verse to the same humdrum jog-trot.