532 



Transactio7is. 



is no spare unit for the feminine ending. In ballad verse of seven stresses- 

 there is the silent unit ; in romance of eight stresses there is no such unit, 

 and the feminine ending must be held, prosodically, to be the mere con- 

 tinuation of sound from the last unit. 



17. The distinct pause often discernible after a feminine ending need 

 be no objection to its forming part of a triple unit, as triple units are often 

 divided by a pause (see paragraph 1 of Section IV). 



Section VII. 



1. It remains only to summarise and tabulate the various kinds of units. 

 A unit, or stress-unit, is the interval of time elapsing between two wave- 

 beats of rhythm. It is in itself inaudible, and its presence is manifested 

 by stressed sound floating upon its waves. Such sound may be inarticulate, 

 or articulate but not understood, yet it is rhythmic. Poetry is emotional 

 speech floating upon a regular rhythm — tangible syllabic utterance floating 

 upon intangible rhythmic waves or pulsations : the natural accents of speech 

 coinciding with the pulsations of the rhythm give the stresses, or beats. 

 These stresses are divided by approximately equal periods of time, and the 

 time-period from stress to stress constitutes the stress-unit. The variation 

 in units is caused by their syllabic burden ; the units themselves vary only 

 in their " tempo." A unit may be altogether silent, or may contain from 

 one to five syllables ; the number is not arbitrary, nor fixed. The unit, 

 which is takeii as ending with its stress, may have that stress suppressed, 

 or may have an accented syllable preceding it in addition to the accented 

 syllable coinciding with the stress; The syllables in a unit may he together, 

 or may be divided b}^ a pause. The following are the units found in British 

 verse, with names proposed for them, old names rejected being given in 

 brackets : — 



Table V. 



Ordinary duple unit 

 Light 



Divided ordinary duple luiit 



light 



heavy 

 Paused light ,. 



hea\^^ 

 Ordinary triple iniit 

 Heav^' ,, 



Divided „ 



Ordinary quadruple unit 



Heavy ,, 



Divided heavy quadruple unit 



Quintuple rmit . . 



Feminine ending 



Double feminine ending. . 



[Doubtful unit, rever.seil duplo 



/ 



- / 



(Iamb.) 



(P\Trliic.) 



(Spondee.) 



// 



/ or Nibelungen. 



/ or Abrupt. 



/ 



// 



/ 

 / 



/ 



// 

 // 

 / 



(Anapest.) 

 (Bacchius.) 



(Fourth paeon.) 

 (Diiamb.) 



(Fourth parapaeon. 



/ (--) 

 / (-- 



- -- I 



J 



