A passage in Churchill, and one in Lord John Russell's Life of Moore, have lately reminded me of a former Note of mine on this subject. The structure of Churchill's second couplet must surely have been suggested by that of Pope, which formed my original text:
"Conjunction, adverb, preposition, join
To add new vigour to the nervous line:—
In monosyllables his thunders roll,—
He, she, it, and, we, ye, they, fright the soul."
Censure on Mossop.
Moore, in his Journals, notes, on the other side of the question, conversation between Rogers, Crowe, and himself, "on the beauty of monosyllabic verses. 'He jests at scars,' &c.; the couplet, 'Sigh on my lip,' &c.; 'Give all thou canst,' &c. &c., and many others, the most vigorous and musical, perhaps, of any." (Lord John Russell's Moore, vol. ii. p. 200.)
The frequency of monosyllabic lines in English poetry will hardly be wondered at, however it may be open to such criticisms as Pope's and Churchill's, when it is noted that our language contains, of monosyllables formed by the vowel a alone, considerably more than 500; by the vowel e, about 450; by the vowel i, nearly 400; by the vowel o, rather more than 400; and by the vowel u, upwards of 260; a calculation entirely exclusive of the large number of monosyllables formed by diphthongs.
I hardly know whether the following "literary folly" (as "D'Israeli the Elder" would call it, see Curiosities of Lit. sub tit.), suggested by dipping into the above monosyllabical statistics, will be thought worthy to occupy a column of "N. & Q." However, it may take its chance as a supplementary Note, without farther preface, under the name, for want of a better, of Univocalic verses:
The Russo-Turkish War.