These so-called poetic licences may be conveniently grouped together and considered under three heads-Grammatical, Orthographical, and Metrical. 1. GRAMMATICAL LICENCES. These embrace deviations from ordinary forms of expression, or the strict grammatical structure of sentences. In prose most of them would be considered solecisms, but in verse they are allowable in order to meet the exigencies of rhythm, or to add variety and elegance to the composition. (a). ELLIPSIS. This is the omission of words which are necessary to complete the construction though not to convey the sense. Cold, cold, my girl? "Othello." What! all my pretty chickens and their dam Is there for honest poverty, "Macbeth." That hangs his head, and a' that? Burns. A form of ellipsis in which the consequence is suppressed to be supplied by the hearer's mind is called Aposiopesis, e.g. : If she sustain him and his hundred knights now, Oswald ? "King Lear." They fell together all as by consent; They dropped as by a thunder stroke. What might, And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face What thou should'st be: the occasion speaks thee; and is the introduction of superfluous words, in order to strengthen the expression or to keep the mind dwelling upon the thought, e.g.: What a length of tail behind! The sea-girt isle. In prose these would be condemned as tautological. Nor to these idle orbs does day appear, Or sun, or moon, or stars, throughout the year, Milton. Now all these things are over—yes, all thy pretty ways— Such repetitions as these, says Coleridge, constitute beauty of the highest kind. (c). ENALLAGE is the use of one part of speech for another, adjectives for adverbs, the past tense for the participle, as: Those more easiest who have learned to dance. Pope. The idols are broke in the temple of Baal. Byron. They fall successive, and successive rise. Pope. (d). HYPERBATON is the transposition of words beyond what would be allowable even in rhetorical prose, e.g. : Idle after dinner, in his chair, Tennyson. From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, Milton. High on a throne of royal state, which far Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Milton. Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder. Byron. (e). ANACOLUTHON. This is the want of proper sequence in the construction of a compound sentence, as : My name is Edgar, and thy father's son. “King Lear." Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it. 66 King Lear." God from the Mount of Sinai, whose gray top Milton. 2.-ORTHOGRAPHICAL LICENCES. These are deviations from the ordinary spelling, and therefore in the pronunciation of words, their object being to shorten or lengthen a verse by a syllable. (a). ELISION is the omission of a letter or syllable at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, e.g. 'gainst, 'scape, o'er, ta'en, ope', th'. At the beginning this is known as apheresis, in the middle syncope, at the end apocope. (b). PROSTHESIS is prefixing an expletive syllable to a word; as, yclad, beweep. (c). PARAGOGE adds an expletive syllable to a word; as withouten, loved. (d). SYNÆRESIS is the merging of two syllables into one, as may be done with such words as alien, flower, familiar, amorous, murmuring, mouldering. (e). DIÆRESIS is the separation of a diphthong into two sounds, as is occasionally found in our older poets; such as regarding the endings tion, sion, and words like. hire, dire as dissyllables. And so by many winding nooks he strays, (f). TMESIS is the insertion of a word between the parts of a compound; as, to us ward, on which side soever. To these may be added the use of archaisms, i.e. old forms of words that have become otherwise obsolete; as wis for know, e'en or eyne for eyes. Some of these orthographical licences present difficulties which have given rise to so much diverse opinion that it may be useful to illustrate them more in detail. Elisions, generally speaking, should not be such as to create words of unpleasing sound or difficult pronunciation. The following verse is somewhat harsh, for instance: Then 'gan th' obstrep'rous mob to rage. Whereas in the opening line of The Paradise Lost the last two syllables of disobedience are merged without any unpleasant effect. Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit- One complaint made against our language is that its consonants are too numerous in proportion |