Thy chaster beams play on the heavy face Of all the world making the blue | sea smile. Fletcher. Faithful Sheph. 2. 1. I think a traitor No ill words! let | his own | shame: first | revile | him. The dominations, royalties, and rights Fletcher. Bonduca, 2. 4. Of this oppressed boy]: this | is thy eldest son's son, Hath any ram K. John, 2. 1. Slipt from the fold or young | kid lost | its dam] ? Comus. The more correct schools of Dryden and Pope carefully avoided this error, but our modern poets are not so scrupulous. The faults of the Elizabethan writers are more readily caught than their beauties; Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile. The possessive pronoun falls of course under the same law as the adjective; but when coupled with an adjective receives the weaker accent. The violation of this rule is but too common among those writers to whom allusion has been made. In wine and oil they wash en his wounds wide. : F. Q. 1. 5. 17. And dark some dens], where Titan: his face never shows. F. Q. 2. 5. 27. That | I may sit] and pour | out my | sad sprite | Byron. Lara. * This verse of Fletcher has even more than his usual proportion of blun ders. With proper accents it would belong to the triple measure. That I may sit | and pour out | my sad sprite | . And then as his | faint breathing: waxles low. Byron. Lara. It is doubtless under the same law, that the word own takes the accent after the possessive pronouns; a rule which is violated by Pope in the very couplet in which he denounces the critics; Against the polets: their | own arms | they turn'd], Essay on Criticism. Another law of English accentuation is, that the personal and relative pronoun take a fainter accent than the verb. And mingling them with perfect vermily, That like a lively sanguine: it | seem'd to | the eye. That sea beast F. Q. 3. 8. 6. Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hulgest that | swim th' ocean's flood]. P. L. Such is certainly the right scanning of this puzzling line, for the first and all the early editions elide the vowel. We may hence see the danger of printing Milton without elisions. As the line stands in the modern editions, every reader would accent it thus, Created hulgest that swim | the ocean's flood. : No one would be bold enough to risk a false accent, in order to avoid an awkward and spiritless rhythm. It remains to consider the law, which regulates the accents of a sequence. When two or more words of the same kind follow each other consecutively, they all take an equal accent. If they are monosyllables, a pause intervenes between every two. It is probably for this reason, and on account of the great number of English monosyllables, that we find such frequent violations of a law so obvious and important. Fear, sickness, age | Pain, hunger, cold loss, labour, sorrow, strife), that makes the heart | to quake, And ever fickle fortune rageth rife. F. Q. 1. 9. 44. So shall wrath, jealousy |; grief, love, | die and | decay]. F. Q. 2. 4. 35. Infernal hags: centaurs, fiends, hippodames]. The hectick, F. Q. 2. 9. 50. Gout, lep rosie ; or some such loath'd | disease. : I am | a man | and | I have limbs, flesh, blood, Where he gives her many a rose Sweeter than the breath that blows, The leaves; grapes, berries: of | the best. Same, 2. 4. Fletcher. Faithful Shep. 1. 3. High climbing rock, deep sunless dale, Sea, desert, what do these | avail|? Wordsworth. White Doe of Rylstone. In False accentuation very often leads to ambiguity. the last passage, there might be a question, whether the author did not mean the sea-desert, the waste of ocean. When the words are collected into groups, this law of sequence affects the groups only, and not the individuals. Thus I think there would be no fair objection to the mode in which Byron accents the verse, Young old, high low |, at once |: the same | diver|sion share]. Ch. Har. 1. Nor to Milton's famous line, Rocks, caves,lakes, fens|, bogs, dens, |*: and shades | of death. This last verse has been variously accented. Mitford accents the first six words, thus making it a verse of eight accents, though Milton wrote his poem in verses of five. * Den means a low woody bottom, such as often marks a stream or water course; hence it is coupled with bog. The same law will hold when the words are in groups of three together. Before we close this section, it should be observed, that the rule, which we have applied to the article, is a general one. There is no word, however unimportant, which may not be accented, when it lies adjacent only to unaccented syllables. We have already given examples where the article is accented; to add others would be useless. The accentuation of foreign words, naturalized in our language, has always been varying; one while inclining to the English usage, at another to the foreign. We will first treat of proper names, which have come to us, either mediately or immediately, from the Latin. At present, we give them Latin accents, when they have all their syllables complete; and English accents when they are mutilated. But nothing was more common, down to the end of Elizabeth's reign, than to find the perfect Latin word wiih its accents distributed according to the English fashion; Till that the palle: Saturnus | the colde That knew so many of aventures olde. Chau. The Knightes Tale. Alfred. Saturnus thone: sund-buende het on. Saturnus him sea-dwellers hight. Such one was once, or once I was mistaught, A smith | at Vulcanus | own forge | up brought|. In Sterres, many a winter ther beforen, Hall. Satires, 2. 1. Was writ❘ the deth | of Hector, Ach|illes|— Chau. The Man of Lawes Tale. These writers give us the Latin accents, whenever it suits their rhythm. During the 14th century we got even our Latin from the French. Latin names were, accordingly, often used with French accents, and that to the very end of the 16th century. Fayrest of fayre: o lady min | Venus, Chau. The Knightes Tale. The dreint Leandre: for his faire | Hero, Of Briseide. Chau. The Man of Lawes Tale. Hector and Hercules | with false | Juno, : Their minds did make them weave the webb of woe. Mirr. for M. Egelred, 3. Of Lucrece and of Babylon | Thisbe|, The swerd of Dido, for the false Enee. Chau. The Man of Lawes Prol. A cranny'd hole or chink, Through which these lovers: Pyramus and Thisby| Did whisper often very secretly. M. N. Dream, 5. 1. Shakespeare elsewhere accents it This by; he doubtless put the old and obsolete accent into the mouth of his "mechanicals," for the purposes of ridicule. French accent was particularly prevalent in such words, as had been robbed by our neighbours of one or more syllables. * That is, Ulisses. |