Parents," &c.—Davenant.
Or, by a preposition when the case it governs begins the verse that follows; as,
"The daily less'ning of our life, shews by
A little dying, how outright to dye."
The fifth is, to avoid the frequent use of words of many syllables, which are proper enough in prose, but come not into verse without a certain violence altogether disagreeable; particularly those whose accent is on the fourth syllable from the last, as undutifulness.
Section IV.—Doubts concerning the number of syllables of certain words.
There is no language whatsoever that so often joins several vowels together to make diphthongs of them, as ours; this appears in our having several composed of three different vowels, as eau and eou in beauteous, iou in glorious, uai in acquaint, &c.
Now from hence may arise some difficulties concerning the true pronunciation of those vowels, whether they ought to be founded separately in two syllables, or jointly in one.
The ancient poets made them sometimes of two syllables, sometimes but of one, as the measure of their verse required; but they are now become to be but of one, and it is a fault to make them of two: from whence we may draw this general rule:—That whenever one syllable of a word ends in a vowel, and the next begins with one, provided the first of those syllables be not that on which the word is accented, those two syllables ought in verse to be contracted and made but one.
Thus beauteous is but two syllables, victorious but three; and it is a fault in Dryden to make it four, as he has done in this verse: