1919.] New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 331 
length—an average of the length of rhythmical or emotional sentences ; 
in other words, the average length of a breath. In any Ballad stanza it 
will be seen that the full verses form complete sentences, the lines forming 
clauses : — 
And first gaed by the black black steed. 
And then gaed by the brown ; 
But fast she gripped the milk-white steed 
And pu’d the rider down. 
She pu’d him frae the milk-white steed, 
And loot the bridle fa’, 
And up there raise an erlish cry, 
He’s wan amang us a’. 
Up then spak the queen o’ Fairies 
Out o’ a bush o’ broom ; 
She that has borrowed young Tamlane 
Has gotten a stately groom. 
Th*e taking of the breath at the end of each verse is quite involuntary. 
I have tested it over and over again, getting people to read ballads to me 
without telling them my reason. My friends may have thought I particularly 
liked the ballad, or their rendering of it; but what always pleased me most 
was that they invariably took their breath at what I considered the right 
places. On my observing this now and again, “ Of course,” the reply is, 
“ those are the natural places to breathe.” “ Why ? ” “ Because the 
sentences end there.” 44 And why do the sentences end there ? ” And 
then my friends begin to think that I am, as my namesake says, speaking 
in the Muscovite language. Again it must be remembered that the verses 
received form before there was either writing or printing-—that the lengths 
were determined in the mind. There must have been some determining 
influence ; and seeing that the length of the verse now determines the 
length of the breath it is natural to conclude that the duration of the 
breath originally determined the length of the verse. 
The lyric metres hitherto discussed exclude all metres in heroic couplets 
and blank verse—all poetry, that is, whose measure is a verse of jive stress- 
units. The verses of lyric poetry always contain an even number of 
stress-units. It might be supposed that heroic or blank verse is likewise 
composed of an even number of units, five audible and one represented by 
the verse-end pause. This, however, would convert it into an Alexandrine 
without mid-pause—a very rare verse, comparatively ; and the fact that 
when an Alexandrine is introduced into heroic metre, as it often is for varia¬ 
tion, it is nearly always the ordinary Alexandrine with mid-pause shows 
that the poets themselves regard the heroic as a metre quite distinct from 
the Alexandrine. It is evident that when the verse of five units was in 
course of evolution the end in view was not the heroic couplet; this was in 
the nature of an intermediate form only—a form which the riming has 
fixed, but a form whose nature it was not to be restricted and bound by 
rime ; whose tendency in a certain direction was so powerful that the 
evolving overflow from verse to verse is unhindered, except temporarily, 
by the dam of rime, which it immerses, weakens, and almost obscures ; 
and finally, in the highest blank verse, entirely sweeps away and obliterates. 
A fundamental difference between lyric and blank verse is that the lyric 
measure breaks up into individual verses of eight stress-units. Each verse 
contains a complete thought sentence, and splits again into two equal parts, 
each containing a complete clause of the thought sentence : these halves 
