494 Transactions. 



stress usually coinciding ; but the rhythm is still there, though the syllables 

 be absent — hence the " pauses." It is for this reason, too, that once the 

 time-value of the rhythm has been impressed on the imagination syllables 

 may be dropped, and stresses suppressed, without danger of the rhytbm 

 being lost. More : there may even be occasional clash of accent and stress — 

 that is, the syntactic accent may fall in places where there is no rhythmic 

 stress, an unaccented, unimportant word clogging and muffling the stress. 

 The result is momentary dissonance ; and, as in music, it must be sparingly 

 used, or the rhythmic harmony is destroyed. 



8. The school of poetic " numbers " made syllables, not time, of primary 

 importance. Many verses even of our first poets were by that school regarded 

 as defective if they happened to contain less or more than the standard 

 number of syllables supposed to go to a verse. In blank verse or heroics, 

 for example, every verse was to contain ten syllables ; certainly not less, 

 and, if at all possible, not more. Procrustean drastic measures were adopted 

 by the prosodists to compel recalcitrant verses to conform to this rule. 

 That school also required that every unit of iambic verse should contain 

 two svllables : the result to them was " smoothness of numbers " ; to us, 

 intolerable monotony. Pope's verses glitter artificially ; they do not flash 

 with life. The two verses from " Paradise Lost " — 



(20.) To do ought good never will be our task, 



But ever to do ill our sole delight, (P-L-j i» 159- ) 



— are animadverted upon by the commentator Newton in this way : " Dr. 

 Bentley would read it thus : 



(20a.) To do ought good will never be our task, 

 as of a smoother and stronger accent ; but I conceive that Milton intended 

 it to vary the accent of never and ever in the next verse." Bentley, then, 

 would mend an irregular metre by changing the position of the words, and 

 Newton would destroy a strong metre with a wrong accent. Smoothness 

 and evenness are accentuated and relieved by occasional departures from 

 the rigid type, and it is in the su.btlety of variation caused by such departure 

 that Milton excels. Neither of his commentators could appreciate the value 

 of a pause other than that at the verse-end, and neither would admit a triple 

 unit ; but in this instance the irregular construction broiight about by 

 maldng the first syllable of " never," preceded by a pause, occupy a whole 

 unit, a triple unit following, adds most decided emphasis to the text : — 



(20ft.) To do/ ought good/ ne/ver will be/ our task/. 

 This emphasis is entirely lost by both renderings of the commentators. 

 The second verse, too, departs from the usual type — there is a " clash of 

 accent and stress " : — 



(21.) But ever to do ill our sole delight. 



Here the syntactic accent should fall on " do," the rhythmic stress on " to." 

 A compromise is necessary. Either the accent and stress should be made 

 to coincide by introducing a triple unit followed by a paused unit, as, — 

 (21«.) But e/ver to do/ ill/ our sole/ delight/, 



or accent and stress should be ecpialised, the words " to " and " do " being 

 given equal weight, such weight probably, but not perhaps necessarily, to 

 be less than that of the other stressed syllables of the verse — 

 (21&.) But e/ver to/ do ill/ our sole/ del'ght/ 

 when again emphasis is given by a sUght pause before " ill." 



