§ A. Feet
(These Rules are not imperative or compulsory precepts, but observed inductions from the practice of English poets. He that can break them with success, let him.)
Feet composed of long and short syllables.
1. English poetry, from the first constitution of literary Middle English to the present day, can best be scanned by a system of feet, or groups of syllables in two different values, which may be called for convenience long ( ̄ ) and short ( ̆ ).
Not all combinations actual.
2. The nature of these groups of syllables is determined by the usual mathematical laws of permutation; but some of them appear more frequently than others in English poetry, and some hardly occur at all.
Differences from "classical" feet.
3. Although, in the symbols of their constitution, these feet resemble those of the classical prosodies, it does not follow that they are identical with them, except mathematically,[25] the nature of the languages being different; and, in particular, their powers of combining in metre are far from being identical, so that combinations of feet which are successful in Greek and Latin need by no means be successful in English. Success is indeed almost limited to instances where the metrical constituents are restricted to iambs ( ̆ ̄ ), anapæsts ( ̆ ̆ ̄ ), and trochees ( ̄ ̆ ), with the spondee ( ̄ ̄ ) as an occasional ingredient.
The three usual kinds—iamb, trochee, anapæst.