poetry. We retain the word verse, however, with its proper meaning, minus the usual idea of uniform or approximately uniform lengths in the verses. That is, we use it of verses, whether they are uniform or not. We have given our idea of the meaning of the poetical and of rhythm. Let us, then, before going farther, define in brief a few other terms which we shall have frequent occasion to use: Poetry is the poetical expressed in rhythmical language. A Poem is a thought or a group of related thoughts expressed in rhythmical language, a piece of poetry. A Stanza, or strophe, is a subdivision of a poem. Present use makes this division arbitrary-or, rather, arithmetical. Correct use would be to divide according to the nature of the subject, as we divide prose into paragraphs, the stanza and the paragraph being one and the same. A System is a poem, or a section of a poem, written in uniform rhythm. A lyric is usually all of one system. A Verse is a subdivision of a stanza, or a smaller subdivision of a poem. The length of a verse depends, in prevailing usage, upon the number of syllables or of fect; but it should depend upon the thought in the way that sentences do. A verse is made up, whichever way we reckon it, of one foot or more. A Foot is a number of syllables, one or more, but never more than four, and usually two or thrce, uttered in one impulse of the voice. A foot consists of one accented syllable preceded-in every case except the mone or foot of one syllable-by one, two or three unaccented syllables. This definition is important, and marks our main departure from the guidance of the prosody books. A Syllable is a subdivision of a word, or a word when a monosyllable, and is either accented or unaccented; that is, either strong or weak. Let us now review these elements-verses, feet, and syllables-in reverse order, beginning at the smallest. SYLLABLES.—Accent is only to a limited extent arbitrary, the stress in speech generally falling upon the one syllable in a word that is the strongest-the strongest in its liter al elements; although occasionally the meaning calls for an arbitrary exception. In this purview, syllables are the elements of feet. The one constant element in every foot is one strong syllable. The numerical length of the foot is determined by the number-one, two or three-of weak syllables that intervene ; the temporal length, by the character of the thought. FEET. These are made up of syllables. The combinations to form feet are made irrespective of those into words, although occasionally the foot and the word correspond. The accentual laws of a language determine the numerical length of the feet. In English, these laws require that every word of more than four syllables shall have a second · ary accent of well-defined force, the effect of which is that the greatest number of syllables in a foot is four-one strong preceded by three weak ones. It is out of this law of accent, which rests upon anatomy, that this limit of feet comes. There are four feet, each accented upon its last syllable. These are-using the ordinary marks of quantity for convenience--the fol lowing: The Mone, The Iamb, The Anapest, The Fourth Pæon. These are important in the following order: The Iamb, The Anapest, The Fourth Pæon. As to the quantity or time-we do not care to pause here to discuss the distinction between quantity and time-these feet are all equal; equal, that is to say, when used together in the same system, but not otherwise. They are unequal, each and severally, under conditions demanding differences. Such conditions are different sentiments expressed; different dramatic situations; different events intervening, or different "business," as theatrical language has it-the wail of a breaking heart being set to a time different from the chirrupings of childish glee, and a military command different from the breathless message of a flying courier. Each and all of these may be expressed in iambs, for example, but the iambs count for unequal times or quantities in the different places. The iamb and the anapest alone are rhythm-yielding feet. The mone and the fourth pæon are variety-yielding merely, being useful to interrupt monotony, to impart a pleasing variety, and to give onomatopoetic or like analogous effects. Let us consider these four feet in the order of their importance: The IAMB (-) has one weak syllable before its accent, as in the name itself, and in such words as begin, combine, and depart. The invention of this foot and its rhythm is attributed to Archilochus of Paros, who lived about 750 B.C.; with about as much reason apparently, as we might attribute the "invention" of accent in the Greek language to Aristophanes of Byzantium, 264 B.C. The iambic rhythm appears in "Uplift a thousand voices full | and sweet;" in "So may, perchance, | A meteor glance | At midnight o'er | Some ruined pile | A little while; | And then no more. | " |