Practical Guide to English Versification / With a Compendious Dictionary of Rhymes, an Examination / of Classical Measures, and Comments Upon Burlesque and / Comic Verse, Vers de Société, and Song-writing

by Tom Hood

But this is only in heroics; for in their Pindarics and lyrics, verses of twelve or fourteen syllables are frequently and gracefully placed, not only after those of twelve or ten, but of any other number of syllables whatsoever.

The verses of four and six syllables have nothing worth observing, and therefore I shall content myself with having made mention of them. They are, as I said before, used only in operas and masks, and in lyric and Pindaric odes. Take one example of them:—

"To rule by love,

To shed no Blood,

May be extoll'd above;

But here below,

Let Princes know,

'Tis fatal to be good."

—Dryden.

Section III.—Several rules conducing to the beauty of our versification.