A grammarian is never excusable on the ground of
good intentions. We demand from him, if from any one, rigorous
precision of style. But grant the design. Let us admit that our
author, following the example of all authors on English Prosody,
has, in defining versification at large, intended a definition
merely of the English. All these prosodists, we will say, reject the
spondee and pyrrhic. Still all admit the iambus, which consists of a
short syllable followed by a long; the trochee, which is the
converse of the iambus; the dactyl, formed of one long syllable
followed by two short; and the anapaest- two short succeeded by a
long. The spondee is improperly rejected, as I shall presently show.
The pyrrhic is rightfully dismissed. Its existence in either ancient
or modern rhythm is purely chimerical, and the insisting on so
perplexing a nonentity as a foot of two short syllables, affords,
perhaps, the best evidence of the gross irrationality and subservience
to authority which characterise our Prosody. In the meantime the
acknowledged dactyl and anapaest are enough to sustain my
proposition about the "alternation," etc, without reference to feet
which are assumed to exist in the Greek and Latin metres alone- for an
anapaest and a dactyl may meet in the same line, when, of course, we
shall have an uninterrupted succession of four short syllables.
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