Bow’d their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
though a line of Milton, has not the ordinary movement of an English Heroic Verse, the accent falls upon the third and sixth syllables.
In Italian frequently, and in English sometimes, an accent is with great grace thrown upon the first syllable, in which case it seldom happens that any other syllable is accented before the fourth;
Cánto l’armé pietóse e’l capitáno.
Fírst in these fiélds I trý the sýlvan stráins.
Both in English and in Italian the second syllable may be accented 472 with great grace, and it generally is so when the first syllable is not accented:
E in van l’ inferno a’ lui s’ oppose; e in vano
S’ armó d’ Asia, e di Libia il popol misto, &c.
Let us, since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die, &c.
Both in English and in Italian Verse, an accent, though it must never be misplaced, may sometimes be omitted with great grace. In the last of the above-quoted English Verses there is no accent upon the eighth syllable; the conjunction and not admitting of any. In the following Italian Verse there is no accent upon the sixth syllable:
O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori, &c.