ON RHYTHM IN ENGLISH VERSE 153 



to our ear there are no less than seven accented syllables in 

 the following example from Pope, as in many others : 



Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides. 



At least we are certain that seven of these syllables should be 

 pronounced with emphasis, and that any person beating time 

 while he speaks the verse with dramatic effect will strike seven 

 blows. The old practice of scanning fits all these lines better 

 than the new law of five accents adopted by Mr. Goold Brown, 

 Dr. Guest, and many others. 



The hard and fast rule for the position of the middle pause 

 leads to difficulties quite as great as those raised by the laws 

 for the formation of each section. Thus, our author writes, 

 ' There are many instances, and some of high authority, in 

 which the middle pause falls in the midst of a word ; these, 

 however, should not be imitated.' As an example he gives 

 Milton's line : 



My ang|er un| : appea|sable| still ra|ges. 



Again, the unprepared reader might imagine that Milton never 

 intended a pause to come where the colon is placed, but in that 

 case where would the law of sections be ? Indeed, even with 

 the pause placed to suit our theorist, the second section with 

 an accent on ' ble ' and none on * still ' must have seemed to 

 him a very tough morsel. Yet the line is in Milton's noblest 

 style. 



A supporter of Dr. Guest, while admitting that the con- 

 demned lines are good, might perhaps urge that the new theory 

 has been found to fit a vast number of examples, and need not 

 be rejected because here and there an exceptional verse falls 

 outside the rules. To this we answer that it would indeed be 

 strange if some one of the three hundred and twenty-four modes 

 of analysing a simple line of five feet should not be found 

 applicable to most cases ; but, as the theory is absolutely 

 general, it must, if true, fit all examples ; and in this it fails. 

 We shall readily grant that some of the lines which defy the 

 new analysis are not of the normal heroic type ; but to satisfy 

 Dr. Guest we must go much further and admit that, unless the line 

 is mispronounced so as to let the pause and accents fall after his 



