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
At one fell swoop?

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
When I have shown the unfitness--: How

now,

Oswald ?

"King Lear."

They fell together all as by consent;

They dropped as by a thunder stroke. What might,
Worthy Sebastian? O what might ?—No more :

And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face

What thou should'st be: the occasion speaks thee; and
My strong imagination sees a crown

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,
Or man, or woman.

Milton.

Now all these things are over—yes, all thy pretty ways—
Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays.
Macaulay.

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,
Sat a farmer, ruddy, fat, and fair.

Tennyson.

From morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day.

Milton.

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormuz or of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.

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
Shall tremble, he descending, shall himself,
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets' sound,
Ordain them laws.

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,
With willing spirit to the wide o-cean.

(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