The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown

Examples with Longer Metres.

1. WITH IAMBICS.

2. WITH ANAPESTICS, &c.

"T~o l=ove ~and t~o l=angu~ish,
T~o s=igh | ~and c~ompl=ain,
H~ow cr=u~el's th~e =angu~ish!
H~ow t~orm=ent | -~ing th~e p=ain!
Suing,
Pursuing,
Flying,
Denying,
O the curse | of disdain!
How torment | -ing's the pain!"
GEO. GRANVILLE: Br. Poets, Vol. v, p. 31.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—The metres acknowledged in our ordinary schemes of prosody, scarcely amount, with all their "boundless variety," to more than one half, or three quarters, of what may be found in actual use somewhere. Among the foregoing examples, are some which are longer, and some which are shorter, than what are commonly known to our grammarians; and some, also, which seem easily practicable, though perhaps not so easily quotable. This last trochaic metre, so far as I know, has not been used alone,—that is, without longer lines,—except where grammarians so set examples of it in their prosodies.

OBS. 2.—"Trochaic of One foot," as well as "Iambic of One foot," was, I believe, first recognized, prosodically, in Brown's Institutes of English Grammar, a work first published in 1823. Since that time, both have obtained acknowledgement in sundry schemes of versification, contained in the new grammars; as in Farnum's, and Hallock's, of 1842; in Pardon Davis's, of 1845; in S. W. Clark's, and S. S. Greene's, of 1848; in Professor Fowler's, of 1850. Wells, in his School Grammar, of 1846, and D. C. Allen, in an other, of 1847, give to the length of lines a laxity positively absurd: "Rhymed verses," say they, "may consist of any number of syllables."—Wells, 1st Ed., p. 187; late Ed., 204; Allen, p. 88. Everett has recognized "The line of a single Trochee," though he repudiates some long measures that are much more extensively authorized.

ORDER III.—ANAPESTIC VERSE.

In full Anapestic verse, the stress is laid on every third syllable, the first two syllables of each foot being short. The first foot of an anapestic line, may be an iambus. This is the most frequent diversification of the order. But, as a diversification, it is, of course, not regular or uniform. The stated or uniform adoption of the iambus for a part of each line, and of the anapest for the residue of it, produces verse of the Composite Order. As the anapest ends with a long syllable, its rhymes are naturally single; and a short syllable after this, producing double rhyme, is, of course, supernumerary: so are the two, when the rhyme is triple. Some prosodists suppose, a surplus at the end of a line may compensate for a deficiency at the beginning of the next line; but this I judge to be an error, or at least the indulgence of a questionable license. The following passage has two examples of what may have been meant for such compensation, the author having used a dash where I have inserted what seems to be a necessary word:—