sometimes in the merging of two words into one, as 'twas, thou'rt, I've. The mark of elision is very carelessly used in the printed editions of Shakespeare and Milton. Thus in the folio Shakespeare we read in Macbeth II. 3. 92 Th' expedition of my violent love where the metre requires 'the expedition'; and in Pickering's Milton (Comus 596) we read Self-fed and self-consum'd: if this fail where the metre requires 'consumed.' Slurring or glide covers the whole scale between entire elision and distinct pronunciation. Here too the printed mark of elision is often very misleading. Thus in Milton we read T'adore the conqueror | who now | beholds. Yet the actual omission of the vowel in all such passages is not only unnecessary, but it is positively hurtful to the metre. In the first line there is no reason why we should not treat 'to adore' as an anapaest, and so in the second and third lines. The principle of slurring is, in some respects, carried further by Milton than by any other of our poets: compare The one winding, the other straight and left | between1. Anguish and doubt | and fear and sorrow and pain. P. L. 1. 558. 1 This may have been imitated from Shakespeare's Rape of Lucr. 172. Of rainbows and starry eyes. | The waters thus. P. L. VII. 446. P. L. II. 1021. So he with difficulty and labour hard. He is far, however, from the license of the old ballads and of some modern poets, of which we shall see examples further on. The additions we have been considering so far have all been within the foot; but addition may also be made of a short unaccented syllable outside the foot at the end of the line, giving what is called a feminine ending, as in Pope's What can enno ble sots | or slaves | or cow (ards? And he who now | to sense | now non sense lean (ing Still more rarely an emphatic monosyllable, as in Fletcher's lines quoted by Darley in his edition of that poet (Introduction xli.): Looks not | Evadne | beauteous with these rites (now? The seas and un frequented deserts where the snow (dwells. This superfluous syllable is much more common in blank than in rhyming verse. By Shakespeare it is used 1 This slurring of the final y before a following vowel is almost confined to Milton, who in this, as in other points of metre, was much influenced by the practice of the Italian poets. The effect may be loosely described as a change of the vowel semi-vowel prefixed to the following word, as starr'yeyes, and so w in sorr'wand. into a more frequently in his later than in his earlier dramas : thus, while in Love's Labour's Lost it occurs only once in 64 lines, and in Romeo and Juliet only once in 18 lines, it is found once in five lines in Hamlet, and once in 3 lines in Cymbeline'. Nor is it only one syllable which may be thus appended to the line. We find two light unaccented syllables in Marlowe, as Faustus, these books, | thy wit | and our | expe(rience. in Shakespeare, as My lord, I came to see your father's fu(neral; in Coleridge Unless he took | compassion on | this wretch(edness; in Shelley But I was bolder, for | I chid | Olym(pio; in Tennyson But love and nature, these | are two | more ter(rible 2. The addition of the extra syllable at the end of the iambic line may be brought under the following general law: An unaccented syllable, preceding the initial accent, or following the final accent of the normal line, is treated by 1 It is still more common in Fletcher, as seen in parts of Henry VIII. which are generally attributed to him. See also the remarks in Darley's Introduction to Fletcher, p. xxxviii. 2 See Chapters pp. 199, 212. Fletcher goes beyond all other poets in this license. Compare the lines quoted in Darley's Introduction Have ye to swear | that ye | will see | it_ex(ecuted. No sir, | I dare not leave | her to that solitariness. Here, no doubt, the syllables are slurred, so that what is audible is scarcely more than sol't'riness. the poets as non-essential to the rhythm, and may be added or omitted without necessarily changing the metre. We shall see other examples of this in dealing with anacrusis at the beginning of trochaic or dactylic lines, with initial truncation of iambic and anapaestic lines, and with final truncation of trochaic and dactylic lines. Feminine rhythm is not confined to English poetry. It is found in the old French and Italian metres from which the English heroic was borrowed': and in these the superfluous syllable is allowed also in the middle of the line. This is known as the feminine caesura. It is a question among writers on prosody whether the same liberty is allowed in English metre. There can be no doubt that a superfluous syllable is frequently found before the middle pause, as in Milton's That cruel serp(ent |. On me | exercise most. P. L. X. 927. Tongue-dough ty gi(ant, | how dost thou prove | me these? 2 2 2 о Samson, 1181. The point at issue is, whether this syllable should be reckoned in the foot, or outside of it; for it is quite possible to scan as follows: Tongue-doughty giant, how | dost thou prove | me these? with an anapaest in the fourth place. Or some might prefer to explain the metre by introducing a foot containing three syllables with the stress on the central syllable, as 'enormous.' The Greek term amphibrach, properly denoting a long syllable preceded and followed by a short syllable, has been used by some writers to denote such a foot. The assumption of such a foot 1 See Zarncke's Essay on the Five-foot Iambic line quoted in my Chapters on Metre, pp. 296 foll. ed. 2. makes possible an alternative explanation of many of the lines in which we have found an anapaest: thus we might divide Tennyson's The sound of many | a heavily galloping foot, so as to give three amphibrachs instead of three anapaests, and Shelley's The eloquent blood | told an | ineffable tale, making two amphibrachs instead of two anapaests; but the latter gives, I think, a far more energetic rhythm1. And the supposition of the amphibrach fails in the case of initial anapaest, such as To betray the head y hus bands, rob | the easy. B. JONSON. O O I We may boldly spend upon | the hope of what In election for the Roman empery2. T. Andr. I. 1. 20; and also where an initial trochee precedes an anapaest in the 2nd foot, as Tweaks me by the nose, | gives me the lie i' the throat. To return to the middle pause: one chief reason for maintaining Shakespeare's use of the extra syllable before a pause in the middle of the line, i.e. at the end of the 2nd or 3rd foot, is that he frequently employs broken lines of this type, in which it is impossible to explain the superfluous syllable by supposing it to form part of a following anapaest. Thus in Lear 1. 4. 203, Goneril's speech ends with the broken line Will call discreet | proceed (ing. 1 See below on pp. 51 foll. 2 See above, pp. 13 foll. |