PROSODY. PROSODY teaches the proper quantity and accent of syllables and words, and the measures of verses. Quantity, in prosody, means the length of sylla bles in pronunciation-that is to say, the length of time necessary for the proper utterance of each syllable. Some syllables are long, as Nōte, Hate, Neat: others are short, as Not, Hăt, Nět: but the quantity or length of syllables is little regarded in English poetry, which is entirely regulated by their number and accent. Accent is the emphatic tone with which some one syllable of a word is more forcibly sounded than the other syllable or syllables; as, in the words Lovely, Loveliness, Beauty, Beautiful, the first syllable of each is accented; and, in Adóre, Alóne, Remain, the accent is laid on the final syllable. A verse is a single line of poetry. A hemistich is a half verse *. In strict propriety, it means an exact half verse: but, in the Greek and Latin prosodies, whence the term is borrowed, it is A A distich, or couplet, is two verses; and the name is generally applied to two verses comprising a com→ plete sentence. A stanza (called likewise a stave) is a combination of several verses, wholly dependent on the poet's will, with respect to number, metre, and rhime, and forming a regular portion or division of a song, or other poem. Metre is the measure by which verses are composed, and by which they are divided in scanning; and, in English poetry, this measure consists in the number of the syllables, and the position of the ac cents. To scan* a verse is to divide it into its component parts, or feet. Rhime is a similarity and agreement of sound in also applied to a portion of a verse exceeding or falling short of the half, by one half foot.-The word Hemistich, and likewise Tetrastich and Acrostich, being sometimes erroneously written with CK, merely in consequence of a typographic error in Johnson's Dictionary, I wish my young readers to observe, that the former three, derived from the same Greek source with Distich, ought, like it, to terminate with CH, pronounced, of course, hard, as in Epoch, Stomach, Antioch.-Having incidentally mentioned the Acrostich, let me add to Dr. Johnson's definition of it, that the acrostich law extends to the final, as well as the initial, letter of each verse; there being still extant some ancient trifles of that description, in which the same words are acrostichally displayed at both extremities of the lines. Originally, to scand, from the Latin scando (to climb) the term used for this process by the ancient Latin grammarians. final syllables, as adore, deplore,-overthrows, inter pose. In regular verses, it includes only one syllable, as Ye nymphs of Solyma, begin the song! To heav'nly themes sublimer strains belong. (Pope. In hypermeter or redundant verses, i. e. verses exceeding the regular measure, it extends to two, the penultimate accented, the other not, as For what has Virro painted, built, and plānt-\-ed? Only to show how many tastes he wānt-\-ěd. (Pope, and, in careless burlesque versification, as that of Swift and Butler, we sometimes find redundant lines with a triplicate rhime, the accent falling on the antepenultimate, which terminates the regular measure, and no accent on either of the two supernumerary syllables, as - Uniting all, to show their a--mity, As in a general calā-\-mĭtă*. (Swift. but such triplicate rhime is wholly inadmissible in any verse which at all aspires to the praise of dignity or harmony. Blank verse is verse without rhime. The Casura (which means a cut or division) is the separation, or pause, which takes place in the body of a verse in the utterance-dividing the line, as it were, into two members: and, in different species of These were not intended for regular ten-syllable lines: the piece from which they are quoted, is in eight-syllable verse. verse, or different verses of the same species, this pause occurs in different parts of the line, as, for example How empty learning, and how vain is art, But as it mends the life, and guides the heart! A foot is a part of a verse, and consists of two or three syllables. A semifoot is a half-foot. The feet, chiefly used in English poetry, are the following * The names, here given to the feet and verses, are not, in strict propriety, applicable to English versification. In the Greek and Latin languages, from which they are borrowed, they have no reference to accent; the feet being there solely determined by the quantity, or length of syllables, and consistingthe Iambus, of one short syllable, and one long ;-the Trochee, of one long and one short;-the Spondee, of two long;-the Pyrrhic, of two short;—the Anapest, of two short and one long; -the Dactyl, of one long and two short;-the Tribrachys, of three short;-and the Amphibrachys, of one long between two short. However, as these Greek and Roman names of feet and verses have (with the substitution of English accent for Greek and Latin quantity) been applied to English versification by other writers before me, and as they are convenient terms to save circumlocution, I have deemed it expedient to adopt them after the example of my predecessors, and to apply to our accented and un-accented syllables the marks generally employed to indicate long and short syllables in the Greek and Latin prosodies; as, for example, the marks, thus applied to the Greek Pégăsŏs, or the Latin Pegasus, signify that the first syllable |