V E R 



fmooth or rumbling, (low or rapid, agreeable to the fub- 

 jeft. Inftances of all which we have in the following lines. 



" Soft is the drain when Zephyr gently blows. 



The hoarfe rough verfe (hould, like the torrent, roar. 



The line too labours, and the words move flow. 



Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and fld-Tis along the main." 



By making a fmall change, or tranfpofition of a word or 

 fyllable in any of thefe verfes, any body who has an ear 

 will find, that we make a great matter of the nature and 

 order of the fyllables. 



Voffius adds, that the ancient odes were fung, as to the 

 rhythmus, (fee Rhvthm,) in the fame manner as we fcan 

 them ; every pes being a diftina bar, or meafure, feparated 

 by a diftina paufe, though, in reading, that diftindion was 

 not accurately obferved. 



Laftly, he obferves, that their odes had a regular return 

 of the fame kind of verfe ; and the fame quantity of fylla- 

 bles in the fame place of every verfe ; whereas, in the mo- 

 dern odes, to follow the natural quantity of our fyllables, 

 every flanza would be a diftinct fong. 



It is next to impoffible to write profe without fometimes 

 intermixing verfe with it ; fo that Vaugelas's rule, which en- 

 joins us to avoid them, is next to impracticable. This may 

 be farther faid, that for (hort verfes they are fo little per- 

 ceived, that it is fcarcely worth one's while to ftrain one's felf 

 to avoid tHem ; and as to long verfes, they are chiefly to be 

 avoided in the ends of periods, for, in the middle, they are 

 fcarcely felt. In the general, rules of this kind muil be con- 

 fidered as principally regarding numerous verfes, and fuch 

 as are readily diftinguifhed by their cadence : thus, iu Latin, 

 it is fcarcely poffible to avoid iambic verfes ; but hexameters 

 muft, by all means, be avoided, their cadence being more 

 fenfible and more ftudied. 



Verfes are of various kinds ; feme denominated from the 

 number of feet of which they are compofed ; as the nwiio- 

 mekr, d'lmeUr, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, 

 hendecafyHabum, SiC. Some from the kinds of feet ufod in 

 them ; as the pyrrhichian, proceleujmatie , iambic, trochaic, 

 Jadylic, anapajlic, fpandaic or mallojfean, choriambic, iambi- 

 daSylic, or dahylotrochaic. Sometimes fi-om the names of 

 the inventors, or the authors who have ufed them with moll 

 fuccefs : as the Anacreontic, jirchihchian, Hipponaclic, Phe- 

 recratian, Glyconiaii, Alcmanian, Afclepiadean, Alcaic, Sie/t- 

 chorian, Phalijean, Arijlophar.lan, CaUimachian, GaUiambic, 

 Phalitcian, and Sapphic. Sometimes from the iubjed, or 

 the circumftances of the compofition ; as the heroic, elegiac, 

 Adonic, &c. See Hexameter, Pextametek, Iambic, 5cc. 



In reckoning the feet of iambics, trochaics, and ana- 

 paeftics, each meter is a dipody, or comprehends two feet. 

 In other verfes, a meter is but a fingle foot. Hence it ia that 

 the iambic trimeter is alfo called y^n£jWum,becaufe compofed 

 of fix feet. See Versification, infra. 



The ancients invented various kinds of poetical devices in 

 verfe, as centos, echoes, and monorhymes. 



Verse, Atexandrin ot Alexandrian. See Alexandrix. 



Verse, Blank, is a noble, bold, and difencumbered fpe- 

 cies of verfification ; free from that full clofe which rhyme 

 forces upon the ear at the end of every couplet, and allow- 

 ing the lines to run into each other, with as great, if not 

 greater, liberty than the Latin hexameter. Accordingly it 

 is fuited to fubjefts of dignity and force, which demand 

 more free and manly numbers than rhyme. The conftraint 

 and ilrict regularity of rhyme are unfavourable to the 

 fublime, or to the highly pathetic ftrain. An epic poem or a 

 tragedy would be fettered and degraded by it. As this kind 

 of verfe is naturally read with lefs cadence or tone than rhyme, 



V E R 



the paufes in it, and the effeft of them, are not always fo fen- 

 fible to the ear. It is conftructed, however, entirely upon 

 the fame principles, with refpeft to the place of the paufe. 

 See Pausb;. 



Verses, Concordant, Dadylic, and Elegiac. See the 

 adjeftives. 



Verses, Equivocal, thofe where the fame words contained 

 in two hues carry a different fenle. 



Verses, Fefcennine. See Fescennine. 



Verse, Heroic. See Heroic. 



Our Englifh heroic verfe is of that kind which may be 

 denominated iambic ftrudlure ; that is, compofed of a nearly 

 alternate fucceffion of fyllables, not fliort and long, but un- 

 accented and accented. The line often begins with an un- 

 accented fyllable, and fometimes, in its courfe, two unac- 

 cented fyllables foUow each other. But, generally, there 

 are either five or four accented fyllables in each line. The 

 number of fyllables is ten, unlefs an Alexandrian verfe be oc- 

 cafionally admitted. In the Itahan heroic verfe employed 

 by Taffo in his Gierufalemme, and Ariofto in his Orlando, 

 the paufes are of the fame varied nature with thofe that be- 

 long to Englifli verfification. See Pause, and Versifj- 

 CATIOX, infra. 



Verses, Metrical. See Metrical. 



Verses, Reciprocal, are thofe which read the fame back- 

 wards as forwards. See Retrograde. 



Verses, Rhopalic, Serpentine, and Technical. See the ad- 

 jectives. 



Verse is alfo ufed for a part of a chapter, fedlion, or 

 paragraph, fubdivided into feveral little articles. 



The whole bible is divided into chapters ; and the chap- 

 ters are divided into verfes. 



The five books of the law are divided into fifty-four 

 feftions. See Parasche and Pentateuch. 



Many of the Jews maintain, that this was one of the con- 

 ftitutions of Mofes fi-om mount Sinai ; and fome modern 

 Chrillian writers, fuch as Buxtorf, Leufden, PfeifFer, and 

 their admirers, infift upon it, that the div'.fion of the verfes 

 of the Old Tcftamcnt was not a work merely human, but 

 had the peculiar privilege of being fixed by the infpired au- 

 thor of each book, or at the latefl by Ezra. Others, 

 with greater probability, afcribe it to Ezra, and fay that it 

 was made for the ufe of the fynagogues, in which one fec- 

 tion was read every Sabbath-day, and thus the whole law 

 read over every year. When the Jews were forbidden, in the 

 time of the perfecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, to read the 

 law, they fubftituted in its room fifty-four feftions out of 

 the prophets, which were afterwards continued ; and when 

 llio reading of the law was reftored by the Maccabees, the 

 ledlion wliich was read every Sabbath out of the law, 

 ferved for their firft leflbn, and that out of the prophets for 

 their fecond leflbn ; and fo it was practifed in the lim.eof the 

 apoftles. 



Thefe feftions were divided into verfes, which the Jews 

 call pefukim. They are marked out in the Hebrew bibles 

 by two great points at the end of them, cMedfoph-pafui, 

 i. e. the end of the -verfe. If Ezra was not the author of this 

 divifion, it is certainly very ancient, and was probably in- 

 vented for the fake of the Targumifts, or Chaldee inter- 

 preters. Mention is made of thefe verfes in the Mifchna. 

 Prideaux's Conn. vol. ii. p. 479. For the more modern di- 

 vifion, fee Chapters. 



That the modern divifion could not be of infpired autho- 

 rity is undeniable, for no infpired author could feparate 

 words which the fenfe determines to be infeparable, feveral 

 inftances ot which occur. 



It is probable, fays Dr. Kennicott (State of the printed 



Hebrew 



