1. Time and rhythm.
2. Melody and cadence.
“1. By time, I mean the regulation of the pulsation and movement of sound by the voice, to the regulated metrical accentuation (or rhythm), and construction of the verse.
“Time and rhythm are therefore inseparable and mutually dependent: one belongs to the Poet, the other to the Elocutionist.
“English verse consists of the arrangement at regular intervals of accented and unaccented—or, heavy and light—syllables. This regular arrangement makes the rhythm of the verse: the number of syllables employed in a line makes the metre of the verse.
“Now if, in reading verse, we do not regularly mark the pulsation of the accented syllables,—according to their arrangement in the rhythm—at due intervals of sound, we shall break the rhythm by reading out of time.
“For example, in the Ode of Dryden, on Cecilia’s Day, occurs this couplet; which I now mark according to the regular rhythmical division and accentuation.
On theˊ | bare earthˊ | exposedˊ | he liesˊ |
With notˊ | a friendˊ | to closeˊ | his eyesˊ.
“But to read the first line of the couplet thus, (accenting the and not accenting bare) would be to sacrifice all the force of the line, in order to produce an unmeaning sing-song by equipulsation of sound.