528 Transactions. 



syntactic pause : it was felt the natural expression of thought demanded the 

 overflow — that is, the running-on of the thought from one verse into another, 

 and the reiection of the coterminousness of the thought with the verse. 

 There are many who still maintain that there should be at least a slight 

 pause after every verse, even of blank verse, to insure the preservation of 

 the rhythm ; but surely the poets themselves deny this in a most emphatic 

 manner by creating such verses as, — 



(27.) a. as that sole bird, 



^Vhen to inshrine his reliques in the sun's 



Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies. (P-L., v, 273.) 



b. Mark Antony is every hour in Rome 

 Expected : since he went from Egypt 'tis 

 A space for farther travel. (Ant. & Cleo., II, i, 29, 30.) 



Blank verse may, indeed, be coiisidered as the link between prose and lyric 

 rimed poetry. It is not to be considered as composed of so-many distinct 

 five-stressed verses, but of groups of verses. A most casual reading of 

 Shakspeare or Milton, or indeed any poet, will show this at once. In Pope, 

 couplets whose thought is complete — even single verses — may be detached 

 by the score ; in blank verse the jewels of thought will often include many 

 verses, beginning and ending at any point withjn the verse. 



13. Considering blank verse as a composite whole, then, and not as a 

 collection of individual and self-sufficient verses, the place of the feminine 

 endings is shown more clearly — they form part of the first unit of the verse 

 following. This is often self-evident in the case of single feminine endings :^ 



(28.) but who here 



Will envy whom the highest place/ exp6/(«es) 

 Fore/ most to stand/ against the Thunderer's aim 



(P.L., ii. 27.) 



It is evident in such examples that the feminine ending completes the 

 first unit of the following verse, taking the place of the pause which would 

 have divided the two verses had the first ended with a stress. In the fol- 

 lowing examples the verse after the feminine ending opens with an already 

 complete unit : — 



(2i>.) a. by command 



Of sovran pow'r, with aw/ful ce/veino/(ny) 

 And <r?'(m/pet's sound/, (P.L.. i, 753.) 



b. since fate/ ine/vita/(We) 



Subdues/ us, and •' omnipotent decree, (P-L., ii, 197.) 



No pause, or a very shght pause only, separates the feminine ending from 



the following verse. The result is, the first unit of the verse following 



the feminine ending is triple. Example (29) a could as well be written, 



(29a.) With aw/ful ce/remo/ny and triim/pet's sound/, 



when an ordinary verse results. It may be conceded that this may lie the 

 case with a single feminine ending, but not with a double feminine. Ex- 

 ample (22) a may be written, 



(30.) Is not/ more rakn/like than CZe/opa/tia, uor/ 



The queen/ of 'Pto/lemy more w7)/manly,-' than he/. 



when both single and double feminine endings by being incorporated in the 

 verse produce triple and quadruple units. The resulting quadruple unit 

 as above does not in any way differ from the undoubted quadruple units 

 exampled in (4) of Section IV, and there would, therefore, appear to be no 

 objection to the suggestion that a feminine ending is in reality part of the 

 following unit, lying within, and not without, the metrical scheme of units. 



