1. The derivation of this vulgarism is ancient, and not very dignified. "Sewer" and "shore," meaning a drain, are, of course, the same word. It seems absurd, when we have so few vowels, to allow the distinctive sound of any of them to be lost, as it would be in this case, by the "o" and "u" becoming interchanged.

2. There is one decided advantage to the public which would accrue from the teaching of versification in schools. We should be saved the infliction of much nonsense, published under the name of poetry. For it is to be hoped that no man, who had been well-grounded in the mechanism of verse as a lad, would think of publishing in mature age what he would know were but school-exercises only, and not poems.

3. An instance of the contrary effect will be found in Tennyson's line—

Here the proper stress should be "breaki'ng," according to scansion, but the accent thrown back on the first syllable gives a sudden sort of halt suggestive of the fall of the cliff.

4. Yet this is not all that is requisite to make music. Browning, I think I may say, never repeats the same sound; Tennyson frequently does; yet the latter's verse has a better flow than the former's. But this may be the result of other arts employed by the Laureate.

5. The cÆsura in some cases falls at the end of the foot.

6. The name Pentameter (five-foot) is derived from the long syllables being incomplete feet, and counting together as one, so as to make five with the four dactyls. In anapÆstics and iambics the metre is a dipod, i.e., it includes two feet, so that an iambic dimeter contains not two but four iambics.

7. He, however, seems to have been curiously ignorant of the ever-changing nature of English pronunciation. When Pope rhymed "line" and "join," and "obey" and "tea," it was the fashion to pronounce "join" as "jine" and "tea" as "tay." Bysshe also finds fault with lines on points of accent, and condemns some in which "envy´," "e´ssay," "i´nsults," and "e´xpert" occur, being apparently unacquainted with the difference of accent, which is admissible in each instance; and which, in some, has now superseded the style in fashion in his time.

8. Alliteration is a means, not an end. So long as alliterative verse pleases the ear, and yet does not betray to its reader the cause of the pleasant sensation, it is an admirable addition to the beauty of the verse. But as soon as it attracts the reader's attention, as a tour de force, it is a blot, because it inflicts an injury on the poem by engaging the mind on the machinery instead of the matter. Instead of thinking how exquisite the poem is, we are wondering how often that clever contortionist, the poet, will fling his summersault of alliteration.

9. The spondee (two long syllables) can have no equivalent in accent, as it would need two accented syllables next to each other, which can only be used very exceptionally.

10. In the classic measures a long ( — ) is equivalent to two short ( ? ) quantities, in the English feet it is the unaccented syllables (which we may rudely consider the shorts) which are capable of resolution. In spite of this difference, however, it seems most simple to keep the old terms, and use the old formulÆ.

11. Various forms of stanza may be combined in one poem (though most usually in the ode only), provided regard be had to harmony and unity, so that the metres be not varied unsuitably or violently.

12. In couplets, the two lines, in triplets (with two exceptional forms) the three, rhyme together. In quatrains usually the alternate lines rhyme. As the lines of the stanza increase in number, the methods of rhyming of course vary.

13. See also Shelley's "Queen Mab."

14. This is the simple decasyllabic, the peculiarity being a division into stanzas of three lines.

15. It is a curious confirmation of my theory about the Cockney grounds for objection to this rhyme, that the author of a handbook who condemns "heart" and "art" as a rhyme, fails to see any fault in "dawn" and "morn," or in "applaud" and "aboard" as rhymes. Of course, where the "h" is mute as in "hour," it cannot rhyme with the simple vowel as in "our," sound being the test of rhyme, and the ear the only judge. A "rhyme to the eye" is an impossibility.

16. This does not apply to the generous use of a rhyme at the half-line to mark the cÆsural pause, as in this line—

Nor is there any objection—but rather the contrary—to the use of two rhyming words in a line, provided they are not identical with the final rhymes, as for example—

17. I would, however, warn the beginner not to adopt the license of loose rhyming, which in Barham is lost sight of amid the brightness of the wit.

18. This and similar words cannot (see Chap. VI.) stand at the end of serious verse. In comic verse it is different.

19. I have reprinted in the Appendix so much of the introductory matter of "The Young Poet's Guide" (on which this treatise is founded) as appears to me to contain hints that may be read with profit, even though it differs slightly from my views.

20. The absurdity of talking of perfect and imperfect rhymes is only equalled by that of speaking of good grammar and bad grammar. A shilling is a shilling—what the vulgar call "a bad shilling" is no shilling at all.—T.H.

21. In words ending in "y," with an accent on the antipenultimate, there should be no attempt to make "single" rhymes.—T.H.

22. The union of sound alone constitutes rhyme. You do not match colours by the nose, or sounds by the eye.—T.H.

23. But decidedly ought not to be.—T.H.

24. Here we have the old blunder of taking the licenses of poets as laws for versifiers.—T.H.

25. Why "pËa"?—T.H.

26. But it falls at end of the word—the English cÆsura never divides a word as the classic one does. In the second instance the "is" being enclitic is practically part of the word.—T.H.

27. Because he was writing words to an air.—T.H.