Are faded and gone."
If these lines were written in a dialect utterly strange to the hearer, he still could not but feel their admirable melodiousness, so appropriate to the melodious music. In the case, therefore, of song-writing generally—whether to known or unknown music—the purpose of the composition must ever be kept in mind. A song, if not satisfactorily fitted for vocal utterance, and intelligible on the hearing of a moment, neither deserves, nor will receive, popular appreciation and acceptance. Where true poetry is interfused, as in the productions of Burns and Moore, then, indeed, is mastership in the art of song-writing really shown. Of all classes of writers, the song-writer is perhaps the most truly an artist.
Rules for Making English Verse.
By EDWARD BYSSHE.
These rules I have, according to the best of my judgment, endeavoured to extract from the practice, and to frame after the examples, of the poets that are most celebrated for a fluent and numerous turn of verse.
In the English versification there are two things chiefly to be considered:
1. The verses.
2. The several sorts of poems, or composition in verse.
But because in the verses there are also two things to be observed, the structure of the verse and the rhyme, this treatise shall be divided into three chapters;