This being admitted, we proceed and say, that the rhythm of the heroic foot is one to one, which constitutes in music what we call common time; and in musical vibration what we call the unison. The rhythm of the iambic is one to two, which constitutes in music what we call triple time; and in musical vibration what we call the octave. The rhythm next to these is that of two to three, or else its equivalent, three to two; a rhythm compounded of the two former times united, and which constitutes in musical vibration what we call the fifth. It was here, then, they discovered the foot they wanted; that foot, which being neither the heroic nor the iambic, was yet so far connected with them as to contain virtually within itself the rhythms of them both. That this is fact is evident from the following reasoning. The proportion of two to three contains in two the rhythm of the heroic foot; in three, that of the iambic; therefore, in two and three united, a foot compounded out of the two. Now the foot thus described is no other than the pæan; a foot constituted either by one long syllable and three short, and called the pœan a majori; or else by three short syllables and one long, and called the paan a minori. In either case, if we resolve the long syllable into two short, we shall find the sum of the syllables to be five; that is, two to three for the first paan, three to two for the second, each being in what we call the sesquialter proportion." Those who ask for examples, may find the first pæan in the be none, unless there be an articulate sound, or word, having a peculiar quality and quantity," (to distinguish it.) Longini Fragm. iii. s. 5. p. 162. edit. Pearce, 4to. Metrum in verbis modo; rhythmus etiam in corporis motu est. Quinctil. Inst. ix. 4. p. 598. edit. Capper. time in dancing, and in rowing, though no sound at all but what is quite incidental. The sum of this speculation is thus shortly expressed by Cicero. Pes enim, qui adhibetur ad numeros, partitur in tria: ut necesse sit partem pedis aut æqualem esse alteri parti; aut altero tanto, aut ses What these authors call rhythmus, Virgil qui esse majorem. Ita fit æqualis, daccalls numerus, or its plural numeri. Numeros memini, si verba tenerem. Bucol. ix. 45. And, before that, speaking of the fauns and Tum vero in numerum faunosque feras- Bucol. vi. 27. So, too, speaking of the Cyclopes at their forge, he tells us, Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt No English term seems to express rhythmus better than the word time; by which we denote every species of measured motion. Thus we say, there is time in beating a drum, though but a single sound; tylus; duplex, iambus; sesqui, pæon. Ad Brut. Orat. s. 188. Aristotle reasons upon the same principles. Ἔστι δὲ τρίτος ὁ παιὰν, καὶ ἐχόμενος τῶν εἰρημένων· τρία γὰρ πρὸς δύο ἐστίν· ἐκείνων δὲ, ὁ μὲν ἐν πρὸς ἕν· ὁ δὲ, δύο ἔχεται δὲ τῶν λόγων τούτων ὁ ἡμιόλιος, οὗτος δ ̓ ἐστιν ὁ παιάν, κ. τ. λ. Arist. Rhet. 1. iii. c. 8. p. 129, 130. edit. Sylb. Again; Cicero, after having held much the same doctrine, adds-Probatur autem ab eodem illo (scil. Aristotele) maxime pæan, qui est duplex; nam aut a longa oritur, quam tres breves consequuntur, ut hæc verba, desinitě, incipitě, cōmprimitě ; aut a brevibus deinceps tribus, extrema producta atque longa, sicut illa sunt, domuĕrānt, sonĭpĕdēs. De Orator. iii. 57, (183.) and in his Orator. ad M. Brutum, s. 205. and before, s. 191-197. words ηφάνισε, desinite; the second, in the words μετὰ δὲ γῆν, domůĕrānt. To the pean may be added the cretic, a foot of one short syllable between two long, as in the words evoμai, quòvě nùnc ; a foot in power evidently equal to the pæan, because resolvable, like that, into five equal times. We dwell no longer here; perhaps we have already dwelt too long. It is enough to observe, that by a discreet use of these pæans, the ancients obtained what they desired, that is, they enriched their prose without making it into verse; and, while vague and vulgar prose flowed indefinitely, like a stream, theirs, like descending drops, became capable of being numbered. It may give credit to these speculations, trivial as they may appear, when it is known they have merited the attention of the ablest critics, of Aristotle and Demetrius Phalereus, of Cicero and Quinctilian.b The productions still remaining of this golden period seem (if I may so say) to have been providentially preserved to humiliate modern vanity, and check the growth of bad taste. But this classical era, though it lasted long, at length terminated. Many causes, and chiefly the irruption and mixture of Barbarians, contributed to the debasing both of Latin and Greek. As diction was corrupted, so also was pronunciation. Accent and quantity, which had been once accurately distinguished, began now to be blended. Nay, more, accent so far usurped quantity's place, as by a sort of tyranny to make short syllables long, and long syllables short. Thus, in poetry, as the accent fell upon de in deus, and upon i in ibi, the first syllables of these two words were considered as long. Again, where the accent did not fall, as in the ultimas of regno or Saturno, and even in such ablatives as insulâ or Cretâ, there the poet assumed a licence, if he pleased, to make them short. In a word, the whole doctrine of prosody came to this that, as anciently the quantity of the syllables established the rhythm of the verse, so now the rhythm of the verse established the quantity of the syllables. There was an ancient poet, his name Commodianus, who dealt much in this illicit quantity, and is said to have written a Numerus autem in continuatione nullus est: distinctio, et æqualium et sæpe variorum intervallorum percussio, numerum conficit: quem in cadentibus guttis, quod intervallis distinguuntur, notare possumus; in omni præcipitante non possumus. Cic. de Oratore, lib. iii. s. 186. b See Aristotle and Cicero, as quoted before, particularly the last in his Orator, s. 189 to the end; Quinctilian, 1. ix. c. 4. Demetrius Phalereus, at the beginning of his tract De Elocut. Cicero, in his De Oratore, introduces Crassus using the same arguments; those, I mean, which are grounded upon authority. Atque hæc quidem ab iis philosophis, quos tu maxime diligis, Catule, dicta sunt: quod eo sæpius testificor, ut auctoribus laudandis ineptiarum crimen effugiam. De Oratore, lib. iii. s. 187. (if that be possible) in the fifth, nay, some assert, in the third century. Take a sample of his versification : Saturnusque senex, si deus, quando senescit ? And again: Nec divinus erat, sed deum sesě dicebat. And again : Jupiter hic natus in insulă Cretă Săturno, And again : Ille autem in Cretâ regnavit, et îbi defecit. I shall crown the whole with an admirable distich, where (as I observed not long ago) the rhythm of the verse gives alone the quantity, while the quantity of the syllables is wholly disregarded. Tōt reum criminibus, părricīdām quoque fütürüm, Dr. Davies, at the end of his Minutius Felix, has thought it worth giving us an edition of this wretched author, who, if he lived so early as supposed, must have been from among the dregs of the people, since Ausonius, Claudian, Sulpicius Severus, and Boethius, who were all authors of the same or a later period, wrote both in prose and verse with classical elegance. We have mentioned the debasement of Latin previously to that of Greek, because it was an event which happened much sooner. As early as the sixth century, or the seventh at farthest, Latin ceased to be the common language of Rome, whereas Greek was spoken with competent purity in Constantinople even to the fifteenth century, when that city was taken by the Turks. Not but that corruption found its way also into Greek poetry, when Greek began to degenerate, and accent, as in Latin, to usurp dominion over quantity. It was then began the use of the Versus Politici, a species of verses so called, because adapted to the vulgar, and only fit for vulgar ears. It was then the sublime hexameters of Homer were debased into miserable trochaics, not even legible as verses but by a suppression of real quantity. Take a sample of these productions, which, such as it is, will be easily understood, as it contains the beginning of the first Iliad: Τὴν ὀργὴν ἄδε, καὶ λέγε, In reading the above verses we must carefully regard accent, c See Fabricii Biblioth. Græc. vol. x. p. 253. 318, 319. to which, and to which alone, we must strictly adhere, and follow the same trochaic rhythm as in those well-known verses of Dryden : War he súng is tóil and trouble, The accentual quantity in the Greek, as well as in the English, totally destroys the syllabic: de in ade is made long; so also is λε in λέγε ; a, in θεὰ ; o, in Καλλιόπη. Again, μου is short ; so also is In in Πηλείδου. In Αχιλλέως every syllable is corrupted; the first and third, being short, are made long; the second and fourth, being long, are made short. We quote no farther, as all that follows is similar, and the whole exactly applicable to our present versification. This disgraceful form of Homer was printed by Pinelli, at Venice, in the year 1540, but the work itself was probably some centuries older.d Besides this anonymous perverter of the Iliad and Odyssey, (for he has gone through both,) there are political verses of the same barbarous character by Constantinus Manasses, John Tzetzes, and others of that period. And so much for the verse of these times. Of their prose (though next in order) we say nothing, it being loss of time to dwell upon authors, who being unable to imitate the eloquence of their predecessors, could discover no new roads to fame but through obscurity and affectation. In this class we range the Historia Augustæ Scriptores, Marcianus Capella, Apuleius, together with many others, whom we may call authors of African Latinity. Perhaps, too, we may add some of the Byzantine historians. Before we quit accentual quantity, there is one thing we must not omit. Strange as it appears, there are traces of it extant even in classical writers. As dactyls and anapæsts were frequently intermixed with iambics, we find no less a writer than the accurate Terence, make syllables short, which by position were long, in order to form the feet above mentioned. Take the following instances, among many others: Et id gratum fuisse advorsum te habeo gratiam. Ego excludor: ille recipitur, quâ gratiâ ? Andr. act. i. s. 1. 15. Andr. act. ii. s. 6. 8. Eunuch. act. i. s. 2. 79. Among these verses, all beginning with anapæsts, the second syllable id in the first verse is made short, though followed by three consonants: the first syllable propter in the second verse d A sort of glossary is subjoined, whence, for curiosity, we select some very singular explanations: Пúλn, “a gate,” is explained by πορτα, θυρωροί, those who keep gates," are called opráρo, that is, “por ters;" κλíσiai, “tents," are called by the name of Tévтai; Túpyos, "a tower," by that of Toúpn; and of knput we are informed, σημαίνει ὅλον τρουμπετάριν, “ that it signifies, in general, a trumpeter." 66 is made short, though followed by two consonants: and the third syllable, ex in excludor, in the third verse is made short, though followed by a double consonant, and two others after it. We are to observe, however, that, while licences were assumed by the dramatic writers of the comic iambic, and by Terence more than the rest, it was a practice unknown to the writers of hexameter. It is to be observed, likewise, that these licences were taken at the beginning of verses, and never at the end, where a pure iambic was held as indispensable. They were also licences usually taken with monosyllables, dissyllables, or prepositions; in general with words in common and daily use, which in all countries are pronounced with rapidity, and made short in the very speaking. It has been suggested, therefore, with great probability, that Terence adopted such a mode of versifying, because it more resembled the common dialogue of the middle life, which no one ever imitated more happily than himself.e We are now to proceed to the modern languages, and to our own in particular, which, like the rest, has little of harmony but what it derives from accentual quantity. And yet as this accentual quantity is wholly governed by ancient rhythm, to which, as far as possible, we accommodate modern words, the speculations are by no means detached from ancient criticism, being wholly derived from principles which that criticism had first established. CHAPTER III. QUANTITY VERBAL IN ENGLISH-A FEW FEET PURE, AND AGREEABLE TO SYLLABIC QUANTITY-INSTANCES-YET ACCENTUAL QUANTITY PREVALENT-INSTANCES-TRANSITION TO PROSE-ENGLISH PÆANS, INSTANCES OF RHYTHM GOVERNS QUANTITY, WHERE THIS LAST IS ACCENTUAL. In the scrutiny which follows we shall confine ourselves to English, as no language, to us at least, is equally familiar. And here, if we begin with quoting poets, it must be remembered, it is not purely for the sake of poetry, but with a view to that harmony of which our prose is susceptible. A few pure iambics of the syllabic sort we have, though commonly blended with the spurious and accentual. Thus Milton: Fountains, and ye, that warble, as yè flōw. Par. Lost, v. 195. And again, more completely, in that fine line of his, For éloquence, the soul; sōng charms the sense. Par. Lost. ii. 556. In the first of these verses the last foot is (as it always should * See the valuable tract of the celebrated title of De Metris Terentianis ZxedíaoBentley, prefixed to his Terence, under the ua. |