The want of proper measures, or a mixture of weak and strong syllables, is very remarkable in a passage of the Declaration of Independence. "We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, ĭn pēace, friēnds." The three last syllables form, if any thing, a Bacchic; the first syllable, short, and the two others, long. But in a just pronunciation, the foot is necessarily broken by a pause after peace. This interruption, and the two long syllables, render the close of the sentence extremely heavy. The period is concise and expressive, as it stands; but the arrangement might be much more harmonious—"Oŭr ēnĕmĭes ĭn wār; ĭn pēace, oŭr friēnds." Here the measure and melody are perfect; the period closing with three Iambics, preceded by a Pyrrhic.
In a Scotch Ballad, called Edom o Gordon, we find the word dreips for drops.
"—And clear, clear was hir zellow hair
Whereon the reid bluid dreips."
But it was often spelt drap, agreeable to the pronunciation. See Edward. Rel. An. Poet. 53.
The dialect in America is peculiar to the descendants of the Scotch Irish.
Mought is the past time or participle of an old Saxon verb mowe or mowen, to be able. It answered to the posse of the Romans, and the pouvoir of the French. This verb occurs frequently in Chaucer.
"But that science is so fer us beforne,
We mowen not, altho we had it sworne,
It overtake, it slit away so fast,
It wol us maken beggers at the last."