There is one point, which, in my summary of the processes, I have
purposely forborne to touch; because this point, being the most
important of all on account of the immensity of error usually involved
in its consideration, would have led me into a series of detail
inconsistent with the object of a summary.
Every reader of verse must have observed how seldom it happens
that even any one line proceeds uniformly with a succession, such as I
have supposed, of absolutely equal feet; that is to say, with a
succession of iambuses only, or of trochees only, or of dactyls
only, or of anapaests only, or of spondees only. Even in the most
musical lines we find the succession interrupted. The iambic
pentameters of Pope, for example, will be found on examination,
frequently varied by trochees in the beginning, or by (what seem to
be) anapaests in the body of the line.
oh thou / whate / ver ti / tle please / thine ear /
Dean Dra / pier Bick / erstaff / or Gull / iver /
Whether / thou choose / Cervan / tes' / se / rious air /
or laugh / and shake / in Rab / elais' ea / sy chair /
Were any one weak enough to refer to the Prosodies for the solution of
the difficulty here, he would find it solved as usual by a rule,
stating the fact (or what it, the rule, supposes to be the fact),
but without the slightest attempt at the rationale.
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