No. 5.— 1850.] 



THE ELU LANGUAGE. 



273 



Besides the above and the blank verse (of which I shall 

 treat hereafter) there are three or four others, as far as I can 

 remember, which have an inequality in the number of sounds 

 or feet in the four lines of a stanza ; and they are of a 

 modern introduction — at least I suppose so, having only 

 met with a few in two of the modern poets. Dunuvila 

 Gajanayaka Nilame, and Kirambe' Terunnanse have both 

 adopted them in their works. They are very pleasing to 

 the ear, besides being in one respect similar to the Latin, 

 in that it is permitted in the latter to place the two syllables 

 of a word in two lines — a license neither permitted in the 

 English* nor so ' ludicrous ' in the Sinhalese as it would 

 seem if introduced into the former language. From 

 Kirafiibe : — 



@iS33®(3 -Q&Btzd es§ €33... aq 



gj GO Q ®(3§dq @>££)3(3 €33 



& ® (3 £S3323£3g ©(3 €33...<q<2D 



q 253 Q qi<&Q®& ( e ) aqpd €33 



* " Can anything give us a more ludicrous idea than the practice of the 

 ancients in sometimes splitting a word at the end of the line and com- 

 mencing the next line with the latter part of the word ? This must 

 have been nearly as ridiculous as the following English verses in imita- 

 tion of this absurd practice: — 



Pyrrhus, you tempt a danger high 

 When you would steal from angry li- 

 oness her cubs, and soon shall fly 



inglorious; 



For know the Romans, you shall find 

 By virtue more and generous kind- 

 ness than by force or fortune blind, 



victorious." — Walker. 



Also : Gallicum Rhenum, horribilesque ultim- 

 osque Britannos. — Catullus, Od. 11, 12. 

 Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, ux- 

 orius amnis. — Horace, Od. 1,2, 19. 



