marked changes are probable in the not-distant future; but mainly to point out that which being inevitable is substantially achieved already.

THE FORM OF POETRY.-If we have arrived at a definite idea of what Poetry is and may be, we are prepared to consider its form.

So far as our discussion is concerned, language may be divided into two kinds-prose and verse. These terms, it will be noted, are used in a quasi-technical way, for convenience.

PROSE is the ordinary language of narration, proceeding, as the word implies-being derived from prorsa or prosa (oratio being understood)-straight forward, directly on, as the fact or thought requires, without turning or stopping until the expression is effected. It stands in contrast with VERSE-derived from versus, of vertere, to turn— which turns at the end of a certain number of feet. Prose aims primarily to inform and to convince; Poetry to do these, incidentally, but something more-that something more being to elevate and to spiritualize.

Elsewhere we shall take occasion to explain our dissent from the theory of those who hold-as Coleridge held with some ability, and Poe maintained with brilliant plausibility—that the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of pleasure.

Verse, as the antithesis of prose, means rhythmical language; that is, language with a regular-not invariably uniform-succession of syllables.

For convenience we shall call the accented syllables strong and the unaccented ones weak. These words are preferable to long and short, for the reason that time is really not the thing measured, nor even at all indicated in them.

It is foreign to our purpose to even enter upon the discussion of the question whether, as Mitford holds, in his Inquiry into the Principles of Harmony in Languages, accent is merely "an increased sharpness of tone," or, as Wallis, with whom Guest agrees, assumes it to be, an increase of loudness." Accent, as we have it in English, is a suffi

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ciently well-defined thing to pass without such discussion.

RHYTHM, as here used, means the movement of the verse.

We

In order to fix this definition, which is an important one, we shall attempt to illustrate its meaning at once. Made mad with too much learning, the prosodists have filled their books with the traditions of the ancients by reproducing in English most of the cumbersome machinery of the Greek and Latin scanning, engrafting upon our elastic and accent-moving tongue the artificialities of the metres that belong to the quantity-measured classics. We propose to do the reverse of this. dismiss, at the outset, as unnecessary for our purpose, the long and learned-looking array of spondees, pyrrhics, trochees, dactyls, tribrachs and amphimacers with the endless but never nameless array of metres-dimeters, trimeters, Adonics, ithyphallics, Hipponacteans, and the rest; the monocolons and the dicolons, and all the lumber of the old-time prosodies, clumsily engrafted on ours, by erudite prosodists whose calcium lights of learning have done far more to dazzle and

bewilder than to clear the sight of the young student. We shall retain only so much of the classic phraseology as we need in order to make plain the naturally easy subject of versification.

Rhythm, we say, is the movement of the verse; and it receives its character-and names, as we shall see by and by-from the feet used. There are two pure rhythms in English-the iambic and the anapestic. The iambic rhythm comes of all iambs, as in

Love rules the court, | the camp, | the grove, |
And men below, and saints | above; |

or of a preponderance of iambs, as in

Alone | on a wide, wide sea. |

In like manner the anapestic rhythm comes of all anapests, as in

With a smile on her lips | and a tear | in her eye; | or of a preponderance of anapests, as in By the winds | which tell of the violets' birth. |

There are no other pure rhythms in the language; but the blendings and combinations of these two give us many varieties.

In claiming this preeminence for rhythm as a feature of verse, it is manifest that we

shall be called upon to exclude the other usually accepted elements of poetical language, such as metre, stanza and terminal rhyme. This we shall attempt to do in the order named.

At this point, however, before proceeding to consider the excluded elements just named, let us direct a moment's attention to rhythm itself, to which we have given so prominent a place in our discussion.

Rhythm seems to us to be the natural language of poetry; that is to say, poetical thought, and especially poetical feeling, seem to flow rhythmically, and when it flows into words—or, more exactly, through words— these fall into rhythm. When this occurs in prose it is exceptional; that is to say, a temporary elevation of feeling or thought may burst forth into poetical utterance. That is because the feeling or thought is poetical, and it follows, of course, that the utterance itself is poetry.

There is hardly a prose writer of good English-unless we except such men as Carlyle, whose good English is peculiar, to say the least of it-that does not at some time rise