tecture (which is another kind, and may be styled the visible poetry of repose), the pressure upon that which really sustains is sometimes sought to be concealed, or converted into the semblance of its opposite, and the limb or the pillar made to appear to be rather drawn towards the ground than resting upon it, so in word-poetry too we have occasionally the exhibition of a similar feat. Instead of a strongly accented syllable, one taking only a very slight accent, or none at all, is made to fill the tenth place. One form, indeed, of this peculiarity of structure is extremely common, and is resorted to by all our poets as often for mere convenience as for any higher purpose, that, namely, in which the weak tenth syllable is the termination of a word of which the syllable having the accent has already done duty in its proper place in the preceding foot. It is in this way that, both in our blank and in our rhymed verse, the large classes of words ending in -ing, -ness, -ment, -y, etc., and accented on the antepenultimate, are made available in concluding so many lines. The same thing happens when we have at the end of the line a word accented on the penult and followed by an enclitic. But another case is more remarkable. This is when the weak or unaccented tenth syllable is not the final syllable of a word the accented syllable of which has already done service in the preceding foot, but a separate non-enclitic monosyllabic word, and frequently one, such as and, but, or, of, among the slightest and most rapidly uttered in the language. Such a construction of verse is perfectly legitimate and accordant with the principles of our English prosodical system; for, besides that the and, or, of, or if is not really a slighter syllable than the termination -ty or -ly, for instance, which is so frequently found in the same position, these and other similar monosyllables are constantly recognized, under the second of the above laws of modification, as virtually accented for the purposes of the verse in other places of the line. Still when a syllable so slight meets us in the place where the normal, natural, and customary rhythm demands the greatest pressure, the effect is always somewhat startling. This unexpectedness of effect, indeed, may be regarded as in many cases the end aimed at, and that which prompts or recommends the construction in question. And it does undoubtedly produce a certain variety and liveliness. It is fittest, therefore, for the lighter kinds of poetry. It is only there that it can without impropriety be made a characteristic of the verse. It partakes too much of the nature of a trick or a deception to be employed except sparingly in poetry of the manliest or most massive order. Yet there too it may be introduced now and then with the happiest effect, more especially in the drama, where variety and vivacity of style are so much more requisite than rhythmical fulness or roundness, and the form of dialogue, always demanding a natural ease and freedom, will justify even irregularities and audacities of expression which might be rejected by the more stately march of epic composition. It has something of the same bounding life which Ulysses describes Diomed as showing in “ the manner of his gait” : “He rises on the toe: that spirit of his In aspiration lifts him from the earth.” Two things are observable with regard to Shake speare's employment of this peculiar construction of verse : 1. It will be found upon an examination of his Plays that there are some of them in which it occurs very rarely, or perhaps scarcely at all, and others in which it is abundant. It was certainly a habit of writing which grew upon him after he once gave in to it. Among the Plays in which there is little or none of it are some of those known to be among his earliest ; and some that were undoubtedly the product of the latest period of his life are among those that have the most of it. It is probable that the different stages in the frequency with which it is indulged in correspond generally to the order of succession in which the Plays were written. A certain progress of style may be traced more or less distinctly in every writer; and there is no point of style which more marks a poetic writer than the character of his versification. It is this, for instance, which furnishes us with the most conclusive or at least the clearest evidence that the play of King Henry the Eighth cannot have been written throughout by Shakespeare. It is a point of style which admits of precise appreciation to a degree much beyond most others; and there is no other single indication which can be compared with it as an element in determining the chronology of the Plays. It is therefore extremely difficult to believe that the three Roman plays, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, can all belong to the same period (Malone assigns them severally to the years 1607, 1608, and 1610), seeing that the second and third are among the plays in which verses having an unemphatic monosyllable in the tenth place are of most frequent occur rence, while the only instances of anything of the kind in the first are, I believe, the following: 54. “I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.” “ And Cassius is So get the start of the majestic world.” "All the interim is Have an immediate freedom of repeal.” Have all true rites and awful ceremonies.” 406. “But yesterday the word of Cæsar might Have stood against the world.” Not only does so rare an indulgence in it show that the habit of this kind of versification was as yet not fully formed, but in no one of these seven instances have we it carried nearly so far as it repeatedly is in some other Plays :-be, and is, and should, and may, and shall, and might, all verbs, though certainly not emphatic, will yet any of them allow the voice to rest upon it with a considerably stronger pressure than such lightest and slightest of “winged words as and, or, but, if, that (the relative or conjunction), who, which, than, as, of, to, with, for, etc. 2. In some of the Plays at least the prosody of many of the verses constructed upon the principle under consideration has been misconceived by every editor, including the most recent. Let us take, for example, the play of Coriolanus, in which, as has just been observed, such verses are very numerous. Here, in the first place, we have a good many instances in which the versification is correctly exhibited in the First Folio, and, of course, as might be expected, in all subsequent editions, such as- Only in strokes, but with thy grim looks and The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds.”—i. 4. “I got them in my country's service, when Some certain of your brethren roared and ran.”—ii. 3. “The thwartings of your dispositions, if You had not showed them how you were disposed.”-iii. 2. My friends of noble touch, when I am forth.”-iv. 2. “Permitted by our dastard nobles, who Have all forsook me."—iv. 5. “ Mistake me not, to save my life ; for if I had feared death, of all the men i' the world.”-iv. 5. “Had we no quarrel else* to Rome, but that Thou art thence banished, we would muster all.”—iv. 5. “You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and To melt the city leads upon your pates.”_iv. 6. “Your temples burned in their cement; and Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined.”—iv. 6. * The reading of all the copies is “No other quarrel else;" but it is evident that other is merely the author's first word, which he must be supposed to have intended to strike out, if he did not actually do so, when he resolved to substitute else. The prosody and the sense agree in admonishing us that both words cannot stand. So in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 10, in the line “ To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall;" young is evidently only the word first intended to be used, and never could be meant to be retained after the expression Roman boy was adopted. |