On RYTHMICAL MEASURES. 89 



has been, and is at this day accounted the moft elegant and 

 pleafing movement in mufic. This meafure is almoft entirely 

 confined to mufic. There is fcarcely an inftance of verfes, 

 which are conftrucled exactly according to it, unlefs perhaps the 

 Ionian verfe of the ancients, a verfe which does not often occur 

 in their works, and which, from the heavy uniformity of its 

 movement, is by no means pleafing *. From parcelling by 

 threes, it was an eafy tranfition to divide the unit by the fame 

 number. For this, nothing more was required, than gradually 

 to diminifli the unit, and to take the parcels of three by pairs : 

 each parcel would come at laft to be confidered as a fingle unit 

 divided. They would thus form the tribrachys, trochaeus and 

 iambus, according as they exprefled each of the three parts fe- 

 parately, or joined any two of them together. In this way 

 would be obtained the gig meafure in mufic, and the trochaic 

 and iambic verfes in poetry f. Such parcels and divifions by 

 three would probably at firft be formed into ftrains or larger 

 combinations, by twos and fours ; and this is flill the moft 

 ufual arrangement. In procefs of time, however, they would 

 alfo be formed by threes and fixes. Thus the trimeter or fe- 

 narian iambic verfe might be derived from the dimeter, or verfe 

 of four fingle feet. 



So long as the bars or firft parcels, whether of pairs or 

 threes, are equal, the larger combinations uniformly contain the 

 fame number of bars, and thefe laft are reftricled to fome fim- 

 ple and obvious number, the rythm may be confidered as re- 

 gular. The moft gentle deviation from this ftructure, if in 

 truth it can be called fuch, is extending the entire piece beyond 



Vol. II. M the 



* There is only one ode of Horace in this meafure, viz,. Book HI. Ode 12. The 

 rythm feems to go on to the end, without any fenfible break or clofe. 



f The tribrachys, or gig meafure, may pofiibly have been fuggefted immediately from 

 the found of a horfe's feet, when running at full fpeed. 



