Andersen. — Metre. 483 



effect, but it breaks down in the second in three feet, or in one 

 if the final " e " be sounded in " bowe " and " archere." This 

 the prosodists say is the poetic license allowed in trisyllabic 

 metre. The license is the other way : it is the iambic metre 

 that has been overlaid with trisyllabic feet, and asserts itself 

 time and again : there is an outcrop of the basic metre — or, 

 as poetry is a living thing, a reversion to type. This reversion 

 to type will be found in all the metres — trochee, anapest, dactyl, 

 amphibrach ; the reversion is always to the iambic — sufficient 

 proof of the basic nature of that metre, of which the others are 

 " sports," some cultivated to a perfect degree, but all never- 

 theless " reverting " under stress of circumstance. The re- 

 version is sometimes so frequent that it is almost impossible 

 for the prosodists to say which is the true metre and which 

 are the exceptions — e.g., Shelley's " The Cloud," and Cowper's 

 "Poplars." 



The reducing of all metres to one elementary metre, allowing 

 the terms " trochee," " dactyl," &c, to be applied to varieties 

 of individual feet only, is a reassertion of the simplicity of metre : 

 there is but one metre, but its variations are legion. If we admit 

 three-syllabled feet as native, what is to prevent an extension 

 to four- or five-syllabled feet, as allowed by the Germans ? 

 The more loaded the foot is with syllables, the less is it able to 

 mount to the heights, as could be shown with a four-syllabled 

 foot much used by the Australian versifiers. 



By this reduction, too, we abolish a host of perplexing 

 licenses, exceptions, and a dictionary of technical phraseology. 

 The whole of the former may be included in a sentence : a foot 

 may (1) be an entire suspension of sound ; or (2) may contain 

 one syllable, either (a) accented, or (b) unaccented ; or (3) two 

 syllables, (a) one or (b) both accented ; or (4) three syllables, 

 always, it appears imperative, accented on the third syllable : 

 i.e. : — 



(1) Fourth foot, and normally at end of every line : — 



And yf 1 1 take | it twyse | | a shame [ it were | to me I | 



(2) (a) In the first foot :— 



God | the save | good R6b|yn Hood, j 

 In first and second feet : — 



Sty 11 | stode j the proud | sheryf. | 



111 last foot : — 



To sell | me some | of that | cloth. | 



(b) In the last foot : — 



Alas 1 1 then sayd | good R6b|yu — | 



