A Hint on Song-writing,

in addition to the remarks in page 39, on the use of the irrregular or auxiliary Feet in Iambic Metre.

Although, in other species of iambic composition, the employment of such feet be productive of a pleasing variety, they very frequently produce a very disagreeable effect in songs intended for music, by setting the notes at variance with the words. In general, the musical composer adapts his notes only to the first stanza: and, when this is the case, how frequently does it happen, that, although the tune be composed with the most consummate skill and taste for that stanza, it does not suit any one of those which follow! The fault here lies, not with the musician, but with the poet, who has not observed the necessary uniformity in the structure of his stanzas. To a songster, therefore, who intends his verses for music, I would say: Either take no liberties whatever in the introduction of any other than the regular feet; or, if, in the first stanza, you have any-where introduced a trochee, a pyrrhic, or a spondee, by all means contrive, if possible, to have a similar foot in exactly the correspondent part of the correspondent line in every succeeding stanza.—From inattention to such minutiæ, trifling in appearance, but serious in their effects, the consequence ensues, that we often hear those musical flourishes, which, in the first instance, were happily applied to grave, sonorous, emphatic syllables, afterwards idly wasted on A, The,

Of, To, In, -ed, -ing, &c. while syllables of the former description are stiuted of their due emphasis, because they unluckily happen to correspond with light, un-emphatic syllables in the first stanza.

Of the unpleasing effect produced by that incongruity, I have, in my own practice, found a striking instance, on occasion of my undertaking, some years since, to gratify a lady with a few songs to favorite old tunes. In my first attempts, though my lines were written in the same metre as the original, and (whether good or bad in other respects) were inetrically correct, they did not at all accord with the music.-On examination, I discovered the cause to be an accidental difference between the original verses and my own, in the admission of irregular feet; and, in short, I could not satisfy either the lady or myself, until I had so modified my lines, as to make them perfectly agree with the original, foot by foot, and syllable by syllable.

To place this point in a clearer light, let us suppose the first stanza of Pope's Universal Prayer set to music, and the subsequent stanzas sung to the same tune: then, in these three corresponding lines of different stanzas―

Jall,

Fa--ther of
in ev'ry age.....
Thou great first cause, least understood....
To thee, whose tem--ple is all space......

the notes admitting no distinction between long and short syllables, between accented and un-accentedwe shall hear the corresponding syllables, Fā- and

F

to, made perfectly equal in musical importance, and the same equality established between -ther, great, and thee-of, and first-in and least, &c.

Such discordance between the words and the music is a very serious defect-an evil, which cannot possibly be obviated by any thing short of perfect uniformity in the corresponding feet and verses of the different stanzas, unless the musical composer shall set the entire piece to music, from beginning to end. -The necessity of that uniformity seems to have been forcibly felt by Horace, the most accomplished songster that ever tuned the Roman lyre: for, in all his Sapphic effusions, which are pretty numerous, there occurs not one variation of a single syllable, though the Sapphic metre would admit some varia. tions; and he has, with very few exceptions, observed the same uniform regularity in every other species of metre throughout the entire four books of his odes.

9.1.

EXERCISES.

SCANNING.

Pure Iambic verses of eight syllables, or four feet, having the accent uniformly placed on the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth syllables, as

Begín, my lord, in early youth,

To suffer, náy, encourage, trúth.

The learner is to be taught to divide each line into feet, and to notice each syllable, on which the accent falls. If the pupil write out the verses (which would answer a better purpose than the simple act of reading them), the divisions into feet, and likewise the accented and un-accented syllables, may be thus markedBegin, mỹ lōrd, | in ear-l-ly youth,

To sūf-|-fĕr, nāy, encourage truth.

(This part of the Exercises, and all as far as p. 75, is too simple and easy to require notice in the" Key.")

Assist me, o ye tuneful Nine,

With ease to form the flowing line.

And oft his voice, in accents sweet,
Shall friendship's soothing sounds repeat.

Alas! thou know'st not, winter drear
In snowy rest will soon appear.

1

Though ne'er so rich, we scorn the elf
Whose only praise is sordid pelf.

Never so rich. Some modern grammarians condemn phrases of this kind, as improper, and, in their stead, recommend Ever so...... I would very cheerfully subscribe to their opinion, if I only could understand the latter phrase, so as to extract from it a satisfactory meaning: but that, I own, is a task which exceeds my abilities. For example: "It is a fine day: will you take a walk ?"—"No: if it were EVER SO fine a day, I would not go out."-To discover the meaning of this reply, I first consider that Ever signifies Always; and then I understand it thus-"If it were ALWAYS [from the present moment to the end of time] as fine a day as it now is, I would not go out this day.”—Surely this cannot be what is intended by those who use or recommend the phrase: they cannot mean that my walking or not walking this day shall depend on the state of the weather ten thousand years hence, and that, in the interim, we are to have no nights, but, all along, one un-interrupted fine day! Yet such is the only meaning that I can discover in the sentence. But what means Never so? On examination, it will prove to be a beautiful phrase, and pregnant with energetic sense. It is, in fact, an elliptic expression, as the French Nonpareil, and the well-known English None such.-When, for example, we say, of a lady, that "She is a none such," we certainly do not mean that she is A NONE, or A NOBODY, such as some other lady, whose name is charitably suppressed; but that she is a woman so good, so fair, (or whatever else may be her praise) that none such [none equal to her in that respect] can be found. Let us, in like manner, supply the ellipsis in the phrase, Never so fine. "If this day were fine to such degree, that NEVER SO FINE a day has smiled from the heavens, I would not go out."-This simple and obvious interpretation gives us good and satisfactory sense, perfectly according with the