CONTENTS.
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Verse Generally, | [1] |
| II. | Classic Versification, | [8] |
| III. | Guides and Handbooks, | [16] |
| IV. | Of Feet and Cæsura, | [23] |
| V. | Of Metre and Rhythm, | [27] |
| VI. | Of Rhyme, | [44] |
| VII. | Of Figures, | [49] |
| VIII. | Of Burlesque and Comic Verse, and Vers de Société, | [54] |
| IX. | Of Song-writing, | [61] |
| The Dictionary of Rhymes, | [65] | |
| APPENDIX. | ||
| 1. | An Essay on English Versification, | [151] |
| 2. | Bysshe's "Rules for making English Verse," | [207] |
| Chapter I.—Of the Structure of English Verses. | ||
| Sect. 1. | Of the several Sorts of Verses; and, first, of those of Ten Syllables: of the due Observation of the Accents, and of the Pause. | [209] |
| Sect. 2. | Of the other Sorts of Verses that are used in our Poetry. | [213] |
| Sect. 3. | Several Rules conducing to the Beauty of our Versification. | [215] |
| Sect. 4. | Doubts concerning the number of Syllables of certain Words. | [217] |
| Sect. 5. | Of the Elisions that are allowed in our Versification. | [219] |
| Chapter II.—Of Rhyme. | ||
| Sect. 1. | What Rhyme is, and the Several Sorts of it. | [223] |
| Sect. 2. | Of Double and Treble Rhyme. | [224] |
| Sect. 3. | Further Instructions concerning Rhyme. | [224] |
| Chapter III.—Of the Several Sorts of Poems, or Composition in Verse. | ||
| Sect. 1. | Of the Poems composed in Couplets. | [227] |
| Sect. 2. | Of the Poems composed in Stanzas; and, first, of the Stanzas consisting of Three, and of Four Verses. | [228] |
| Sect. 3. | Of the Stanzas of Six Verses. | [230] |
| Sect. 4. | Of the Stanzas of Eight Verses. | [231] |
| Sect. 5. | Of the Stanzas of Ten and of Twelve Verses. | [233] |
| Sect. 6. | Of the Stanzas that consist of an odd Number of Verses. | [234] |
| Sect. 7. | Of Pindaric Odes, and Poems in Blank Verse. | [236] |
CHAPTER I.
VERSE GENERALLY.
There is no better text for this chapter than some lines from Pope's "Essay on Criticism":—
"But most by numbers judge a poet's song,
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:
These equal syllables alone require,
Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still recurring rhymes;
Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,'
In the next line it 'whispers through the trees:'
If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd—not in vain—with 'sleep.'
Then at the last and only couplet, fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, to know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigour of a line
Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learnt to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labours, and the words move slow.
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."
Johnson sneers somewhat at the attempt at what he styles "representative metre." He quotes "one of the most successful attempts,"—
"With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down and smokes along the ground."
After admitting that he sees the stone move slowly upward, and roll violently back, he says, "try the same numbers to another sense—
"While many a merry tale and many a song
Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.
The rough road then returning in a round
Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground."
"We have now," says the Doctor, "lost much of the delay and much of the rapidity." Truly so!—but why? The choice of words has really altered the measure, though not the number of syllables. If we look at the second line of the first extract, we see how the frequent use of the aspirate, with a long sound after it, gives the labour of the ascent. There is nothing of this in the corresponding line, where the "r" gives a run rather than a halt to the measure. But Johnson more decidedly shows how he was mistaken when he finds fault with Pope's—
"The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."
His objection to this is, that the same sequence of syllables gives "the rapid race" and "the march of slow-paced majesty;" and he adds, "the exact prosodist will find the line of swiftness by one time longer than that of tardiness." By this it is to be presumed he alludes to the trisyllabic nature of the first foot of the first line—"varying." But it is just that which gives the rapidity. The other half of the line is not meant to give rapidity, but "resounding." The second line, by the repetition of the "a" in "march" and "majesty," gives the tramp of the march to admiration.
So much for Johnson's objections. We will now see how far the lines of Pope can guide us in the construction of verse.
Line Third indicates the necessity—which Pope himself, even, did not adequately recognise—the necessity of varying the fall of the verse on the ear. Pope did this by graduating his accents. The line should scan with an accented syllable following an unaccented one—
"And smo´oth or ro´ugh, with the´m, is ri´ght or wro´ng."
Pope varied this by a sort of compromise—
"And the´ smooth strea´m in smo´other nu´mbers flo´ws,"
would be the right scansion. But the accent passes in a subdued form from "the" to "smooth," which pleasantly modulates the line, and gives the flow required for the figure treated of.[[3]]
But there was another means of varying the verse which was not in those days adopted. It was not then recognised that there were some cases in which the unaccented syllable might have two "beats." Pope wrote,
"The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit."
Had he written "generous," it might have stood, and would have given a variety. And this would have saved the eyesore of such lines as—
"T' admire superior sense and doubt our own."
Line Fourth does not exactly describe the fault it commits. "The open vowel" is no offence, but rather a beauty, though like all beauty it must not be too lavishly displayed. The fault of the line really lies in the repetition of the same broad sound—"o." The same vowel-sounds should not be repeated in a line.[[4]] This especially holds good where they are so associated with consonants as to form a rhyme, or anything approaching to it.
Line Fifth points out an inelegance which no one with any ear could be guilty of—the use of "do" and "did," to eke out a line or help a rhyme.
Line Sixth indicates a practice which those who have studied Latin versification would avoid without such a hint, since the nature of the cæsura compels the avoidance of monosyllables.
Line Ninth, with the following three lines, warns against an error which naturally becomes the more frequent the longer English verse is written, since rhymes become more and more hackneyed every day.
Line Sixteenth. The Alexandrine will come under discussion in its place among metres.
Line Twenty-first might well serve for a motto for this little treatise. If a poet said this of poetry, how much more does it apply to versification!
Line Twenty-fifth. Here, and in the following line, by delicate manipulation of the accent, Pope gets the desired effect. Instead of "So so´ft the stra´in," he attracts the ear with "So´ft is," and the unexpected word gives the key-note of the line.
Line Twenty-seventh. It is almost needless to point out how in this, and the next line, the poet, by artful management of accent and careful selection of onomatopoetic words, gives the required assonance to the lines.
Line Twenty-ninth. The broad vowels here give the requisite pause and "deliberation" to the verse. In the following line, the introduction of "too"—(under some circumstances it might well come under the condemnation of Line Fifth)—makes the line labour, and the open "o" at the end of the line "tires the ear."
Line Thirty-first. Here the poet gets the slide of the "s" to give the idea of motion. In the following line by the elision and the apt introduction of short syllables he repeats the notion. In my opinion the artistic skill of Pope is peculiarly observable in the last few couplets. In the first line in each instance the effect is produced by the use of a different artifice from that employed in the second.
These rules were of course intended by Pope to apply only to the measure called "heroic," i.e., decasyllabic verse. But, mutatis mutandis, they will be equally applicable to general verse.
Coleridge in his "Christabel" struck out what he considered a new metre, which he describes as "not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four." This was a decided step in the right direction, being in truth a recognition of the principle that measure in English was not exhausted—was, indeed, hardly satisfied—by the old rule of thumb; that, in short, it needed a compromise between accent and quantity.
Southey in his "Thalaba" essayed a new style of versification, of which he writes as follows:—
"It were easy to make a parade of learning by enumerating the various feet which it admits; it is only needful to observe that no two lines are employed in sequence, which can be read into one. Two six-syllable lines (it will perhaps be answered) compose an Alexandrine; the truth is, that the Alexandrine, when harmonious, is composed of two six-syllable lines. One advantage this metre assuredly possesses; the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord.... I do not wish the improvisatore time, but something that denotes the sense of harmony; something like the accent of feeling; like the tone which every poet necessarily gives to poetry."
Of course, by "six syllables" Southey means "six feet." He was evidently struggling for emancipation from the old rule of thumb.
Of late many eccentricities of versification have been attempted after the manner of Mr Whitman, but for these, like the Biblical echo of Mr Tupper's muse, there seem to be no perceptible rules, even should it be desirable to imitate them.
I would here add a few words of advice to those who, by the study of our greatest writers, would endeavour to improve their own style. For smoothness I should say Waller, in preference even to Pope, because the former wrote in far more various measures, and may challenge comparison with Pope, on Pope's own ground, with "The Ode to the Lord Protector," in decasyllabic verse. For music—"lilt" is an expressive word that exactly conveys what I mean—they cannot do better than choose Herrick. Add to these two George Herbert, and I think the student will have a valuable guide in small space.
CHAPTER II.
CLASSIC VERSIFICATION.
There is little doubt that the best and easiest way of learning English grammar is through the Latin. That English versification cannot be similarly acquired through the Latin is due to the fact that the Latin system depends on quantity, and the English chiefly on accent and rhyme. Nevertheless, a slight acquaintance with the classic measures will prove useful to the student of English verse. In the absence of all teaching of English versification at our schools, they have done good service in giving our boys some insight into the structure of verse.
The structure of Latin and Greek verse depends on the quantity—the length or shortness expressed by the forms — ᴗ. A long syllable is equal in duration to two short syllables, which may therefore take its place (as it may take theirs) in certain positions. The combinations of syllables are called feet, of which there are about nine-and-twenty. Twelve of the most common are here given:—
| Spondee | — — |
| Pyrrhic | ᴗ ᴗ |
| Trochee | — ᴗ |
| Iambus | ᴗ — |
| Molossus | — — — |
| Tribrach | ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ |
| Dactyl | — ᴗ ᴗ |
| Anapæst | ᴗ ᴗ — |
| Bacchic | ᴗ — — |
| Antibacchic | — — ᴗ |
| Amphimacer | — ᴗ — |
| Amphibrach | ᴗ — ᴗ |
Of the styles of verse produced by combinations of these feet the most important are the Heroic, or Hexameter; the Elegiac, alternate Hexameters and Pentameters; and the Dramatic or Iambic. All others may be classed as Lyrics.
The Cæsura (division) is the separation of each verse into two parts by the ending of a word in the middle of a certain foot.[[5]] It may be here noted that this principle (the ending of a word in the middle of a foot) applies generally to the verse, it being an inelegance to construct lines of words of which each constitutes a foot. The well-known line of Virgil, marked to show the feet, will explain this at a glance—
"Arma vi|rumque ca|no || Tro|jæ qui | primus ab | oris."
In this the cæsura occurs in the third foot, between cano and Trojæ. But in no case is one foot composed of one word only.
The Hexameter line consists of, practically, five dactyls and a spondee or trochee. A spondee may take the place of each of the first four dactyls—and sometimes, but very rarely, of the fifth. The cæsura falls in the third foot at the end of the first—and sometimes at the end of the second—syllable of the dactyl. In some cases it is in the fourth foot, after the first syllable. The last word in the line should be either a dissyllable or trisyllable.
The Pentameter is never used alone, but, with a Hexameter preceding it in the distich, forms Elegiac Verse. It consists of two parts, divided by a cæsura, each part composed of two dactyls (interchangeable with spondees) and a long syllable.[[6]] The last place in the line should be occupied by a dissyllabic word—at least it should not be a monosyllable or trisyllable.
The Iambic is most commonly used in a six-foot line of iambics (the trimeter iambic, vide note on last paragraph). In the first, third, and fifth place a spondee may be substituted, and there are other licenses which we need not here enter upon, as the measure is not of much importance for our purposes. The cæsura occurs in the third or fourth foot.
The Lyrics are, as a rule, compound verses; different sorts of feet enter into the formation of the lines; and the stanzas consist of lines of different kinds, and are styled strophes.
The chief of the lyric measures are the Sapphic and Alcaic.
The Sapphic is a combination of three Sapphic verses with an Adonic.
Lines 1, 2, 3, — ᴗ | — — | — || ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ
Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — —
The double line represents the cæsura, which in rare instances falls a syllable later.
The Alcaic is, like the Sapphic, a four-line stanza. Its scheme is—
Lines 1 and 2, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — || — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ —ᴗ
Line 3, —ᴗ — | ᴗ — | — — | ᴗ — | —ᴗ
Line 4, — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ ᴗ | — ᴗ | — —ᴗ
That is to say, it consists of two eleven-syllable, one nine-syllable, and one ten-syllable Alcaic lines (Alcaici hendeka-, ennea-, and deka-syllabici). Much of the success of the stanza depends on the flow of the third line, which, according to the best models, should consist of three trisyllables (or equivalent combinations, e.g. a dissyllable noun with its monosyllabic preposition).
When it is stated that Horace wrote in four or five-and-twenty lyric measures, it will be obvious that I cannot exhaust, or attempt to exhaust, the list of measures in a work like this. The reader will have acquired some notion of the nature of classic versification, from what I have stated of Latin composition applying with unimportant differences to Greek. Those who have the leisure or the inclination might do worse than study Greek and Latin poetry, if only to see if they can suggest no novelties of metre. I can recall no English verse that reproduces Horace's musical measure:—
"Mĭsĕrār' est | nĕqu' ămōrī dărĕ lūdūm | nĕqŭe dūlcī
Mălă vīnō | lăvĕr' āut ēx|ănĭmārī | mĕtŭēntēs
Pătrŭǣ vēr| bĕră līnguǣ."
Greek verse seems a less promising field than Latin at a first glance. But one of the choruses in Aristophanes's "Plutus" has an exact echo in English verse.
"ἄνδρες φίλοι κὰι δημόται κὰι τοῦ πονεῖν ἐραστάι."
may fairly run in a curricle with
"A captain bold of Halifax who lived in country quarters."
The great difficulty of finding a corresponding measure in English for Latin or Greek verse, on the accepted theory that the English acute accent answers to the Latin long quantity, and the grave accent to the short, will be found in the spondee. We have no means of replacing the two longs in juxtaposition, and are compelled to find refuge in what, according to the accent-quantity theory, is either an iamb or a trochee.
I subjoin the following attempts to render a few Latin metres, commencing with a translation of the Horatian measure just alluded to:—
"Hapless lasses who in glasses may not drown those pangs of passion,
Or disclose its bitter woes, it's—so they tell you—not the fashion."
Yet this, in spite of the sub-rhymes which give the swing of the Ionicus ( ᴗ ᴗ — ´ — ) may well be read as a succession of trochees—that is to say, according to the quantity-accent system.
Here is an attempt at the Sapphic:—
"Never—ah me—now, as in days aforetime
Rises o'erwhelming memory—'tis banish'd!
Scenes of loved childhood, cannot ye restore time,
Though it has vanish'd?"
The Alcaic measure is essayed in the following:—
"Ah woe! the men who gallantly sallying
Strode forth undaunted, rapidly rallying—
No longer advancing attack-ward,
Rush'd a disorderly tumult backward."
In these, again, the difficulty of exactly replacing quantity by accent is great—if not insurmountable. Hence it is that, as a rule, the attempts at giving the exact reproductions of Latin measures have failed. Nevertheless I believe that corresponding measures, suitable to the genius of our language, may be suggested by a study of the classics.
The often-quoted lines of Coleridge on the hexameter and pentameter appear to me faulty:—
"In the hex|ameter | rises || the | fountain's | silvery | column—
In the pen|tameter | aye || falling in | melody | back."
The first feet of both lines are less dactyls than anapæsts. The cæsura of the first line is not the "worthier" cæsura. In the second line the monosyllable is inadmissible in the last place.
Here I may as well point out what seems to me to be a difficulty of English versification which has given much trouble. The substitution of accent for quantity is not all that is required to make the best verse. Quantity enters into the consideration too. A combination of consonants, giving an almost imperceptible weight to the vowel preceding them, goes far to disqualify it for a place as an unaccented syllable. To my thinking "rises a" would be a better English dactyl than "rises the," and "falls it in" than "falling in." But no agglomeration of consonants can make such a syllable accented. Two lines from Coleridge's "Mahomet" will evidence this—
"Huge wasteful | empires | founded and | hallowed | slow
perse|cution,
Soul-wither|ing but | crush'd the | blasphemous | rites of
the | Pagan."
"Huge wasteful" is not a dactyl, and "ing but" is certainly not a spondee—nor is "crushed the." "Hallowed," by force of the broad "o," is almost perfect as a spondee, on the other hand; as is "empires" also. Longfellow, in his "Evangeline," has perhaps done the best that can be done to give an exact rendering of the Latin hexameter; but Tennyson, in portions of "Maud," has caught its spirit, and transfused it into an English form. No poet, indeed, has done so much as the Laureate to introduce new or revive old forms of versification, and enrich the language with musical measure.
It may be well to note here that the classic poets did not forget the use of the maxim which Pope expresses in the line—
"The sound must seem an echo to the sense."
In this they were greatly assisted by the use of the quantity, which enabled them the more readily to give rapidity or weight to their lines. Nothing could more admirably represent a horse's gallop than the beat of the words—
"Quadrupedante putrem sonittu quatit ungula campum."
The unwieldiness of the Cyclops is splendidly shadowed in the line—
"Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum."
And again the beat of the Cyclopean hammers is well imitated in the verse—
"Illi inter sese magnâ vi brachia tollunt."
Too much stress may easily be laid on this adornment, and some poets have carried it to excess. But the beginner in verse will do well not to overlook it.
Note.—The Poet Laureate, whose mastery of metre is remarkable, has given us alcaics in his lines to Milton—
"Oh, mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
Oh, skill'd to sing of time and eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England—
Milton, a name to resound for ages."
I would especially commend to those whom these remarks have interested in any way, the perusal, with a view to this particular object, of "Father Prout's Reliques."
CHAPTER III.
GUIDES AND HANDBOOKS.
The earliest handbook of verse appears to be that of Bysshe, who is, by the way, described in the British Museum Catalogue as "the Poet." The entry is the only ground I can find for so describing him. He is, however, amusingly hard on simple versifiers. "Such Debasers of Rhyme, and Dablers in Poetry would do well to consider that a Man would justly deserve a higher Esteem in the World by being a good Mason or Shoe-Maker, than by being an indifferent or second-Rate Poet." Furthermore, with touching modesty, he says, "I pretend not by the following sheets to teach a man to be a Poet in Spight of Fate and Nature." His "Rules for making English Verse" are reprinted in the Appendix.
His dictionary of rhymes is better than those of his successors,—perhaps I should say "that" of his successors, for Walker's has been repeated with all its errors, or nearly all, in every subsequent handbook. Bysshe is to be praised for setting his face against what Walker styles "allowable" rhymes, such as "haste" and "feast."[[7]]
Bysshe's theory of verse was "the seat of the accent, and the pause," as distinguished from quantity—that is, it depended on the number of syllables. As a result of this undivided devotion, he misses much of the power to be attained by making the sound the echo of the sense, as Pope puts it. He proposes to alter a line of Dryden's from
"But forced, harsh, and uneasy unto all."
into
"But forced and harsh, uneasy unto all."
One would fancy the merest tyro would see the intentional harshness of the line as Dryden wrote it, and its utter emasculation as Bysshe reforms it.
Bysshe is strongly in favour of clipping syllables, a very pitiable error, for the chief drawback of English as a poetical language is the preponderance of consonants. He prefers to make "beauteous" dissyllabic, and "victorious" trisyllabic. He recommends the elision which makes "bower," "Heaven," "Prayer" and "higher," monosyllables, and advises the use of such abortions as "temp'rance," "fab'lous," "med'cine," "cov'nant," and even "wall'wing," for wallowing! To compensate for these clippings, however, he considers "ism" a dissyllable!
As a consequence of his narrowing verse to a question of syllable and accent only, he vulgarises many words unnecessarily. The student of verse who considers quantity as well as accent will find no difficulty in reading the following lines without eliding any vowels.
"From diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold."—Milton.
"A violet by a mossy stone."—Wordsworth.
"With vain but violent force their darts they threw."—Cowley.
"His ephod, mitre, well-cut diadem on."—Cowley.
"My blushing hyacinth and my bays I keep."—Dryden.
Bysshe cuts down to "di'mond," "vi'let," "vi'lent," "di'dem," "hy'cinth," words which need no such debasing elision. As in music two short sharp beats are equivalent to one long one (two minims = one semi-breve) so in verse two brief vowels, or syllables even, are admissible—indeed, at times desirable for the sake of variety in lieu of one.
Among less questionable maxims of Bysshe's is one, "avoid a concourse of vowels," instanced by—
"Should thy Iambics swell into a book."
This means, it is to be presumed, "avoid a concourse of repetitions of one sound," a very necessary rule. Some poets are careful not to get the same vowel sound twice in any line. "Avoid ending a verse with an adjective whose substantive follows in the next line" is another sound precept, instanced by—
"Some lost their quiet rivals, some their kind
Parents."
The same rule applies to the separation of a preposition from the case which it governs, as exemplified in—
"The daily lessening of our life shows by
A little dying," &c.
With less reason Bysshe condemns alliteration. It is an artifice that can be overdone, as is often the case in Poe's poems, and those of Mr Swinburne,[[8]]
Following the example of the old Gradus ad Parnassum, Bysshe gives an anthology with his guide. An anthology in a guide to English verse is worse than useless, for it serves no purpose save to provoke plagiarism and imitation. Any one who wishes to write verse will do little unless he has a fair acquaintance with English poetry—an acquaintance for which an anthology can never be a substitute; while it will but cripple and hamper his fancy and originality by supplying him with quotations on any given subject, from "April" to "Woman."
Walker's Rhyming Dictionary has greater faults, but also greater merits than Bysshe's Art of Poetry. Walker admits and defends "allowable" rhymes. "It may be objected," he says, "that a work of this kind contributes to extend poetical blemishes, by furnishing imperfect materials and apologies for using them. But it may be answered, that if these imperfect rhymes were allowed to be blemishes, it would still be better to tolerate them than cramp the imagination by the too narrow boundaries of exactly similar sounds." Now, it is perfectly true, of course, that a poet may well be allowed to effect the compromise of sacrificing a rhyme for a thought; but the versifier (for whom Walker's book is meant) must have no such license. He must learn to walk before he runs. Yet apart from this, Walker's argument is singularly illogical;—there can be no need to catalogue the blemishes, even on the ground he urges, since the imagination would suggest the license, not the license stimulate the imagination. Walker's book being simply mechanical should have been confined to the correct machinery of verse, and imagination should have been allowed to frame for itself the licenses, which it would not dream of seeking in a handbook.
But for this defect, Walker's Dictionary would be the best book of the sort possible. It contains, beside an Index in which rhymes are arranged under various terminations, as in Bysshe's work, a terminational dictionary of three hundred pages; a dictionary, that is, in which the words are arranged as in ordinary dictionaries, save that the last and not the first letter of the word is that under which it is ranged.
Walker's Index is by no means exhaustive. In arranging the index of this little book I have added about a hundred terminations to his list, beside subdividing headings which have two sounds (as ASH, in "cash" and "wash"). Walker's Dictionary of rhymes, though by no means exhaustive, is useful, and is the only one extant. His Index of rhymes has been copied so servilely by all compilers of "handbooks of poetry" that, in dismissing it now, we dismiss all so-called rhyming dictionaries of later date.
Of these recent books there are but two of any note or importance. One claims to be a "complete practical guide to the whole subject of English versification"—"an exhaustive treatise," in which the writer, by way of simplifying matters, proposes to supersede the old titles of spondee, dactyl, &c., by the titles of "march," "trip," "quick," and "revert," and makes accents intelligible by calling them "backward" and "forward," with such further lucidities as "hover," "main," "midabout," and other technicalities afford. Its chief characteristic, however, is a decided condemnation of rhyme altogether, and a suggestion of the substitution of "assonance," under which "path" and "ways," and "pride" and "wife" would do duty for rhyme! The treatise, though spoiled by pedantic aiming after novelties of nomenclature, and too assertive language, is worth perusal. But as "a practical guide" it is at present useless, and will remain so until English rhyme is disestablished and disendowed by Act of Parliament. Although its author modestly describes it as "the first treatise of the kind ever completed," and considers it "will in no mean degree serve to advance" the study of English verse, it is to be feared that there is little danger of its setting the Pierian spring on fire.
A more practical "Handbook of Poetry" is the best work of the kind I have met with, but it is full of grave errors. It begins with a definition of "Poetry" which makes it identical with "Verse," and it tends too much to the side of license in consequence, from the fact of permitting to the versifier freedoms which poets only can claim. On rhyme it is singularly inconsistent. It pronounces as no rhyme "heart" and "art," which to any but a cockney ear are perfect rhymes. Yet, a few paragraphs farther on, its only objection to the coupling of "childhood" and "wildwood" as a double rhyme, is that it is hackneyed; whereas it is not a double rhyme at all! In a chapter on "Imagery," though "metaphor" is catalogued, "simile" is omitted, and both together reappear under the needless subdivision "tropes." An anthology is added, and a dictionary of double and treble rhymes—as if it were possible to give anything like an exhaustive list of them in twenty pages!
Such being the imperfections, whether of shortcoming or excess, of the various existing handbooks, I venture to hope that this little treatise may plead some excuse for its appearance.
CHAPTER IV.
OF FEET AND CÆSURA.
The feet most often met with in English verse are those corresponding with the trochee and iambus,[[9]] that is approximately. The iambic is most common perhaps, represented by two syllables with the accent on the last syllable. The trochee has two syllables, with the accent on the first. An example of a line in each metre will show the difference—
Four Foot Iambic.
"To fai´r Fide´le's gra´ssy to´mb."
Four Foot Trochaic.
"No´t a si´ngle ma´n depa´rted."
Dactyls (an accented followed by two unaccented syllables) and anapæsts (two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one) are most frequently used in combination with the other feet—
Anapæstic.
"O´r the wo´rld | from the hou´r | of her bi´rth."
Dactylic.
"Ma´ke no deep | scru´tiny
I´nto her | mu´tiny."
It appears to me preferable to retain the classic names for these feet, rather than to try and invent new titles for them. One writer on versification has attempted to do this, and calls the iambic "march" measure, and the trochaic "trip." This seems to me to render the nature of the measure liable to misconstruction, as if the former only suited elevated themes, and the latter light ones; whereas the metre of Hudibras is iambic, and Aytoun's ballad of the "Battle of Flodden" is trochaic. The truth is, that the form of the foot has little to do with the "march" or "trip" of the verse, for "The Bridge of Sighs" is written in a dactylic form; and, according to the authority just alluded to, if the trochee be a "trip," the dactyl must be a "jig"!
By the combinations of these feet in certain numbers a line is constituted. Those in which two, three, and four feet occur—dimeters, trimeters, and tetrameters—are not so general as lines of more feet, and in these latter a new feature has to be recognised and provided for—the cæsura or pause. Strictly, the cæsura causes poetry to be written in lines, the end of each being a cæsura; but there are other cæsuras in the line, one or more according to its length. In the best verse they correspond with a natural pause in the sense of the words. When they do not, the artificial punctuation injures the harmony with which the sound and the sense should flow together. It is by varying the fall of the cæsura that the best writers of blank decasyllabic verse contrive to divest it of monotony. In some of the more irregular forms of verse, especially when it is unrhymed, the cæsura is all-important, giving to the lines their rise and fall—a structure not altogether unlike what has been termed the parallelism of Hebrew versification.
It is scarcely possible to lay down rules for the use of the cæsura, or pause, in English verse. It differs from the classic cæsura in falling at the end of both foot and word. Of its possible varieties we may gain some idea when we note that, in the decassyllabic line, for instance, it may fall after each foot, and it is by the shifting of its place that in this, as in blank verse, monotony is avoided. In shorter measures, especially of a lyric nature, it generally falls midway in the line.
The plan of giving to our accentual feet the titles given to the classical quantitative feet has been strongly condemned by some writers. I venture to think they have hardly considered the matter sufficiently. It must be better to use these meaningless terms (as we use the gibberish of Baroko and Bramantip in logic) than to apply new names which, by aiming at being expressive, may be misleading. But there is something more than this to be considered. There is in accent this, in common with quantity, that just as two shorts make a long, and can be substituted for it, so two unaccented syllables may take the place of one rather more accented; or perhaps it will be found that the substitution is due less to the correspondence in accent alone, than to correspondence of quantity as well as accent. To put it briefly, these resolutions of the foot into more syllables are—like similar resolutions in music—a question of time, and time means quantity rather than accent. As an instance of this, I may give the much-quoted, often-discussed line—
"Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes."
The ordinary method of scanning this is to make a dissyllable of "tired," as if it were "ti-erd," a vulgarism of which its author would never have been guilty. The truth is, that the long "i" and the roll of the "r" correspond in time to a dissyllable, and by changing the run of the line, carry out perfectly Pope's notion of the sound echoing the sense.
These resolutions, therefore, need a most accurate ear, and no slight experience. The versifier will do well, as a beginner, to refrain from attempting them. When he has gone on writing verse by rule of thumb until he begins to discover a formality in them that would be the better for variation, he may fairly try his hand at it—but not until then. Before that, his redundancy of syllables would be the result of faulty or unfinished expression, not the studied cause of a change in run.
CHAPTER V.
METRE AND RHYTHM.
I t was scarcely possible to explain what the feet in verse are without assuming the existence of lines, in order to give intelligible examples of the various feet. But the consideration of the construction of lines really belongs to this chapter.
A line is composed of a certain number of feet, from two to almost any number short of ten or so—if indeed we may limit the number exactly, for there is nothing to prevent a man from writing a line of twenty feet if he have ingenuity enough to maintain the harmony and beat necessary to constitute verse. As a rule, we seldom meet with more than eight feet in a line.
A line may consist of feet of the same description, or of a combination of various feet. And this combination may be exactly repeated in the corresponding line or lines, or one or more of the feet may be replaced by another corresponding in time or quantity. Here is an instance—
"I knew | by the smoke that so gracefully curled ...
And I said | 'if there's peace to be found in the world.'"
Here the iambic "I kne´w" is resolved into the anapæst, "and I sa´id,"[[10]]—or rather (as the measure is anapæstic) the iambic takes the place of the anapæst.
When only two feet go to a line, it is a dimeter. Three form a trimeter, four a tetrameter, five a pentameter, six a hexameter, seven a heptameter, eight an octameter, which, however, is usually resolved into two tetrameters. If the feet be iambics or trochees, of course the number of syllables will be double that of the feet—thus a pentameter will be decasyllabic. When dactyls or anapæsts are used, of course the number of syllables exceeds the double of the feet. But there is no necessity for enlarging on this point: I have given enough to explain terms, with which the student may perhaps meet while reading up the subject of versification. As he may also meet with the terms "catalectic" and "acatalectic," it may be as well to give a brief explanation of them also. A catalectic line is one in which the last foot is not completed. An acatalectic is one in which the line and the foot terminate together. An extract from the "Bridge of Sighs," a dactylic poem, will illustrate this.
"Make no deep | scrutiny
Into her | mutiny;
Rash and un|dutiful,
Past all dis|honour;
Death has left | on her
Only the | beautiful.
Take her up | tenderly,
Lift her with | care;
Fashion'd so | slenderly
Young and so | fair."
Here the fourth and fifth, the eighth and tenth lines are catalectic. In the first two the last foot needs one syllable, in the others it requires two. It is scarcely necessary to point out how such variations improve and invigorate the measure, by checking the gallop of the verse.
We have now seen that the line may be composed of various numbers of the different feet. The next step to consider is the combination of lines into stanzas.
Stanzas are formed of two or more lines. Two lines are styled a couplet, three a triplet, and four a quatrain, while other combinations owe their titles to those who have used them first or most, as in the case of the Spenserian stanza.
The reader will see at once that, each of these kinds of stanzas being constructible of any of the styles of line before enumerated, each style of line being in its turn constructible of any of the sorts of feet described in a previous chapter, to make any attempt to give an exhaustive list of stanzas would be to enter upon an arithmetical progression alarming to think of.[[11]] I shall therefore only enumerate a few, giving, as seems most useful for my purpose, examples of the most common form of a peculiar stanza, as in the case of the decasyllabic couplet of Pope, and the nine-line stanza of Spenser, or the least common, as when, in the quatrain, it appears preferable to give, instead of the alternate-rhymed octosyllabic tetrameters which have been repeated ad nauseam, such fresh forms as will be found in the extracts from "The Haunted House," or Browning's "Pretty Woman."
EXAMPLES.
THE COUPLET OR DISTICH.[[12]]
Dimeter (four-syllabled).
"Here, here I live
And somewhat give."
—Herrick, Hesperides.
Tetrameter (eight-syllabled).
"His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face."
—Butler, Hudibras.
Tetrameter (seven-syllabled).
"As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May."
—Shakespeare.
Pentameter (ten-syllabled, "Pope's decasyllable").
"Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray."
—Goldsmith, Deserted Village.
Hexameter (twelve-syllabled).
"Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil:
That serving not—then proves if he his scent may foil."
—Drayton, Polyolbion.
Heptameter (fourteen-syllabled).
"Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are;
And glory to our sovereign liege, king Henry of Navarre."
—Macaulay, Battle of Ivry.
The couplet may also be formed of two lines of irregular length.
"Belovëd, O men's mother, O men's queen!
Arise, appear, be seen."
—Swinburne, Ode to Italy.
"Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles on miles."
—Browning, Love among the Ruins.
"Morning, evening, noon, and night,
'Praise God,' sang Theocrite."
—Browning, The Boy and the Angel.
"Take the cloak from his face and at first
Let the corpse do its worst."
—Browning, After.
"Or for a time we'll lie
As robes laid by."
—Herrick, Hesperides.
"Give me a cell
To dwell."
—Herrick, Hesperides.
Two couplets are at times linked together into a quatrain. More often they are formed into six-line stanzas, that is a couplet followed by a line which has its rhyme in another line following the second couplet. But indeed the combination of stanzas is almost inexhaustible.
TRIPLETS.
Trimeter (six-syllabled).
"And teach me how to sing
Unto the lyric string
My measures ravishing."
—Herrick, Hesperides.
Tetrameter (seven-syllabled).
"O, thou child of many prayers,
Life hath quicksands, life hath snares,
Care and age come unawares."
—Longfellow, Maidenhood.
Octameter (fifteen syllabled).
"Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red—
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower o'er its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head."
—Browning, A Toccata.
The triplet pure and simple, is not a very common form; it is most frequently combined with other forms to make longer stanzas. At times the second line, instead of rhyming with the first or third, finds an echo in the next triplet—sometimes in the second, but more often in the first and third lines.
"Make me a face on the window there,
Waiting, as ever mute the while,
My love to pass below in the square.
And let me think that it may beguile
Dreary days, which the dead must spend
Down in their darkness under the aisle."
—Browning, The Statue and the Bust.
Another species of triplet occurs in the Pope measure (pentameter-decasyllabic). It is formed by the introduction, after an ordinary couplet, of a third line, repeating the rhyme and consisting of eleven syllables and six feet. Dryden, however, and some other writers, gave an occasional triplet without the extra foot. The Alexandrine, i.e., the six-foot line, ought to close the sense, and conclude with a full stop.
THE QUATRAIN.
Of this form of stanza the name is legion. Of the most common styles, the reader's memory will supply numerous examples. I shall merely give a few of the rarer kinds. The quatrain may consist practically of two couplets, or of a couplet divided by a couplet, as in Tennyson's "In Memoriam." But the usual rule is to rhyme the first and third, and second and fourth. The laxity which leaves the two former unrhymed, is a practice which cannot be too strongly condemned. Quatrains so formed should in honesty be written as couplets, but such a condensation would possibly not suit the views of the mob of magazine-versifiers, who have inflicted this injury, with many others, upon English versification.
It may be well to note here that the rhyme of the first and third lines should be as dissimilar as possible in sound to that of the second and fourth. This is, in fact, a part of the rule which forbids repetitions of the same vowel-sounds in a line—chief of all, a repetition of the particular vowel-sound of the rhyme. The rhymes recurring give a beat which is something like a cæsura, and when therefore the rhyme-sound occurs elsewhere than at its correct post it mars the flow. Here follow a few examples of the quatrain. I have not specified the syllables or feet, as the reader by this time will have learned to scan for himself; and, owing to the varieties of measure, such a specification would be cumbrous:—
"The woodlouse dropp'd and roll'd into a ball,
Touch'd by some impulse, occult or mechanic,
And nameless beetles ran along the wall
In universal panic."
—Hood, Haunted House.
"That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye,
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers."
—Browning, A Fair Woman.
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame;
All are but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame."
—Coleridge, Love.
"What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labour'd mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate,
Nor cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd."
—Jones, Ode.
"Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way."
—Bryant, To a Waterfowl.
"Sweet day, so calm, so cool, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die."
—Herbert, Virtue.
THE FIVE-LINE STANZA.
I am inclined to think this one of the most musical forms of the stanza we possess. It is capable of almost endless variety, and the proportions of rhymes, three and two, seem to be especially conducive to harmony. It would be curious to go into the question how many popular poems are in this form. Here are two examples—both of them from favourite pieces:—
"Go, lovely rose,
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be."
—Waller, To a Rose.
"Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest;
Like a cloud of fire,
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."
—Shelley, The Skylark.
Mr Browning frequently uses this stanza, and with admirable effect. Although he has been accused of ruggedness by some critics, there is no modern poet who has a greater acquaintance with the various forms of verse, or can handle them more ably. The following are examples of his treatment:—
"Is it your moral of life?
Such a web, simple and subtle,
Weave we on earth here, in impotent strife
Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle—
Death ending all with a knife?"
—Master Hugues.
"And yonder at foot of the fronting ridge,
That takes the turn to a range beyond,
Is the chapel, reach'd by the one-arch'd bridge,
Where the water is stopp'd in a stagnant pond,
Danced over by the midge."
—By the Fireside.
"Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you'll fail us; when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you—
Knew you—and named a star,"
—Popularity.
"Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm.
When the crickets stopp'd their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music—that was I!"
—A Serenade.
"When the spider to serve his ends,
By a sudden thread,
Arms and legs outspread,
On the table's midst descends—
Comes to find God knows what friends!"
—Mesmerism.
THE SIX-LINE STANZA.
With the increasing number of lines comes an increasing number of combinations of rhymes. There is the combination of three couplets, and there is that of two couplets, with another pair of rhymes one line after the first, the other after the second couplet. Then there is a quatrain of alternate rhymes, and a final couplet—to mention no others.
"Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done.
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages—
Golden lads and girls all must
Like chimney-sweepers come to dust."
—Shakespeare.
"One day, it matters not to know
How many hundred years ago,
A Spaniard stopt at a posada door;
The landlord came to welcome him and chat
Of this and that,
For he had seen the traveller here before."
—Southey, St Romuald.
"And wash'd by my cosmetic brush,
How Beauty's cheeks began to blush
With locks of auburn stain—
Not Goldsmith's Auburn, nut-brown hair
That made her loveliest of the fair,
Not loveliest of the plain."
—Hood, Progress of Art.
"Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge
Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam;
Some point to white eruptions of the surge—
But she is vanish'd to her shady home,
Under the deep inscrutable, and there
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair."
—Hood, Hero and Leander.
"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart—
Till at length in books recorded,
They like hoarded
Household words no more depart."
—Longfellow, Seaweed.
"Before me rose an avenue
Of tall and sombrous pines;
Abroad their fanlike branches grew,
And where the sunshine darted through,
Spread a vapour, soft and blue,
In long and sloping lines."
—Longfellow, Prelude.
The following form may be looked upon as Burns's exclusively:—
"Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower,—
Thou'st met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush among the stour
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem."
—To a Mountain Daisy.
THE SEVEN-LINE STANZA.
This form is not very common. It may be formed of a quatrain and triplet; of a quatrain, a line rhyming the last of the quatrain, and a couplet; of a quatrain, a couplet, and a line rhyming the fourth line. Or these may be reversed.
THE EIGHT-LINE STANZA.
This is susceptible of endless variety, commencing with two quatrains, or a six-line stanza and a couplet, or two triplets with a brace of rhyming lines, one after each triplet.
"Thus lived—thus died she; nevermore on her
Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth; her days and pleasures were
Brief but delightful; such as had not staid
Long with her destiny. But she sleeps well
By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell."
—Byron, Don Juan.
THE NINE-LINE STANZA.
Of this form the most generally used is the Spenserian, or the following variation of it:—
"A little, sorrowful, deserted thing,
Begot of love and yet no love begetting;
Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring;
And too soon banish'd from a mother's petting
To churlish nature and the wide world's fretting,
For alien pity and unnatural care;
Alas! to see how the cold dew kept wetting
His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair
Like gossamers across his forehead fair."
—Hood, Midsummer Fairies.
The Spenserian has the same arrangement of the rhymes, but has an extra foot in the last line. The two last lines of a stanza from "Childe Harold" will illustrate this:—
"To mingle with the universe and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."
—Byron.
The formation of the ten, eleven, twelve, &c., line stanzas is but an adaptation of those already described. A single fourteen-line stanza of a certain arrangement of rhyme is a sonnet, but as the sonnet is scarcely versifiers' work, I will not occupy space by the lengthy explanation it would require. On the same grounds, I am almost inclined to omit discussion of blank verse, but will give a brief summary of its varieties. The ordinary form of blank verse is the decasyllabic in which Milton's "Paradise Lost" is written—
"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe."
This consists of ten syllables with an accented following an unaccented syllable. It is preserved from monotony by the varying fall of the cæsura or pause. It occurs but rarely after the first foot or the eighth foot, and not often after the third and seventh. Elisions and the substitution of a trisyllable, equivalent in time for a dissyllable, are met with, and at times the accent is shifted, when by the change the sense of the line gains in vigour of expression, as in—
"Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought
Impossible."
According to scansion "most wo'uld," but by the throwing back of the accent strengthened and distinguished into "most would have thought." [In addition to this in the blank verse of the stage, we find occasionally additional syllables, as—
"Or to take arms against a sea of troub(les).">[
Other forms of blank verse follow:—
1. "If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs and dying gales."
—Collins, Ode to Evening.
2. "But never could I tune my reed
At morn, or noon, or eve, so sweet,
As when upon the ocean shore
I hail'd thy star-beam mild."
—Kirke White, Shipwrecked Solitary's Song.
3. "Who at this untimely hour
Wanders o'er the desert sands?
No station is in view,
No palm-grove islanded amidst the waste,—
The mother and her child,
The widow'd mother and the fatherless boy,
They at this untimely hour
Wander o'er the desert sands."[[13]]
—Southey, Thalaba.
4. "Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wast not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces."
—Lamb.
5. "See how he scorns all human arguments
So that no oar he wants, nor other sail
Than his own wings between so distant shores."[[14]]
—Longfellow, Translation of Dante.
6. "Yet dost thou recall
Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wander'd
By the Baltic."
—Longfellow, To a Danish Song-Book.
7. "All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones,
All save the mistletoe,
The sacred mistletoe."
—Longfellow, Tegner's Drapa.
8. "Give me of your bark, O birch-tree!
Of your yellow bark, O birch-tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley."
—Longfellow, Hiawatha.
9. "Heard he that cry of pain; and through the hush that succeeded
Whisper'd a gentle voice, in accents tender and saintlike,
'Gabriel, oh, my beloved!' and died away into silence."
—Longfellow, Evangeline.
An extremely musical form of blank verse, the trochaic, will be found in Browning's "One Word More":—
"I shall never in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,
Make you music that should all-express me;
So it seems; I stand on my attainment:
This of verse alone one life allows me;
Verse and nothing else have I to give you.
Other heights in other loves, God willing—
All the gifts from all the heights, your own, love!"
This by no means exhausts the varieties of blank verse; but, as I have already said, blank verse is, on the whole, scarcely to be commended to the student for practice, because it is, while apparently the easiest, in reality the most difficult form he could attempt. It is in fact particularly easy to attain the blankness—but the verse is another matter. The absence of rhymes necessitates the most perfect melody and harmony, if the lines are to be anything beyond prose chopped up into lengths.
There are, I should mention before closing this chapter, many more styles of stanza than I have named, and many varieties of them. The ode is of somewhat irregular construction, but like the sonnet it is, I consider, beyond the scope of those for whom this book is intended, and it needs not to be discussed on that account.
CHAPTER VI.
OF RHYME.
A rhyme must commence on an accented syllable. From the accented vowel of that syllable to the end, the two or more words intended to rhyme must be identical in sound; but the letters preceding the accented vowel must in each case be dissimilar in sound. Thus "learn," "fern," "discern," are rhymes, with the common sound of "ern" preceded by the dissimilar sounds of "l," "f," "sc." "Possess" and "recess" do not rhyme, having besides the common "ess" the similar pronunciation of the "c" and the double "s" preceding it. The letters "r" and "l," when preceded by other consonants, so as practically to form new letters, can be rhymed to the simple "r" and "l" respectively, thus "track" and "rack," "blame" and "lame," are rhymes. The same rule applies to letters preceded by "s," "smile" being a rhyme to "mile." Similarly "h" and its compound rhyme, e.g., "shows," "those," "chose," and any word ending in "phose" with "hose."
The aspirate to any but a Cockney would of course pass as constituting the needful difference at the beginning of a rhyme, as in "heart" and "art," "hair" and "air."[[15]]
In the case of "world" and "whirl'd," however, I fear common usage must compel us to declare against the rhyme, since the practice of pronouncing the "h" after "w" is daily becoming more and more uncommon.
Rhymes are single, double, or treble—or more properly one-syllabled, two-syllabled, and three-syllabled. Rhymes of four or more syllables are peculiar to burlesque or comic verse. Indeed, Dryden declared that only one-syllabled rhymes were suitable for grave subjects: but every one must have at his fingers' ends scores of proofs to the contrary, of which I will instance but one—"The Bridge of Sighs."
Monosyllables or polysyllables accented on the last syllable are "single" rhymes. Words accented on the penultimate or last syllable but one supply "double" rhymes; e.g., agita´ted, ela´ted. When the accent is thrown another syllable back, and falls on the antepenultimate as in "a´rrogate," it is in the first place a "triple" rhyme. But as in English there is a tendency to alternate the acute and grave accent, the trisyllable has practically two rhymes, a three-syllabled and a one-syllabled—thus "arrogate" and "Harrogate" rhyme, but "arrogate" may also pair off with "mate." Nevertheless it is necessary to be cautious in the use of words with this spurious accent—it is perhaps better still to avoid them. Such words as "merrily," "beautiful," "purity," ought never to be used as single-syllabled rhymes:—even such words as "merited" and "happiness" have a forced sound when so used.
Elisions should be avoided, though "bow'r" and "flow'r" may pass muster, with some others. "Ta'en," "e'er," "e'en," and such contractions may of course be used. The articles, prepositions, and such, cannot in serious verse stand as rhymes, under the same rule which condemns the separation of the adjective from its substantive in the next line.
It is scarcely necessary to premise that to write verse decently the student must have a thorough knowledge of grammar. From ignorance on that score arise naturally blemishes enough to destroy verse, as they would poetry, almost. I have seen verses which, beginning by apostrophising some one as "thou," slipped in a few lines into "yours" and "you"—or, worse still, have said "thou doeth," or "thou, who is."
Expletives and mean expressions also must be excluded. The verse should never soar to "high-falutin," or sink to commonplace language. Simplicity is not commonplace, and nobility is not "high-falutin," and they should be aimed at accordingly;—when you have acquired the one, you will as a rule find the other in its company.
When three or more lines are intended to rhyme together, the common base or accented vowel in each instance must be preceded by a different sound. For example "born," "corn," and "borne," will not serve for a triplet, because, though the first and third are both rhymes to the second, they are not rhymes to each other.
It is as well, unless you are thoroughly acquainted with the pronunciation of foreign languages, to abstain from using them in verse, especially in rhymes. I met with the following instance of the folly of such rhyming in a magazine, not long ago—
"Prim Monsieurs fresh from Boulogne's Bois...
For these the Row's a certain draw."
This is about as elegant as rhyming "Boulogne" and "Song."
It is wise—on the principle of rhyme, the difference of sounds preceding the common base—to avoid any similarity by combination. For example, "is" is a good rhyme for "'tis," but you should be careful not to let "it" immediately precede the "is," as it mars the necessary dissimilarity of the opening sound of the two rhymes.
Let the beginner remember one thing:—rhyme is a fetter, undoubtedly. Let him therefore refrain from attempting measures with frequent rhymes, for experience alone can give ease in such essays. Only the skilled can dance gracefully in fetters. Moreover, a too frequent repetition of rhyme at short intervals gives a jigginess to the verse. It is on this account that the use in a line of a sound similar to the rhyme should be avoided.[[16]]
As a final warning, let me entreat the writer of verses to examine his rhymes carefully, and see that they chime to an educated ear. Such atrocities as "morn" and "dawn," "more" and "sure," "light in" and "writing," "fought" and "sort," are fatal to the success of verse. They stamp it with vulgarity, as surely as the dropping of the "h" stamps a speaker. Furthermore, do not make a trisyllable of a dissyllable—as, for instance, by pronouncing "ticklish" "tick-el-ish," and if you have cause to rhyme "iron," try "environ" or "Byron," not "my urn," because only the vulgar pronounce it "iern," or "apron" "apern," &c.
CHAPTER VII.
OF FIGURES.
The figures most commonly used in verse are similes and metaphors. A simile is a figure whereby one thing is likened to another. It is ushered in by a "like" or an "as."
"Like sportive deer they coursed about"
—Hood, Eugene Aram.
"Such a brow
His eyes had to live under, clear as flint."
—Browning, A Contemporary.
"Resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles rain."
—Longfellow, The Day is Done.
"Look how a man is lower'd to his grave ...
So is he sunk into the yawning wave."
—Hood, Hero and Leander.
A metaphor is a figure whereby the one thing, instead of being likened to the other, is, as it were, transformed into it, and is described as doing what it (the other) does.
"Poetry is
The grandest chariot wherein king-thoughts ride."
—Smith, Life Drama.
"The anchor, whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the land."
—Longfellow, Building of the Ship.
Sometimes the two are united in one passage, as in—
"The darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward."
—Longfellow, The Day is Done.
The last line is a simile, but "the wings of night" is metaphorical. "A simile," says Johnson, "to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it."
Alliteration, when not overdone, is an exquisite addition to the charm of verse. The Poet Laureate thoroughly understands its value. Mr Swinburne allows it too frequently to run riot. Edgar Allan Poe carried it to extravagance. I select an example from each:—
"The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmur of innumerable bees."
—Tennyson.
"The lilies and languors of virtue,
For the raptures and roses of vice."
—Swinburne, Dolores.
"Come up through the lair of the lion
With love in her luminous eyes."
—Poe, Ulalume.
The instance from the Poet Laureate is a strong one—the repetition of the "m" is to express the sound of the bees and the elms. The alternation in the others is only pleasing to the ear, and the artifice in the last instance certainly is too obvious. In the Poet Laureate's lines the alliteration is so ingeniously contrived that one scarcely would suppose there are as many as seven repetitions of the "m." In Poe's, one is surprised to find the apparent excess of alliteration is due to but four repetitions. But the "l's" are identical with the strongest beats in the line, whereas the "m's" in Tennyson's line are interspersed with other letters at the beats. He uses this artifice more frequently than those would suspect who have not closely examined his poems, for he thoroughly appreciates the truth of the maxim, ars est celare artem. A few lines from "The Princess" will illustrate this:—
"The baby that by us,
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede,
Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass,
Uncared-for, spied its mother and began
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance
Its body, and reach its falling innocent arms
And lazy ling'ring fingers."
Here a careful study will reveal alliteration within alliteration, and yet the effect is perfect, for there is no sign of labour.
Under this category may come, I think, a description of the Rondeau—a poem of which the first few words are repeated at the end. It was at one time ruled to be of a certain number of lines, but the restriction scarcely holds good now. The best rondeau in the language is Leigh Hunt's:—
"Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets upon your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me;
Say I'm growing old, but add—
Jenny kiss'd me!"
Elision must be used with a sparing hand. Generally speaking, a vowel that is so slightly pronounced that it can be elided, as in "temperance"—"temp'rance," may just as well be left in, and accounted for by managing to get the "quantity" to cover it. Where it is too strongly pronounced, to cut it out is to disfigure and injure the line, as in the substitution of "wall'wing" for "wallowing." That elision is often used unnecessarily may be seen in the frequency with which, in reading verse, we—according to most authorities—elide the "y" of "many"—
"Full many a flower is doom'd to blush unseen."
—Gray.
Here we are told we elide the "y" of "many," and some would replace "flower" by "flow'r." Yet to the most sensitive ear these may receive, in reading, their share of pronunciation, without damage to the flow of the line, if the reader understands quantity. "To" is often similarly "elided," as in—
"Can he to a friend—to a son so bloody grow?"
—Cowley.
On the other hand, it is as well not to make too frequent use of the accented "ed," as in "amazéd." In "belovéd" and a few more words it is commonly used, and does not, therefore, sound strange. In others it gives a forced and botched air to the verse.
In verse some latitude is allowed in arranging the order of words in a sentence, but it must not be indulged in too freely. A study of the style of our best poets is the only means of learning what is allowable and what is not; it is impossible to explain it within the limits of this treatise. It may, however, be laid down, as a first principle, that no change in the order of words is admissible, if it gives rise to any doubt as to their real meaning:—for example, if you wish to say, "the dog bit the cat," although such an inversion of construction as putting the objective before, and the nominative after, the verb, is allowed in verse, it is scarcely advisable to adopt it, and say, "the cat bit the dog."
CHAPTER VIII.
OF BURLESQUE AND COMIC VERSE, AND
VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ.
I t will be as well for the reader to divest himself at once of the notion that verse of this class is the lowest and easiest form he can essay, or that the rules which govern it are more lax than those which sway serious composition. The exact contrary is the case. Comic or burlesque verse is ordinary verse plus something. Ordinary verse may pass muster if its manner be finished, but comic verse must have some matter as well. Yet it does not on that account claim any license in rhyme, for it lacks the gravity and importance of theme which may at times, in serious poetry, be pleaded as outweighing a faulty rhyme.
This style of writing needs skill in devising novel and startling turns of rhyme, rhythm, or construction, and can hardly be employed by those who do not possess some articulate wit or humour—that is to say, the power of expressing, not merely of appreciating, those qualities.
A defective rhyme is a fault in serious verse—it is a crime in comic. It is no sin to be ignorant of Greek or Latin, but it is worse than a blunder, under such circumstances, to quote them—and quote them incorrectly. In the same way, one is not compelled to write comic verse, but if he does write it, and cannot do so correctly, he deserves severe handling.
One of the leading characteristics of this style is dexterous rhyming—and the legerdemain must be effected with genuine coin, not dumps. In the very degree that clever composite rhyming assists in making the verse sparkling and effective, it must bear the closest scrutiny and analysation—must be real Moet, not gooseberry.
All, then, that has been said with regard to serious verse applies with double force to the lighter form of vers de société. According to the definition of Mr Frederick Locker, no mean authority, vers de société should be "short, elegant, refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should not be pitched high; it should be idiomatic, and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent, and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: for however trivial the subject-matter may be,—indeed, rather in proportion to its triviality,—subordination to the rules of composition, and perfection of execution, should be strictly enforced."
Let me entreat the reader to bear that italicised sentence in memory when writing any style of verse, but most especially when he essays the comic or burlesque.
No precedent for laxity can be pleaded because the poets who have at times indulged in such trifling, have therein availed themselves of the licenses which they originally took out for loftier writing. Non semper arcum tendit Apollo, and the poet may be excused for striking his lyre with careless fingers. But we, who do not pretend to possess lyres, must be careful about the fingering of our kits. Apollo's slackened bow offers no precedent for the popgun of the poetaster.
As I have already said, much of the merit of this style depends on the scintillations, so to speak, of its rhymes. They must therefore be perfect. When Butler wrote the much-quoted couplet:—
"When pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
he was guilty of coupling "astick" and "a stick" together as a rhyme, which they do not constitute. But he who on that account claims privilege to commit a similar offence, not only is guilty of the vanity of demanding to be judged on the same level as Butler, but is illogical. Two wrongs cannot constitute a right, and all the bad rhyming in the world can be no extenuation of a repetition of the offence.
The results of carelessness in such matters are but too apparent! The slipshod that has been for so long suffered to pass for comic verse, has brought the art into disrepute. In the case of burlesque, this is even more plainly discernible. It is held in so small esteem, that people have come to forget that it boasts Aristophanes as its founder! Halting measures, cockney rhymes, and mere play on sound, instead of sense, in punning, have gone near to being the death of what at its worst was an amusing pastime, at its best was healthy satire.
The purchase of half-a-dozen modern burlesques at Mr Lacy's, will account for the declining popularity of burlesque. All of them will be found defaced by defective rhymes, and cockneyisms too common to provoke a smile. In the majority of them the decasyllabic metre will be found to range from six or eight syllables to twelve or fourteen! Most bear the same relation to real burlesque-writing, that the schoolboy's picture of his master—a circle for head and four scratches for arms and legs—bears to genuine caricature.
The most telling form of rhyme in comic versification is the polysyllabic, and the greater the number of assonant syllables in such rhymes the more effective they prove. The excellence is co-extensive, however, with the unexpectedness and novelty, and there is therefore but small merit in such a polysyllabic rhyme as—
"From Scotland's mountains down he came,
And straightway up to town he came."
This merely consists of the single rhymes "down" and "town," with "he came" as a common affix. Such polysyllables may be admitted here and there in a long piece, but when they constitute the whole or even a majority of the rhymes, the writer is imposing on his readers. He is swelling his balance at his banker's by adding noughts on the right hand of the pounds' figure without paying in the cash.
Another feature of this style of verse is the repetition of rhymes. Open the "Ingoldsby Legends,"[[17]] which may be taken as the foundation of one school of comic verse, and you will scarcely fail to light upon a succession of rhymes, coming one after the other, like a string of boys at leap-frog, as if the well-spring of rhyme were inexhaustible.
Although punning scarcely comes within the scope of this treatise, it may not be amiss to remind those who may desire to essay comic verse, that a pun is a double-meaning. It is not sufficient to get two words that clink alike, or to torture by mispronunciation a resemblance in sound between words or combinations of words. There must be an echo in the sense—"a likeness in unlikeness" in the idea.
Proper names should not be used as rhymes. The only exception is in the case of any real individual of note—a statesman, author, or actor, when to find a telling rhyme to the name, a rhyme suggestive of the habits or pursuits of the owner of that name, has some merit, especially if the name be long and peculiar. But to introduce an imaginary name for the sake of a rhyme, is work that is too cheap to be good. A child can write such rhyme as—
"A man of strict veracity
Was Peter James M'Assity."
In composite rhyming the greatest care should be taken to see that each syllable after the first is identical in sound in each line. In "use he was" and "juicy was," the "h" destroys the rhyme, and the difference in sound in the last syllable (however carelessly pronounced) between such words as "oakum" and "smoke 'em" has a similar disqualifying power. It is scarcely necessary to refer to such inadmissible couples as "protector" and "neglect her," "birching" and "urchin," "oracle" and "historical."
One trick in rhyming is often very effective, but it must not be put into force too often. In some instances, however, it tells with great comical effect, by affording a rhyme to a word which at first glance the reader thinks it is impossible to rhyme. Canning, in the "Anti-Jacobin," used it with ludicrous effect in Rogero's song, and a few lines from that will illustrate and explain the trick I allude to:—
"Here doom'd to starve on water gru-
-el, never shall I see the U-
-niversity of Gottingen!"
Here the division of the words "gruel" and "University" has an extremely absurd effect. But the artifice must be used sparingly, and those who employ it must beware of one pitfall. The moiety of the word which is carried over to begin the next line must be considered as a fresh word occupying the first foot. There is a tendency to overlook it, and count it as part of the previous line, and that of course is a fatal error.
Parody may be considered as a form of comic versification. It is not enough that a parody should be in the same metre as the original poem it imitates. Nor is it sufficient that the first line or so has such a similarity as to suggest the original. In the best parodies each line of the original has an echo in the parody, and the words of the former are retained as far as possible in the latter, or replaced by others very similar.
Another form of parody is the parody of style, when, instead of selecting a particular poem to paraphrase, we imitate, in verse modelled on the form he usually adopts, the mannerisms of thought or expression for which any particular writer is distinguished.
Examples of both kinds of parody will be found in the "Rejected Addresses" of James and Horace Smith, which should be studied together with Hood, Barham, Wolcot, and Thackeray, by those who would read the best models of humorous, comic, or burlesque writing. I may add here that vers de société will be best studied in the writings of Praed, Prior, and Moore. From living writers it would be invidious to single out any, either as models or warnings.
CHAPTER IX.
OF SONG-WRITING.
Although song-writing is one of the most difficult styles of versification, it is now held in but little repute, owing to the unfortunate condition of the musical world in England. "Any rubbish will do for music" is the maxim of the music-shopkeeper, who is practically the arbiter of the art now-a-days, and who has the interests, he is supposed to represent, so little at heart that he would not scruple to publish songs, consisting of "nonsense verses"—as schoolboys call them,—set to music, if he thought that the usual artifice of paying singers a royalty on the sale for singing a song would prevail on the public to buy them.
Another reason why "any rubbish will do for music" has passed into a proverb is, that few amateur singers—and not too many professionals—understand "phrasing." How rarely can one hear what the words of a song are! Go to a "musical evening" and take note, and you will see that, in nine cases out of ten, when a new song has been sung, people take the piece of music and look over the words. A song is like a cherry, and ought not to require us to make two bites at it.
Nor is the injury inflicted on music due only to the amount of rubbish which is made to do duty for songs. The writings of our poets are ransacked for "words," and accompaniments are manufactured to poems which were never intended, and are absolutely unfitted, for musical treatment. Then, because it is found that poems are not to be converted into songs so easily as people think, the cry is not merely that "any rubbish will do for songs," but that "only rubbish will do,"—a cry that is vigorously taken up by interested persons.
The truth lies between the two extremes. A peculiar style of verse is required, marked by such characteristics, and so difficult of attainment, that some of our greatest poets—Byron for one—have failed as song-writers. English literature reckons but few really good song-writers. When you have named Moore, Lover, Burns, and Barry Cornwall, you have almost exhausted the list.
There is in the last edition of the works of the lamented writer I have just named—Samuel Lover—a preface in which he enters very minutely into the subject of song-writing. The sum of what he says is, that "the song being necessarily of brief compass, the writer must have powers of condensation. He must possess ingenuity in the management of metre. He must frame it of open vowels, with as few guttural or hissing sounds as possible, and he must be content sometimes to sacrifice grandeur or vigour to the necessity of selecting singing words and not reading ones." He adds that "the simplest words best suit song, but simplicity must not descend to baldness. There must be a thought in the song, gracefully expressed, and it must appeal either to the fancy or feelings, or both, but rather by suggestion than direct appeal; and philosophy and didactics must be eschewed."
He adduces Shelley, with his intense poetry and exquisite sensitiveness to sweet sounds, as an instance of a poet who failed to see the exact necessities of song-writing, and gives a quotation from one of Shelley's "songs" to prove this. The line is—
"The fresh earth in new leaves drest."
and he says very pertinently, "It is a sweet line, and a pleasant image—but I defy any one to sing it: nearly every word shuts up the mouth instead of opening it." That last sentence is the key to song-writing. I use the word song-writing in preference to "lyrical writing," because "lyrical" has been warped from its strict meaning, and applied to verse which was not intended for music. It is not absolutely necessary that a song-writer should have a practical knowledge of music, but it is all the better if he have: beyond doubt, Moore owed much of his success to his possession of musical knowledge.
