object is to improve manners and promote virtue by depicting vice in its true colours, and by holding up to ridicule hypocrisy and cant. Dryden, Pope, Butler, Dean Swift, Burns, Byron, Tom Hood, and Robert Buchanan are our most famous satirists in verse.

6. THE SONNET.

(See page 203.)

7. THE EPIGRAM.

This is a short poem on some single thought, brevity and wit being its essentials, the point generally coming at the end, e.g.:

On an M.P. who wrote a severe critique on "The Pleasures of Memory."

They say he has no heart, but I deny it;
He has a heart—and gets his speeches by it.

On a Curate's Eyes.

My daughters praise our curate's eyes-
I know not if their light's divine,

For when he prays he closes his,

And when he preaches I shut mine.

The Epitaph is a species of epigram, designed to eulogise or satirise some defunct individual, and as the name implies is supposed to be inscribed on his tomb, e.g.:

Here lie the bones of Robert Lowe,
Where he's gone to I don't know;
If to the realms of peace and love,
Farewell to happiness above;
If haply to some lower level,
We can't congratulate the devil

ELEMENTARY PARTS OF ENGLISH

VERSE.

THE elements of verse are syllables, which grouped together in twos or threes form feet, and these in combination form verses or lines. As verses are made for articulate utterance, their effect on the ear is of the first importance, and to produce a good effect the smallest parts which enter into their composition should receive attention. The elementary sounds of the language, therefore, claim our first consideration as to whether they are rough or smooth, easy or difficult in utterance, and in combination with other sounds. And thus we are called upon to review in brief the defects and anomalies of our alphabet.

1.-SOUNDS.

The spoken alphabet of English consists of fortyfive sounds, to represent which we have only twentysix written characters or letters, and of these three, viz. c, q, and x are redundant. The deficiency is made up by making one letter stand for several different sounds, and by giving combinations of letters only one sound. Without going into details which are foreign to our purpose here, we will reproduce first

Mr. Morris's list of Elementary Sounds in the English spoken Alphabet.

To these should be added the nasal ng and the aspirate h.

The sounds of the vowels and diphthongs are produced by the uninterrupted passage of the breath through the open mouth, and the predominance of these sounds renders speech easy and musical. The consonant sounds are the result of the more or less complete stoppage of the breath in utterance by the partial or entire closing of the air passage by one or other of the organs of speech, and it is the degree of effort to produce these imperfect sounds that causes that harshness and roughness which renders speech difficult and unmusical. We will next present an arrangement of the consonants which exhibits them in what may be regarded as the order of their discordance.

The liquids, l, m, n, r, easily combine with other sounds.

The sibillants, s, z, j, x, vp, sh, zh, have varying degrees of a disagreeable hiss.

The mutes are the most difficult of all in utterance, as they completely close the air passage. They are classed according to the organ of speech by which they are produced into

Labials (lip sounds) p, b, f, v.

Dentals (tooth sounds) t, d, th, dh.
Gutturals (throat sounds) k, g.

It may here be pointed out that the rules of English prosody and rhyme are not applicable to the language as it appears in writing, but as it is heard in pronunciation. Our language so considered is not inferior to others; its elementary sounds, both

in variety and number, are adequate to all our occasions.

All the elements enumerated above have their distinguishing qualities of smooth, rough, soft, strong, close, open, clear, obscure, and others, by which they give a corresponding character to the sound of a verse, and furnish opportunities of assimilating sound to sense of which our poets have freely availed themselves.* The comparison between the English tongue and others, as to metrical elements, given in the following passage, will, perhaps, entertain the reader. It is taken from Steele's "Prosodia Rationalis," page 168. "In English the proportion of monosyllables to polysyllables is more than as five to two; in French, something less than as three to two; but in Italian, which, having more vowels, has less occasion for monosyllables, their proportion to polysyllables is not quite three to four, or one and a half to two. The superior melody of one language over another will be nearly in proportion as one exceeds the other in the number of vowel sounds. The number of vowel and consonantal sounds in Italian is nearly equal; in Latin, five consonants to four vowels; in French, supposing the orthography not as written, but as sounded in pronunciation, the consonantal to the vocal sounds are as four to three; and in English, in the like manner, the proportion is three to two. Therefore, in this view, the French has an advantage over the English in the proportion of nine to eight; but this is overbalanced by the English

* See "Imitative Harmony," p. 259.