But in 1838—after the appearance of Tennyson and Browning, but when no public attention had been paid to them—appeared the most elaborate, ambitious, and, partly at least, valuable work that had yet been written on the subject—the History of English Rhythms, by Edwin Guest, then Fellow, afterwards Master, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Guest took nearly two years between the publication of the first and second volumes of his book, and admittedly changed his opinions on some points, but his main theories are unmistakable. He goes entirely by accent, denying metrical quantity in English altogether, and imposing curious arbitrary rules (such as that two adjoining syllables cannot be accented without a pause) on accent itself. But he possessed an immense and truly admirable knowledge of English verse—Old, Middle, and Modern—up to his time; and he lavished this, in a manner useful, indeed invaluable, to the present day, on the support of general theories which, unfortunately, are quite unsound.
For Guest seems to have conducted his work under the influences of three different obsessions, no one of which he ever worked out thoroughly in all its bearings, which do not necessarily imply each other, and two of which are even rather contradictory.
The first[146] was the belief that our verse is wholly dependent upon accent, and that "the principles of accentual rhythm," whatever they are, govern it exclusively.
The second[147] was that the laws of English versification generally are somehow not only dependent on those of Old English versification, but identical with them, and always to be adjusted to them.
The third[148] was that, somewhere about the early thirteenth century, and increasingly till the end of the fourteenth, there took place a succession of alien invasions which never resulted in a coalescence or blending, but merely in the presence of two hostile elements; and that while the perfect English versifier will cling to the older and only genuine one, he must, if he does not so cling, give it up altogether, and have nothing to do with anything but "the rhythm of the foreigner."
Now what has been already and will be later given in this book seems to show that these propositions are in fact false.
In the first place, though accent plays a large part in English prosody, that prosody is as far as possible from being purely or exclusively accentual.
In the second, the oldest English poetry and its younger varieties are so utterly different that the same laws cannot, except per accidens, apply to them.
In the third, instead of two jarring elements, we find before us, from the thirteenth century, at least, onwards, a more and more distinct and harmonious blend of language, resulting, of necessity, in a more and more distinct and harmonious blend of prosody.
But there is also a fourth principle, which he adds to, rather than deduces from, the other three:—