The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why, take it;
I’m all submission; what you’d have it, make it.
This licence is sufferable in a single couplet; but if frequent would soon become disgustful.
The other exception concerns the second line of a couplet, which is sometimes stretched out to twelve syllables, termed an Alexandrine line.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
It doth extremely well when employ’d to close a period with a certain pomp and solemnity suitable to the subject.
With regard to the second article, it is unnecessary to mention a second time, that the quantities employ’d in verse are but two, the one double of the other; that every syllable is reducible to one or other of these standards; and that a syllable of the larger quantity is termed long, and of the lesser quantity short. It belongs more to the present article, to examine what peculiarities there may be in the English language as to long and short syllables. In every language, there are syllables that may be pronounced long or short at pleasure; but the English above all abounds in syllables of that kind. In words of three or more syllables, the quantity for the most part is invariable. The exceptions are more frequent in dissyllables; but as to monosyllables, they may without many exceptions be pronounced either long or short. Nor is the ear hurt by this liberty; being accustomed to the variation of quantity in the same word. This shows that the melody of English verse must depend less upon quantity, than upon other circumstances. In that particular it differs widely from Latin verse. There, every syllable having but one sound, strikes the ear constantly with its accustomed impression; and a reader must be delighted to find a number of such syllables, disposed so artfully as to raise a lively sense of melody. Syllables variable in quantity cannot possess this power. Custom may render familiar, both a long and short pronunciation of the same word; but the mind constantly wavering betwixt the two sounds, cannot be so much affected with a syllable of this kind as with one which bears always the same sound. What I have further to say upon quantity, will come in more properly under the following head, of arrangement.
And with respect to arrangement, which may be brought within a narrow compass, the English heroic line is commonly Iambic, the first syllable short, the second long, and so on alternately through the whole line. One exception there is, pretty frequent. Many lines commence with a Trochæus, viz. a long and a short syllable. But this affects not the order of the following syllables. These go on alternately as usual, one short and one long. The following couplet affords an example of each kind:
Sōme ĭn thĕ fīelds ŏf pūrĕst ǣthĕr plāy,
Ănd bāsk ănd whītĕn īn thĕ blāze ŏf dāy.
It is unhappy in the construction of English verse, that it excludes the bulk of polysyllables, though the most sounding words in our language; for upon examination it will be found, that very few of them are composed of such alternation of long and short syllables as to correspond to either of the arrangements mentioned. English verse accordingly is almost totally reduced to dissyllables and monosyllables. Magnanimity is a sounding word totally excluded. Impetuosity is still a finer word by the resemblance of the sound and sense; and yet a negative is put upon it, as well as upon numberless words of the same kind. Polysyllables composed of syllables long and short alternately, make a good figure in verse; for example, observance, opponent, ostensive, pindaric, productive, prolific, and such others of three syllables. Imitation, imperfection, misdemeanour, mitigation, moderation, observator, ornamental, regulator, and others similar of four syllables, beginning with two short syllables, the third long, and the fourth short, may find a place in a line commencing with a Trochæus. I know not if there be any of five syllables. One I know of six, viz. misinterpretation. But words so composed are not frequent in our language.
One would not imagine without trial, how uncouth false quantity appears in verse; not less than a provincial tone or idiom. The article the is one of the few monosyllables that is invariably short. See how harsh it makes a line where it must be pronounced long: