. Here the dot (.) is introduced to shew precisely where the natural pause in the voice, or the separation of the speech-waves, occurs.
It is usual, in books of prosody, to introduce a bar instead of a dot, and thus to break up the line into bits of equal length, and to exhibit the result as the Procrustean formula to which all lines of five accents should be reduced. There is little to be learnt from this wooden method, which amounts to little more than leaving the reader to find out the scansion for himself as he best may; for few lines really conform to it.
If, bidding adieu to this artificial system, we inquire into the way in which a good reader really articulates the lines, we find that he, following the poet, is so far from conforming to this uniform type of line, that he usually does his best to avoid it; and the more skilfully he does this, the more he is appreciated for his variety. Indeed, the number of possible variations is considerable, as Goldsmith may again teach us, if, instead of using a bar to denote the artificial pause, we use a dot to denote the natural and the actual one. Good examples occur in the following lines, all different in their effect. Observe that the hyphen is used to bring together words that are pronounced in a single speech-wave; for just as cónque.rór requires two jets of breath, it often happens that two words (one of them enclitic) can be uttered in one.
How-óften . háve-I . paús'd . on-év'ry . chárm,