The preposition di will as little admit of an accent as the conjunction and. In this case, however, when the even syllable is not accented, neither of the odd syllables immediately before or behind it must be accented.
Neither in English nor in Italian can two accents running be omitted.
It must be observed, that in Italian there are two accents, the grave and the acute: the grave accent is always marked by a slight stroke over the syllable to which it belongs; the acute accent has no mark.
The English language knows no distinction between the grave and the acute accents.
The same author observes, that in the Italian Verse the Pause, or what the grammarians call the Cesura, may with propriety be introduced after either the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, or the seventh syllables. The like observations have been made by several different writers upon the English Heroic Verse. Dobie admires particularly the verse in which there are two pauses; one after the fifth, and another after the ninth syllable. The example he gives is from Petrarch:
Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade, &c.
In this verse, the second pause, which he says comes after the ninth syllable, in reality comes in between the two vowels, which, in the Italian way of counting syllables, compose the ninth syllable. It may be doubtful, therefore, whether this pause may not be considered as coming after the eighth syllable. I do not recollect any good English Verse in which the pause comes in after the ninth syllable. We have many in which it comes in after the eighth:
Yet oft, before his infant eyes, would run, &c.
In which verse there are two pauses; one after the second, and the other after the eighth syllable. I have observed many Italian Verses in which the pause comes after the second syllable.
Both the English and the Italian Heroic Verse, perhaps, are not so 473 properly composed of a certain number of syllables, which vary according to the nature of the rhyme; as of a certain number of intervals, (of five invariably,) each of which is equal in length, or time, to two ordinary distinct syllables, though it may sometimes contain more, of which the extraordinary shortness compensates the extraordinary number. The close frequently of each of those intervals, but always of every second interval, is marked by a distinct accent. This accent may frequently, with great grace, fall upon the beginning of the first interval; after which, it cannot, without spoiling the verse, fall any where but upon the close of an interval. The syllable or syllables which come after the accent that closes the fifth interval are never accented. They make no distinct interval, but are considered as a sort of excrescence of the verse, and are in a manner counted for nothing.