Andersen. — Developvient of Four-syllabled Metrical Unit. 421 



It is usually avoided by making the first unit of the line an iamb instead 

 of an anapest, as in the last line in the example from Scott, and in most 

 lines of the ballad " Mary le More." 



Longfellow's " Belfry of Bruges " would receive strange handling from 

 a four-syllabled Australian. Instead of — ■ 



In the market place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown ; 

 Thrice consumed and ihrice rebuilded. still it watches o'er the town. 

 As the summer morn was breaking, on tl:at lofty tower I stood, 

 And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood. 



it would be read — 



In the nn\r/ket place of Bru/ges stands the bel/fry old and brown ;/ 

 Thrice consumed/ and thrice rebnild/ed, still it watch/es o'er the town 

 As the sum/mer morn was break/mg, on that lof/by tower I stood,/ 

 And the world/ threw off the dark/ness, like the weeds/ of widowhood. 



Now, it was at one time considered that the three-syllabled unit could 

 never be made the basis for true poetic, work. In the old ballads, in the 

 romance metre of Gower, it gives a beautiful variation to the iambic, but 

 it is only in the degenerate ballads that it predominates. Guest, one of the 

 great writers on English metre, calls it the " tumbling metre," and speaks 

 of it with contempt ; indeed, the three-syllabled unit was, after the date 

 of ballads, avoided by poets generally until Cowper revived it, and in these 

 later days Swinburne and other masters have shown what excellent har- 

 monies it is capable of producing. So it is with the four-syllabled unit : 

 at present, except in isolation, it is outside the pale of true poetry ; but 

 there are indications that it may yet exert as great an influence as the three- 

 syllabled, and produce as distinctive a music. Already it has been used 

 in British poetry for its heightening effect, as the three-syllabled unit was 

 first used, and there is no doubt that it also will produce a type of its own, 

 crude at first, but gradually soaring into true music. 



It was no doubt the rapidity of the motion produced by the four- 

 syllabled unit that first attracted the Australian writers : poets accustomed 

 to horse-riding, as the popular Australian poets all were and are, preferred 

 a galloping metre ; and, finding one even faster than the three-syllabled, 

 they instinctively adopted and developed it — still retaining the ballad 

 form whilst they modified its internal structure. The following lines 

 from Paterson's " Clancy of the Overflow " give a faint echo of no mean 

 music : — 



And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him 



In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars, 

 And he sees the vision splendid of the sxinlit plains extended, 



And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars. 



One fact greatly in favour of the Australian ballad is its breezy joviality 

 and good humour : and what is now contemptuously looked on as mere 

 unpoetic jingling will, I feel sure, prove to be the preliminary tuning-up of 

 a new string to the lyre of Apollo. 



