ON RHYTHM IN ENGLISH VERSE 155 



others by English rhythms. He makes no attempt to show 

 how Anglo-Saxon rhythm and classic metre became blended. 

 He simply abandons all scansion, and in the place of any law 

 of living rhythm which our ear can recognise, he offers meaning- 

 less rules, based, so far as they have any base, upon the look of 

 lines as written, not upon their sound as heard. 



One object in passing this strong condemnation on the pro- 

 posed theory is to set the reader free fully to enjoy the charming 

 book in which this fallacy is set forth. If he will pass carelessly 

 over all references to the new dogma, he may wander with un- 

 tired mind in a delightful maze of history, poetry, and criticism . 

 When he reaches certain translations from the Anglo-Saxon, 

 their rugged sections may not improbably inspire him with awe, 

 and yet in the rifts even of their middle pauses he may find 

 matter for pleasant cogitation. Elsewhere an almost endless series 

 of lines quoted from our best poets will lure him onward by a 

 charm comparable with that which we experience as we dreamily 

 peruse an early edition of Johnson's Dictionary, and that charm 

 is great. 



II. 



Nowhere are the difficulties of analysing English rhythms 

 more obvious and more perplexing than in the heroic measure. If, 

 indeed, we attempt to scan this form of verse, we shall find that 

 many lines may be divided into feet arranged as in an iambic 

 pentameter. In other cases, in order to scan the line without 

 greatly forcing the pronunciation, we must employ spondees 

 and, perhaps, pyrrhics ; further, we must occasionally allow two 

 unaccented syllables to count as one, and at other times we 

 must let a pause do duty for a syllable. Still further, we must 

 grant the poet leave to lengthen his lines by adding at their 

 close one, or even two, unaccented syllables, when the normal 

 five feet are already there. When all these privileges have been 

 granted, our rules hardly aid us to distinguish blank verse thus 

 licensed from prose. Nor can laws so loose aid us in judging 

 of the excellence of verse. Hot controversy has raged as to 

 whether long and short or accented and unaccented syllables 



