wish was impossible, for two reasons-1. Many of the pieces, from which I have made extracts, are anonymous. 2. It would have been treating an author very unfairly, to give, under his name, a garbled extract of a few lines, when (for the reason above mentioned) I had omitted some verses immediately connected with them, which are perhaps far superior to those that I quote, and without which, the passage must necessarily appear to very great disadvantage. Any author, whom I had thus misrepresented, would, I presume, be far from pleased with me for taking such unjustifiable liberty with his writings and his name. So at least I judge from my own feelings: for, although I have occasionally inserted some extracts from poetic trifles of my own, I should be very unwilling to set my name to them in that mutilated condition. But some authors may perhaps be offended with me upon a different ground. They may fancy that they see their verses altered in my pages, and condemn me for having taken the liberty of making the supposed alterations. I beg leave to remove that mistaken idea. I do not presume to alter or amend any man's lines: I do not arrogate to myself that superiority of taste and judgement which is requisite. to any person undertaking the invidious task; nor have I a sufficiency of leisure time to bestow on the thankless employment. The case is simply this --If a line from one author, and a line from another, together made a distich better calculated for an exer cise than either poet's lines could separately furnish, I made no scruple to unite them: and, if a line and half, or a line and three quarters, suited my purpose, in borrowing so much from one writer, I held myself equally at liberty to take from another, or to supply from my own stock, a half or quarter line to complete the distich, without meaning to pass any censure on what I did not think it necessary to borrow*. Had I not thus acted, I should, on many occasions, have been forced to omit a good couplet, from the circumstance of its not making complete sense, when detached from the context; whereas, by taking only a part of the original couplet, and supplying a word or two from another source, I obtained what I wanted. It remains to say a few words relative to the marking of the feet in the KEY.- I have thought it wholly superfluous to mark the regular and principal feet, which every child can discover, and have confined my marks to poetic licences in the introduction of the alien or auxiliary feet, which are thus rendered more conspicuous. If, in doing this, I have perhaps, through haste or oversight, occasionally suffered a foot to pass, otherwise marked than a censorious critic might wish, I am willing to hope that such deviations are neither very numerous, nor likely to be Whoever will take the trouble of making the experiment, will find that he may often read many hundred lines, without gleaning a single distich, in every respect fit to be given as an exercise in versification. attended with any ill consequences to the youthful reader, as they will probably occur only in a few cases, which may fairly admit a difference of opinion, and where, though one person may condemn, another will approve. And, with respect to such cases as Many a, Virtuous, Happier, &c.-in which some prosodians would make dactyls or anapæsts, but I would make dissyllabic feet by the aid of synæresis I have sometimes marked such combinations as two syllables, sometimes as one; not choosing, by an invariable observance of the one or the other mode, either to force my own opinion upon the reader, or to give my unqualified sanction to a doctrine which I disapprove; and thus leaving him an opportunity of exercising his own judgement on a point in which he will perceive that I have not scrupulously studied uniformity, though I have clearly enough expressed my sentiments on the subject in page 50 of the Prosody, to which I refer him. Neither have I deened it necessary to be very particular in always marking a Pyrrhic at the close of the line, where the final pause and emphasis will render such foot almost an Iambus. Though I have, in some places, marked such feet, that I might not appear to have entirely overlooked that licence, I have perhaps as often left them unmarked; not thinking it of any consequence whether they were marked or not, as the youngest reader cau easily discover a Pyrrhic in that station, without having it pointed out to him. b I now conclude with a request, that, as this is (I believe) the first attempt which has yet been publicly made to introduce English versification into our school system and as absolute perfection cannot reasonably be expected in first attempts of any kindthe public will indulgently excuse whatever imperfections may be found to blemish my pages, and will give me credit for zeal at least, if not for complete success in the outset of my undertaking. Of this new Edition, I shall only say, that I have taken pains to improve my work, and hope it will enjoy a continuance of that approbation which was bestowed on it by the readers of the former very limited impresssion. May 10, 1816. J. CAREY. Addition to the remark on Growen, Grown, &c. in page 6. To a similar syncope we are indebted for the word Own, in the phrases, "My own," "Your own," &c. which (though considered by some grammarians as an adjective, and, in some dictionaries, most un-accountably marked as a substantive!) is, in reality, the contracted preterite participle of the verb Owe, viz. Owen, Ow'n, which, in other phrases, is still universally sounded as two distinct syllables, though improperly pronounced Owing, as the plural Shippen is corrupted to Shipping: ex. gr. "It is owing [instead of owen] to you, that this happens""There is money owing" [instead of owen.] |