1 70 LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



is then generally enriched by the addition of a rise in the pitch 

 of the voice on each accented syllable. In the 'American 

 Review ' for May 1848 this mode of division is frankly advocated. 

 ' In the line,' says the reviewer, ' " Full many a tale their music 

 tells," there are at least four accents or stresses of the voice with 

 faint pauses after them just enough to separate the continuous 

 stream of sounds into four parts, to be read thus : " Fullman 

 yataleth eirmus ictells," by which new combinations of sound 

 are produced of a singularly musical character.' We do not 

 agree with this author, but he was a man of sufficient intelli- 

 gence to observe and record his own practice and that of far less 

 clever men. 



There are many beauties in a fine line besides that of 

 rhythm, and even rhythm cannot be accurately recorded by 

 those coarse methods which simply distinguish between long 

 and short, or weak and strong. One iamb may differ from 

 another in character almost as much as one verse differs from 

 its neighbour. Two sections with the same nominal rhythm 

 represented by the same letter in the Morse alphabet may differ 

 in character and beauty with all the difference expressible by 

 the words good and bad. No analysis will enable anyone but 

 a poet to write a single good verse, but a true theory would 

 serve to protect us against certain pestilent diseases which at 

 times afflict actors, readers, and critics. Even an imperfect 

 theory may beget a better. 



