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Spher'd in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudly: tabernacle
Sojourn'd the while.

Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd,

1

P. L. 7. 245.

I drank, from the fresh milky juice | allay|ing
Thirst.

Samson Agon.

Surrey has given us an example of the verse 7 l. p: 5.

The fishes flete with newe repayred scale,
The adder all her slough away she flinges,

The swift swallow pursu]eth: the flyles smale].

Description of Spring.

These are the principal combinations in which the section 7 l. p. is met with. Others, however, have occasionally been found, more especially in the old English alliterative metre. Thus Dunbar, in his "Twa mariit women and the wedo," gives us an example of the verse 7 l, p: 21. I hard | under ane hollyn: hewm|lie green hew|it.

Such examples, however, are rare.

Dunbar.

Before I close a book, which treats thus fully of the rhythm of English verse, it may be expected that I should notice a series of works, which have been published during the last thirty years, on the same subject, by men, some of whose names are not unknown to the public. These writers entertain a very humble opinion of those 66 prosodians," "who scan English verse, according to the laws of Greek metre," and they divide our heroic line, not into five feet, but into six cadences! They are not, however, so averse to foreign terms, as might have been looked for. With them rhythm is rhythmus, and an elided syllable, an apogiatura. One of these critics assures us, that there are eight degrees of English quantity; and if the reader should "deny that there is any such thing as eight degrees of it, in our language, for this plain reason, because he cannot perceive them," it will be his duty to confide in the greater experience, and better educated ear

of those, who have paid more attention to the subject! I will not follow the example set by these gentlemen, when they speak of the poor "prosodian." It may be sufficient to say, that much which they advance, I do not understand, and much that I do understand, I cannot approve of.

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NOTES TO THE FIRST VOLUME.

(A.) THE LETters.

IN investigating the properties of our letter-sounds, I have wished to follow my own observations rather than the authority of grammarians. It is not, however, easy entirely to free oneself from the influence of preconceived notions, and they have, in one or two instances, led me into statements that require correction.

Our grammarians tells us, that "r is never mute." Now, if I may trust my ear, r is not pronounced at the end of a syllable, unless the following syllable open with a vowel. It is said, that at the end of a syllable r is obscurely pronounced; but I have observed, that a very slight pronunciation of this letter has been sufficient to convict the speaker of being an Irishman, and that many who insist upon its pronunciation, drop it, immediately their attention is diverted, or their vigilance relaxed.

In ordinary speech, I believe the words burn, curb, hurt, lurk, &c. differ from bun, cub, hut, luck, &c. only in the greater length of the vowel-sound. If this be so, then instead of five (see p. 111), there are six vowel-sounds in our language, each of which furnishes us with two vowels, accordingly as the quantity is long or short.

Again; I would say that farther differs in pronunciation from father, only in the greater length of its first vowel. If so, there is one vowelsound in our language, which furnishes us with three vowels. These are found respectively in the words fathom, father, farther. There are some languages, which thus form three vowels from almost every one of their vowel-sounds. See p. 106.

In p. 9, I have considered h as a letter. Our grammarians differ on this point, but I must confess that usage is against me. There is little doubt, that its old and genuine pronunciation was much like the palatal breathing of the Germans; and such is the power which some persons still give to it. But the people altogether neglect h, and others look upon it merely as the symbol of aspiration. In like manner, wh is usually treated as an aspirated w. Such, however, is the unsettled state of our language, that I have known men who prided themselves on their accuracy and refinement in the pronunciation of these letters h, wh, &c., and who nevertheless gave them three or four different properties, ere they had well uttered as many sentences.

There is a statement, too, in p. 10, which requires correction. The Latin rh and Greek were certainly aspirated letter-sounds. The accounts of

their pronunciation, handed down to us by the old grammarians, are too explicit to leave any room for doubt upon the subject.

(B.) ACCENTUATION.

The consideration of the laws, which regulate the accents of an English sentence, has occasioned the writer much difficulty. Instead of working his way gradually from results to principles, he has been obliged, owing to the nature of the materials he had to work with, first to assume principles, and then to deduce conclusions. The practice is common enough, though not the less dangerous on that account. The following notices will correct one or two mistakes, into which it has led him.

In p. 84, the definite and indefinite articles are placed upon the same footing. Now the latter originally was nothing more than the first cardinal number, and must, when placed in construction, have obeyed the same law as regards its accentuation. As the cardinal numbers were accented more strongly than the accompanying substantive (see vol, ii. p. 52. n. 5.), it follows that the examples quoted from Spenser and Jonson are instances rather of an obsolete than of a false accentuation, though such a mixture of the old with the new system is still open to objection.

The same observation will apply to the examples quoted in p. 86, from the Paradise Lost. Prepositions formerly took the accent before personal pronouns, and, indeed, still do so in some ef our provincial dialects; the accentuation therefore is not, properly speaking, false, though it takes the reader by surprise, more particularly as an emphasis falls on the pronouns, in the two cases cited.

Again, in an Anglo-Saxon sentence, an adverb generally, and a proposition occasionally, was placed before the concluding word, which, for the most part, was a verb. When so placed, the adverb or proposition seems always to have taken a predominant accent. See Vol. ii. p. 54. n. 5. This rule has been generally observed in the text, though violated in the scansion of the following verses-here scanned according to what I conceive to be their true prosody.

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With respect to the two last verses some doubt may be entertained whe

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