622 Transactions. 



these variations must adhere to its number of units at peril of its exist- 

 ence. Less palpable is the latter law, the position of pauses ; a pause, 

 having no sound, and being thus liable to lengthening or shortening at 

 the will of the reader, is miable to assert itself in the aggressive manner of 

 audible parts, and is liable to be disregarded ; but to tuned ears the pauses 

 are as full of harmony as the articulations, and divide those articulations 

 into harmonious groupings. In the full Komance verse there is the natural 

 pause, the breath-pause, following every eighth stress : there is a mid- 

 pause, not so marked, following the fourth stress, dividing the full verse 

 into two equal parts : — 



(37.) Ye banks and braes o" bonie Doon, how can ye bloom sae fre.sh and fair ? 



As in the course of the arrow shot upwards there are two parts, the ascent 

 and the descent, with a slight hover in the air as the arrow turns, so in the 

 full verse there are two parts, and a slight dwelling at the union of the two 

 parts that welds but does not crush them together. Besides these two 

 principal pauses the verse may, and usually does, contain minor pauses, 

 Avhose positions are entirely optional, depending as they do on the syn- 

 tactical construction : — 



(37rt.) How can ye chant, ye little birds, when I'm sae weary, fu" o" care ! 



So, too, of the Ballad verse : — 



(38.) There blew a drowsy, drowsy wind, deep sleep ujion me fell ; 



Here the end-pause, dividing the verses, is much more marked than in 

 the Romance verse, the reason being that a full miit has been dropped to 

 allow of easy breath being taken. The consequence is that the verse is 

 divided into two unequal parts by the mid-pause, which still falls, as in 

 the Romance verse, after the fourth stress. Should it fall after the third 

 stress, the sense of balance is lost, as in No. (35A). 



Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly die, 



Here the " utterly " sounds superfluous, the reader being strongly in- 

 clined to read the verse : — 



(39.) Drop/ into dust/ and die/ — / the flower/ of Hel/las die/, 



The true mid-pause should fall after " flower " — 



(39rt.) DroiV into dust/ and die/ — the flower/ of Hel/las ut/terly die/, 



— when it becomes an ordinary Ballad verse. In the poem " Pheidippides " 

 it comes especially strangely because it occurs among Alexandrines, whose 

 mid-pause naturally falls after the third stress ; but, as observed in (35^), 

 if this Alexandrine mid-pause — the equivalent, it will be remembered, of a 

 dropped unit — be observed, a verse of eight units, a full Romance verse, 

 results — 



Drop/ into dust/ and die/ — / the flower/ of Hel/las ut/terh^ die/, 



- — which is reminiscent of the Romance swell occurring in the Nibelungen 

 metre of the German epic: see No. (19), the last verse : — 



He saw/ the love/ly mai/dcn, / her grace/ and her splen/dour he/ beheld/. 



Drop/ into dust/ and die/ — / the flower/ of Hel/las ut/terly die/, 



Supposing it to be a full Ronuvnce verse, it is the solitary Romance verse 

 in the poem. One rather supposes it to be an ordinary Ballad verse, with 



