says a work now before me, of which the accuracy is far more than usual — the “English Grammar” of Goold Brown —“Versification is the art of arranging words into lines of correspondent length, so as to produce harmony by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity.” The commencement of this definition might apply, indeed, to the art of versification, but not to versification itself. Versification is not the art of arranging, etc, but the actual arranging — a distinction too obvious to need comment. The error here is identical with one which has been too long permitted to disgrace the initial page of every one of our school grammars. I allude to the definitions of English Grammar itself. “English Grammar,” it is said, “is the art of speaking and writing the English language correctly.” This phraseology, or something essentially similar, is employed, I believe, by Bacon, Miller, Fisk, Greenleaf, Ingersoll, Kirkland, Cooper, Flint, Pue, Comly, and many others. These gentlemen, it is presumed, adopted it without examination from Murray, who derived it from Lily (whose work was “quam solam Regia Majestas in omnibus scholis docendam praecipit”), and who appropriated it without acknowledgment, but with some unimportant modification, from the Latin Grammar of Leonicenus. It may be shown, however, that this definition, so complacently received, is not, and cannot be, a proper definition of English Grammar. A definition is that which so describes its object as to distinguish it from all others — it is no definition of any one thing if its terms are applicable to any one other. But if it be asked —“What is the design — the end — the aim of English Grammar?” our obvious answer is, “The art of speaking and writing the English language correctly”— that is to say, we must use the precise words employed as the definition of English Grammar itself. But the object to be obtained by any means is, assuredly, not the means. English Grammar and the end contemplated by English Grammar are two matters sufficiently distinct; nor can the one be more reasonably regarded as the other than a fishing — hook as a fish. The definition, therefore, which is applicable in the latter instance, cannot, in the former, be true. Grammar in general is the analysis of language; English Grammar of the English.
But to return to Versification as defined in our extract above. “It is the art,” says the extract “of arranging words into lines of correspondent length.” Not so:— a correspondence in the length of lines is by no means essential. Pindaric odes are, surely, instances of versification, yet these compositions are noted for extreme diversity in the length of their lines.
The arrangement is moreover said to be for the purpose of producing “harmony by the regular alternation,” etc. But harmony is not the sole aim — not even the principal one. In the construction of verse, melody should never be left out of view; yet this is a point which all our Prosodies have most unaccountably forborne to touch. Reasoned rules on this topic should form a portion of all systems of rhythm.
“So as to produce harmony,” says the definition, “by the regular alternation,” etc. A regular alternation, as described, forms no part of any principle of versification. The arrangement of spondees and dactyls, for example, in the Greek hexameter, is an arrangement which may be termed at random. At least it is arbitrary. Without interference with the line as a whole, a dactyl may be substituted for a spondee, or the converse, at any point other than the ultimate and penultimate feet, of which the former is always a spondee, the latter nearly always a dactyl. Here, it is clear, we have no “regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity.”
“So as to produce harmony,” proceeds the definition “by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity,"— in other words by the alternation of long and short syllables; for in rhythm all syllables are necessarily either short or long. But not only do I deny the necessity of any regularity in the succession of feet and, by consequence, of syllables, but dispute the essentiality of any alternation regular or irregular, of syllables long and short. Our author, observe, is now engaged in a definition of versification in general, not of English versification in particular. But the Greek and Latin metres abound in the spondee and pyrrhic — the former consisting of two long syllables, the latter of two short; and there are innumerable instances of the immediate succession of many spondees and many pyrrhics.
Here is a passage from Silius Italicus:
Fallit te mensas inter quod credis inermem
Tot bellis quaesita viro, tot caedibus armat
Majestas aeterna ducem: si admoveris ora
Cannas et Trebium ante oculos Trasymenaque busta
Et Pauli stare ingentem miraberis umbram.
Making the elisions demanded by the classic Prosodies, we should scan these Hexameters thus:
Fallit / te men / sas in / ter quod / credis in / ermem /
Tot bel / lis quae / sita tot / caedibus / armat /
Majes / tas ae / terna du / cem s’ad / moveris / ora /
Cannas / et Trebi / ant ocu / los Trasy / menaque / busta /
Et Pau / li sta / r’ ingen / tem mi / raberis / umbram /
It will be seen that, in the first and last of these lines, we have only two short syllables in thirteen, with an uninterrupted succession of no less than nine long syllables. But how are we to reconcile all this with a definition of versification which describes it as “the art of arranging words into lines of correspondent length so as to produce harmony by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity”?
It may be urged, however, that our prosodist’s intention was to speak of the English metres alone, and that, by omitting all mention of the spondee and pyrrhic, he has virtually avowed their exclusion from our rhythms. A grammarian is never excusable on the ground of good intentions. We demand from him, if from any one, rigorous precision of style. But grant the design. Let us admit that our author, following the example of all authors on English Prosody, has, in defining versification at large, intended a definition merely of the English. All these prosodists, we will say, reject the spondee and pyrrhic. Still all admit the iambus, which consists of a short syllable followed by a long; the trochee, which is the converse of the iambus; the dactyl, formed of one long syllable followed by two short; and the anapaest — two short succeeded by a long. The spondee is improperly rejected, as I shall presently show. The pyrrhic is rightfully dismissed. Its existence in either ancient or modern rhythm is purely chimerical, and the insisting on so perplexing a nonentity as a foot of two short syllables, affords, perhaps, the best evidence of the gross irrationality and subservience to authority which characterise our Prosody. In the meantime the acknowledged dactyl and anapaest are enough to sustain my proposition about the “alternation,” etc, without reference to feet which are assumed to exist in the Greek and Latin metres alone — for an anapaest and a dactyl may meet in the same line, when, of course, we shall have an uninterrupted succession of four short syllables. The meeting of these two feet, to be sure, is an accident not contemplated in the definition now discussed; for this definition, in demanding a “regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity,” insists on a regular succession of similar feet. But here is an example:
Sing to me / Isabelle.
This is the opening line of a little ballad now before me which proceeds in the same rhythm — a peculiarly beautiful one. More than all this:— English lines are often well composed, entirely, of a regular succession of syllables all of the same quantity:— the first line, for instance, of the following quatrain by Arthur C. Coxe:
March! march! march!
Making sounds as they tread,
Ho! ho! how they step,
Going down to the dead!
The first line is formed of three caesuras. The caesura, of which I have much to
