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- such an exposition of quantity, as nobody could either mistake or gainsay; but, as the following platform will show, his treatment of this point is singularly curt and incomplete. He is so sparing of words as not even to have given a definition of quantity. He opens his subject thus: "Versification is the proper arrangement of words in a line according to their quantity, and the disposition of these lines in couplets, stanzas, or in blank verse, in such order, and according to such rules, as are sanctioned by usage.—A Foot is a combination of two or more syllables, whether long or short.—A Line is one foot, or more than one.—The Quantity of each word depends on its accent. In words of more than one syllable, all accented syllables are long, and all unaccented syllables are short. Monosyllables are long or short, according to the following Rules:—1st. All Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, and Participles are long.—2nd. The articles are always short.—3rd, The Pronouns are long or short, according to emphasis.—4th. Interjections and Adverbs are generally long, but sometimes made short by emphasis.—5th. Prepositions and Conjunctions are almost always short, but sometimes made long by emphasis."—English Versification, p. 13. None of these principles of quantity are unexceptionable; and whoever follows them implicitly, will often differ not only from what is right, but from their author himself in the analysis of verses. Nor are they free from important antagonisms. "Emphasis," as here spoken of, not only clashes with "accent," but contradicts itself, by making some syllables long and some short; and, what is more mysteriously absurd, the author says, "It frequently happens that syllables long by Quantity become short by emphasis."—Everett's Eng. Versif., 1st Ed., p. 99. Of this, he takes the first syllable of the following line, namely, "the word bids," to be an example:
"Bĭds mĕ līve bŭt tŏ hōpe fŏr pŏstērĭtў's prāise."
- In the American Review, for May, 1848, Everett's System of Versification is named as "an apology and occasion"—not for a critical examination of this or any other scheme of prosody—but for the promulgation of a new one, a rival theory of English metres, "the principles and laws" of which the writer promises, "at an other time" more fully "to develop." The article referred to is entitled, "The Art of Measuring Verses." The writer, being designated by his initials, "J. D. W.," is understood to be James D. Whelpley, editor of the Review. Believing Everett's principal doctrines to be radically erroneous, this critic nevertheless excuses them, because he thinks we have nothing better! "The views supported in the work itself," says his closing paragraph, "are not, indeed, such as we would subscribe to, nor can we admit the numerous analyses of the English metres which it contains to be correct; yet, as it is as complete in design and execution as anything that has yet appeared on the subject, and well calculated to excite the attention, and direct the inquiries, of English scholars, to the study of our own metres, we shall even pass it by without a word of criticism."—American Review, New Series, Vol. I, p. 492.
- Everett, although, as we have seen, he thought proper to deny that the student of English versification had any well authorized "rules to guide him," still argues that, "The laws of our verse are just as fixed, and may be as clearly laid down, if we but attend to the usage of the great Poets, as are the laws of our syntax."—Preface, p. 7. But this critic, of the American Review, ingenious though he is in many of his remarks, flippantly denies that our English Prosody has either authorities or principles which one ought to respect; and accordingly cares so little whom he contradicts, that he is often inconsistent with himself. Here is a sample: "As there are no established authorities in this art, and, indeed, no acknowledged principles—every rhymester being permitted to invent his own method, and write by instinct or imitation—the critic feels quite at liberty to say just what he pleases, and offer his private observations as though these were really of some moment."—Am. Rev., Vol. i, p. 484. In respect to writing, "to invent," and to "imitate," are repugnant ideas; and so are, after a "method," and "by instinct." Again, what sense is there in making the "liberty" of publishing one's "private observations" to depend on the presumed absence of rivals? That the author did not lack confidence in the general applicability of his speculations, subversive though they are of the best and most popular teaching on this subject, is evident from the following sentence: "We intend, also, that if these principles, with the others previously expressed, are true in the given instances, they are equally true for all languages and all varieties of metre, even to the denial that any poetic metres, founded on other principles, can properly exist."—Ib., p. 491
- J. D. W. is not one of those who discard quantity and supply accent in expounding the nature of metre; and yet he does not coincide very nearly with any of those who have heretofore made quantity the basis of poetic numbers. His views of the rhythmical elements being in several respects peculiar, I purpose briefly to notice them here, though some of the peculiarities of this new "Art of Measuring Verses," should rather be quoted under the head of Scanning, to which they more properly belong. "Of every species of beauty," says this author, "and more especially of the beauty of sounds, continuousness is the first element; a succession of pulses of sound becomes agreeable, only when the breaks or intervals cease to be heard." Again: "Quantity, or the division into measures of time, is a second element of verse; each line must be stuffed out with sounds, to a certain fullness and plumpness, that will sustain the voice, and force it to dwell upon the sounds."—Rev., p. 485. The first of these positions is subsequently contradicted, or very largely qualified, by the following: "So, the line of significant sounds, in a verse, is also marked by accents, or pulses, and divided into portions called feet. These are necessary and natural for the very simple reason that continuity by itself is tedious; and the greatest pleasure arises from the union of continuity with variety. [That is, with "interruption," as he elsewhere calls it!] In the line,
'Full màny a tàle theír mùsic tèlls,'
