UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ORTHOMETRY. POETRY AND PROSE. POETRY differs from prose mainly in the fact that the words of the former are arranged upon a definite principle of order as to their sound. This principle has not been the same at all times and in all languages. Amongst the Greeks and Romans it was based upon quantity, i.e. the time occupied in pronouncing the syllables, those that are long taking up twice as much time as those that are short. In our own poetry the principle of arrangement is the regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables; the stress of the voice in uttering the accented ones occurring as regularly as the beats of the pulse or the ticks of a watch. The undulation of sound produced by this continuous flow of accents and non-accents is known as rhythm, and this it is which constitutes the essential difference between poetry and prose. Other elements, such as rhyme and alliteration, are employed, in some kinds of poetry, in the way of embellishment and aid to the rhythm, but they are not of its essence, for the larger part and the B highest achievements of our poets are constructed without them. The words of Dr. Guest may appropriately be quoted here.* He says: "Rhythm in its widest sense may be defined as the law of succession. It is the regulating principle of every whole that is made up of proportionate parts, and is as nccessary to the regulation of motion, or to the arrangement of matter, as to the orderly succession of sounds. By applying it to the first of these purposes we have obtained the dance, and sculpture and architecture are the results of its application to the second. The rhythmical arrangement of sounds not articulated produces music, while from the like arrangement of articulate sounds we get the cadences of prose and the measures of verse. Verse may be defined as the succession of articulate sounds, regulated by a rhythm so definite that we can readily form the results which flow from its application. Rhythm is also met with in prose, but in the latter its range is so wide that we rarely can anticipate its flow, while the pleasure we derive from verse is founded on this very anticipation. As verse consists mainly of the arrangement of certain sounds according to a certain rhythm, it is obvious that neither poctry nor even sense can be essential to it. We may be alive to the beauty of a foreign rhythm though we do not understand the language, and the burden of many an English song has long yielded a certain plea *Dr. Guest's "History of English Rhythms.' sure though every whit as unmeaning as the nonsense verses of the schoolboy." Besides this fundamental distinction between poetry and prose, which is all we are concerned with in dealing with versification, it seems desirable to trace briefly the lines that separate them still further. Without attempting the hazardous task of formulating a definition of poetry, we may say that, in its widest sense, poetry is creation or invention of ideal beauty.* Macaulay says of it: "By poetry we mean the art of employing words. in such a manner as to produce illusion on the imagination—the art of doing by words what the painter does by means of colours." Poetry is one of the Fine Arts; it is indeed the queen of the Nine Sisters of the fabled family of the Muses; her children are the myriad forms of the beautiful in sentiment and emotion which are scattered through the world's literatures. It is the result of a divinely bestowed faculty operating upon the infinite resources of nature, creating new forms of the beautiful by combinations of existing materials, through the aid of the imagination." The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. The Greek word for it is derived from the verb to make, as the French equivalent is from to find; and in Lowland Scotch the poet is still a maker. In this broad signification poetry is to be found embodied in the higher forms of prose quite as much as in verse. Creations of ideal grace and loveliness abound in amorphous prose, but as in that shape their dress lacks the wavy flow of rhythm, the designation of poetry is denied them. Frequently in impassioned prose there is, indeed, a perceptible rhythm which approaches very nearly the measured movement of verse. Many passages from George Eliot, Dickens, and Ruskin, for instance, not to mention others of the skilled masters in word-painting, might well be arranged as poetic lines. Yet, as metrical rules have not been observed in them throughout, as the cadences cease abruptly, they cannot be dignified by the name of poetry. The poet must always conform to metrical laws, while his brother artist only occasionally falls under their seductive influence. Again, the two forms of literary composition differ with respect to their object; prose seeks for the most part to instruct, whereas the aim of the poet is to give pleasure. And here again we find the two frequently running upon parallel lines, the fictions of romance and the creations of the poet showing a marked family likeness which the presence or absence of rhythmical arrangement alone. can differentiate. In addition to these distinctions of form, matter, and aim, the style and diction of poetry differs in many respects from that of prose. Poetry should be "simple, sensuous, and passionate," said Milton; hence it chooses picturesque images and quaint |