SECT. IV.
Doubts concerning the Number of Syllables of certain Words.
There is no Language whatsoever, that so often joyns several Vowels together to make Diphthongs of them, as ours; this appears in our having several compos'd of three different Vowels: as EAU, and EOU in Beauteous: IOU in Glorious, UAI in Acquaint, &c.
Now from hence may arise some Difficulties concerning the true Pronunciation of those Vowels: Whether they ought to be sounded separately in two Syllables, or joyntly in one.
The antient Poets made them sometimes of two Syllables, sometimes but of one, as the Measure of their Verse requir'd; but they are now become to be but of one, and it is a fault to make them of two: From whence we may draw this general Rule;
That whenever one Syllable of a Word ends in a Vowel, and the next begins by one, provided the first of those Syllables be not that on which the Word is accented, those two Syllables ought in Verse to be contracted and made but one.
Thus Beauteous is but two Syllables, Victorious but three, and it is a fault in Dryden, to make it four, as he has done in this Verse:
Your Arms are on the Rhine victorious.
To prove that this Verse wants a Syllable of its due Measure, we need but add one to it; as,
Your Arms are on the Rhine victorious now.