I. Of the structure of English verses.
II. Of rhyme.
III. Of the several sorts of poems, or composition in verse.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSES.
The structure of our verses, whether blank or in rhyme, consists in a certain number of syllables; not in feet composed of long and short syllables, as the verses of the Greeks and Romans. And though some ingenious persons formerly puzzled themselves in prescribing rules for the quantity of English syllables, and, in imitation of the Latins, composed verses by the measure of spondees, dactyls, &c., yet the success of their undertaking has fully evinced the vainness of their attempt, and given ground to suspect they had not thoroughly weighed what the genius of our language would bear, nor reflected that each tongue has its peculiar beauties, and that what is agreeable and natural to one, is very often disagreeable, nay, inconsistent with another. But that design being now wholly exploded, it is sufficient to have mentioned it.
Our verses, then, consist in a certain number of syllables; but the verses of double rhyme require a syllable more than those of single rhyme. Thus in a poem whose verses consist of ten syllables, those of the same poem that are accented on the last save one, which we call verses of double rhyme, must have eleven, as may be seen by these verses:—
"A Man so various that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome:
Stiff in Opinion, always in the Wrong,