And this excess of chimerical feet is perhaps the very least
of the scholastic supererogations. Ex uno disce omnia. The fact is
that quantity is a point in whose investigation the lumber of mere
learning may be dispensed with, if ever in any. Its appreciation is
universal. It appertains to no region, nor race, nor era in special.
To melody and to harmony the Greeks hearkened with ears precisely
similar to those which we employ for similar purposes at present,
and I should not be condemned for heresy in asserting that a
pendulum at Athens would have vibrated much after the same fashion
as does a pendulum in the city of Penn.
Verse originates in the human enjoyment of equality, fitness. To
this enjoyment, also, all the moods of verse, rhythm, metre, stanza,
rhyme, alliteration, the refrain, and other analagous effects, are
to be referred. As there are some readers who habitually confound
rhythm and metre, it may be as well here to say that the former
concerns the character of feet (that is arrangements of syllables)
while the latter has to do with the number of these feet. Thus by "a
dactylic rhythm" we express a sequence of dactyls. By "a dactylic
hexameter" we imply a line or measure consisting of six of these
dactyls.
To return to equality. Its idea embraces those of similarity,
proportion, identity, repetition, and adaptation or fitness.
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