Andersen. — Classification of Verse. 507 



Though broken. Shakspeare's verse from '" Antony wiid. Cleopatra " may 

 also be quoted : — 



(69.) Cces. With most gladness : 



And do invite you to my sister's view. 

 Wh'i/ther straight/ I'll lead/ you. 

 Ant. Let/ us, Le/pidus. 



Not lack your company. (Ant. & C'leo., II, ii, 171.) 



Did, the verses in (68) begin " But Thea ! Thea ! " and, " And thither straight 

 I'll," they would be similar in construction to the middle verse of (65). A 

 parallel construction in ballad verse has already been quoted — No. (13) of 

 this section. Witho\it the feminine ending they would result in verses 

 containing the regular number of stresses — five — but only nine syllables ; 

 as, — 



(70.) thrice from the banks of Wye 



And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him 

 Boot/less li me/ and wea/ther hea/ten hack/. 



Here the missing first syllable is found in the feminine ending of the pre- 

 ceding verse. Milton allowed no nine-syllabled verse of any kind in " Para- 

 dise Lost " or '■ Paradise Regained." Bohn's 1852 edition has a verse — 



Indeed ? hath God then said, of the fruit 

 of all these garden trees 



But reference to Newton's edition of 1773 shows that it should be — 

 • Indeed ? hath CTod then said that of tlie fruit 



And so of other verses of nine syllables : they prove misprints. Even 

 Milton, then, bowed to the tyranny of " numbers " in so far that he never 

 permitted less than ten syllables to a verse ; Dryden and Pope were bowed 

 yet lower — not only did they never permit less than ten, but they attempted 

 to permit no more. 



24. " Wrenched accent " has been spoken of in connection with quo- 

 tation (66). The term has been, applied to cases where words naturally 

 accented, say, on the second syllable are apparently )iy the metre required 

 to be accented on the first. Paragraphs 9 and 10 of this section have in 

 part considered this subject. It has been pointed out that many words 

 to which an apparently " \\Tenched accent " must be given are more natu- 

 rally treated by a spreading of the accent over both syllables. Thus Shelley's 

 verse in " Epipsychidion," 



(71.) Scarce visible from extreme loveliness, (1. 104.) 



should perhaps receive neither of the following renderings — 



(71«-) (I. Scarce vi/sible/ from ex/treme love/liness/ 



b. .Scarce vi/siblc/ from extreme/ love/liness/ 



— where in the first instance the rhythmic stress is on the first syllable and 

 the natural syntactic accent entirely removed from the second syllable, 

 and in the second instance the rhythmic stress and syntactic accent both 

 fall on the second syllable, producing a triple unit followed by a paused 

 unit. The most natural reading is — 



(716.) Scarce vi/sible/ from ex/treme love/liness/ 



where both stress and accent are present. There are instances, however- 

 where this construction is impracticable. In the verse, 



(72.) With breasts palpitating and wings refurled, 

 the use of a vocal pause seems obhgatory : the reading, 



(72«.) With breasts/ pal/pita/ting and wlngs/refurled/. 



