For practical purposes, however, the length of the last measure may be considered as indifferent, and the terms indicated may be reserved for the forthcoming class of metres.
[§ 648]. Of the metres in question, Coleridge's Christabel and Byron's Siege of Corinth are the current specimens. In the latter we have the couplet:
He sát him dówn at a píllar's báse,
And dréw his hánd athwárt his fáce.
In the second of these lines, the accents and the syllables are symmetrical; which is not the case with the first. Now to every, or any, accent in the second line an additional unaccented syllable may be added, and the movement be still preserved. It is the fact of the accents and syllables (irrespective of the latitude allowed to the final measure) being here unsymmetrical (or, if symmetrical, only so by accident) that gives to the metres in question their peculiar character. Added to this, the change from x x a, to x a x, and a x x, is more frequent than elsewhere. One point respecting them must be borne in mind; viz., that they are essentially trisyllabic metres from which unaccented syllables are withdrawn, rather than dissyllabic ones wherein unaccented syllables are inserted.
[§ 649]. Of measures of one, and of measures of four syllables the occurrence is rare, and perhaps equivocal.
[§ 650]. The majority of English words are of the form a x; that is, words like týrant are commoner than words like presúme.
The majority of English metres are of the form x a; that is, lines like
The wáy was lóng, the wínd was cóld