P R 
 
 3085 
 
 B7 
 
 1886 
 
 MAIN 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 SHAKSPERE'S VERSIFICATION 
 
 WITH APPENDIX ON THE VERSE TESTS, AND A 
 SHORT DESCRIPTIV BIBLIOGRAFY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE H. BROWNE, A.M. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GINN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1886. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 IHAKSPERE'S VERSIFICATION. 
 
 WITH APPENDIX ON THE VERSE TESTS, AND A 
 SHORT DESCRIPTIV BIBLIOGRAFY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE H. BROWNE, A.M. 
 
 , EPITTON, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GINN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1886. 
 

 Copyright, 1884, 
 BY GINN, HEATH, AND Co. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
B7 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE following notes were hastily put together, just before an examination, 
 for the purpose of supplying my own pupils with a concise orderly summary 
 of the main features of Shakspere's Versification, and were preservd with the 
 hope that in future classes I might be relievd of unnecessary expenditure 
 of time upon what is a secondary, but by no means unimportant, subject in 
 teaching Shakspere.* A few extra copies were printed from a desire to share 
 the possibilities of this relief with other teachers, who, deploring the unscien- 
 tific statement and chaotic ' arrangement ' of existing works on the subject, 
 may likewise hav been forct unwillingly to omit the subject altogether. 
 Of course, whatever value an outline like this may hav will depend mainly 
 upon the accuracy and efiectivness of the illustrations. The most useful 
 portion of the little pamphlet, therefore, will prove to be the blank pages, 
 which hav been inserted for the reader to record his own examples on and 
 to correct any misquotations which may hav escapd the very careful revision 
 at the University Press. 
 
 G. H. B. 
 CAMBRIDGE, February, 1884. 
 
 * It is needless to say that I hav drawn freely from ABBOTT'S Shakespearean Grammar and 
 ELLIS'S Early English Pronunciation. Further illustrativ matter may be found in those 
 works ; also in W. SIDNEY WALKER'S Versification of Shakespeare (London 1854) ; and in 
 his Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare, 3 vols. (London, I860). 0. BA- 
 THURST'S Changes in Shake spear e^s Versification (1857) is now out of print. The student of 
 phonetics needs not to be reminded of the immense advantage familiarity with the "phonetic 
 point of view" gives a student of prosody; nor the teacher of language phonetically, of the 
 impossibility of efiectivly substituting arbitrary symbols for oral instruction. Some gain, 
 however, may perhaps be made by following up, in the books quoted in the notes, the hints 
 there thrown out. The best general work is SIEVERS' Grundzttge der Phonetik (Leipzig, 1881). 
 The first chapter of STORM'S Englisclie Philologie (Heilbronn, 1881) contains excellent state- 
 ments and criticisms of the best works on general phonetics from Merkel and Briicke to Henry 
 Sweet. SWEET'S Handbook of Phonetics (London, 1877) is the most available book in Eng- 
 lish. (MELVILLE BELL is already antiquated. ) The latest and best summary of the main fea- 
 tures of this youngest of the modern sciences is in an article by MORITZ TRAUTMANN, Anglia, T. 
 688-598. More especially applicable to the points brought up in these notes is an excellent 
 article by the same on the r sounds in English, in Anglia, III. 209. Those who still look with 
 suspicion upon the intrusion of "phonetics," and shrink from " phonetic spellings" (even in 
 ''ustrations) because they lack dictionary authority, are most respectfully referrd to the New 
 'iglish Dictionary, the first part of which has recently been publisiit. 
 
 224614 
 
SHAKSPERE'S YEKSIFICATION. 
 
 " The English heroic verse is usually stated to consist of ten syllables : 
 it is better divided into five groups, each of which theoretically consists of 
 two syllables, of which the second only is accented. . . . Practically, many 
 of the groups are allowed to consist of three syllables, two of them being 
 unaccented.* . . . The number of syllables may therefore be greater than 
 ten,t while the accents may be, and most generally are, less than five.J 
 If there be an accent at the end of the third and fifth group, or at the end of 
 the second and fourth, other accents may be distributed almost at pleasure. 
 The last group may also have one or two unaccented syllables after its last 
 accent." ELLIS, Essentials of Phonetics, p. 77 (1847). || 
 
 Now Shakspere's Sonnets are remarkably melodious, and conform to the 
 strictest rules of rhythm and metre. The dramatic poetry, on the other hand, 
 
 * " The limit of trisyllabic substitution is three feet out of five." J. B. MAYOR, Phil. Soc. 
 Trans., 1875-76, p. 412. 
 
 t " A verse may often have more than ten syllables, and more or less than five accents, but 
 it must carry so much sound as shall be a satisfactory equivalent for ten syllables, and must 
 have its accents arranged so as to content an ear prepared for five." J. A. SYMONDS, Fort- 
 nightly Review, Dec., 1874. 
 
 $ Abbott (453 a) states that about one line in three has the full number of emphatic ac- 
 cents ; about two in four have four, and one out of fifteen, three. It is of more importance to 
 remember, (1.) that the first foot almost always has an emphatic accent ; (2.) that two unem- 
 phatic accents rarely, if ever, come together ; and (3.) that there is generally an emphatic accent 
 on the third or fourth foot. 
 
 " The true rule, I- suspect, is that you may invert the place of the accent (substitute 
 
 for ) in any group except the last, provided you don't do it in two together." F. J. 
 
 FDRNIVALL, N. Sh. Soc. Trans., 1874, 1. 27. 
 
 || Cf. E. Eng. Pron., p. 333 (1869): " In the modern verse of five measures, there must 
 be a principal stress on the last syllable of the second and fourth measures, or of the first and 
 fourth, or of the third and some other measure. There is also a stress upon the last syllable 
 of the fifth measure, but if any one of the three conditions above stated are satisfied, the verse 
 is complete." 
 
 " Is it not better to allow that three out of the five feet may be >-, without laying down 
 the law as to the order in which they may come ? If I were disposed to make any more definite 
 rule, I should prefer to say that in general it would be found that the fifth, and either the sec- 
 ond or third foot, had the final accent." J. B. MAYOR, Phil. Soc. Trans., 1876, p. 452. 
 " The chief defect in the rules is in regard to the fifth measure. The general condition is that 
 the last syllable should not be weaker than the preceding syllable or syllables, and that, when 
 it is actually weaker, it should be at least longer or heavier." ELLIS, ib. p. 464. 
 
is naiur&Uy mo^e irr?gv-l^r and cjivernfied ; for here the monotonous recur- 
 rence of a uniform' ten-syllaDle line' with five regular accents would be par- 
 ticularly inexpressive and offensive. The masterly art and delicate ry thmical 
 feeling with which Shakspere avoided this monotony make him the most 
 musical of all writers of blank verse. Of course, the most truly characteristic 
 features of his inimitable rythm defy analysis ; but for the very reason that 
 Shakspere was so sure a master, he did not, in his self-sufficient independence 
 of metrical restraint, arbitrarily ignore all metrical laws. " Shakspere never 
 mangles the type of his blank verse, consequently in every line five rythmic 
 accents are always present or accounted-for : and it is in his method of 
 ' accounting-for * them that Shakspere's mastery is so apparent, for it is the 
 method of common speech, and his verse forever crowds the firm fabric of the 
 type, as a canvas, with all the rythmical figures of every-day utterance." 
 (SIDNEY LANIER, Science of English Verse, p. 215.) But the every-day utter- 
 ance of Shakspere's time was in many particulars very different from our 
 common speech. It is necessary, therefore, to realize something of the 
 changd conditions of accent, pronunciation, etc., of Elizabethan English be- 
 fore we can approach the subject of rythmic versification intelligently. Of 
 these diversified conditions, the following may be mentiond as contributing 
 most to the variety and beauty of Shakspere's dramatic verse : 1. The 
 csesural pause. 2. The place of the accent. 3. Many syllables are con- 
 tracted, now uncontracted. 4. Many syllables are expanded, not now allow- 
 able. 
 
 I. CAESURA. 
 
 1. The accent after a pause is frequently on the first syllable. 
 
 Feed and regard him not. A're you a man ? Mcb. iii. 4. 58, et seep. 
 Particularly at the beginning of the line. 
 
 Rumble thy be*lly full ! Spit fire ! Spout rain ! K. L. iii. 2. 14. 
 
 2. An extra syllable is frequently added before a pause, especially at the 
 end of a line.* 
 
 'T is not alone my inky cloak, good moth-er. H. i. 2. 77. 
 
 We '11 have a swashing and a martial outside. A. Y. i. 3. 122. 
 
 For mine own safeties ; you may be rightly just. Mcb. iv. 3. 30. 
 
 For goodness dares not che'ck thee ; wear thoii thy wrongs, fb. iv. 3. 33. 
 
 With all the honors on my brother : whereon. T. i. 2. 127. 
 
 The extra syllable, however, is rarely a monosyllable : 
 
 * Strictly speaking, there is no such thing in rythm as a really " extra" syllable ; what- 
 ever time value there is in the bar is distributed among all the sounds in that bar, whether 
 they be one, three, or none, that is, rests. For the identity of this variation with Chaucer a 
 verse, see page 33, Ex. (4) ; and cf. p. 31, note. 
 
Cromwell, I charge thce, fling away ambf tion : 
 
 By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, 
 
 The image of his maker, hope to win by 't? H 8 iii. 2. 441.* 
 
 3. Two extra syllables are sometimes allowd, if unemphatic, before a 
 pause, especially at the end of the line. (These, however, are usually con- 
 tracted (cf. III. 5, 6, 7, etc., below) ; there are of course but five accents. 
 Vid. 2, note, and cf. V., below.) 
 
 Look where he comes ! not poppy nor mandragora. O. iii. 3. 330. 
 
 Is not so Estimable, profitable neither. M. V. i. 3. 167. 
 
 Peruse the letter. Nothing almost sees miracles 
 
 But misery. K. L. ii. 2. 172 ; Ib. i. 1. 225. 
 
 I dare avouch it, sir; what, fffty followers ? Ib. ii. 4. 240. 
 
 As you are old and reverend, you should be wise. Ib. i. 4. 261. 
 
 Age is unnecessary ; on my knees I beg. Ib. ii. 4. 157. 
 
 So, manacZes, Cor. i. 9. 57; ve"r%, Ib. v. 2. 18; jfalousy, H5 v. 2. 491; re'com- 
 pense, T. C. iii. 3. 8 ; follow her, A. Y. iii. 5. 49; dieted, Cor. i. 9. 52; unmanwerfy, 
 K. L. i. 1. 147. 
 
 II. ACCENT.f 
 
 1. Some words, mostly dissyllabic, especially verbs, have the accent 
 farther back than at present. ABBOTT, Gr., 492 ; ELLIS, E. Eng. Pron., 
 930, 931. 
 
 The gentle archbishop of York is up 
 
 With well-appointed powers. 2 H* i. 1. 119. 
 
 I talk not of your soul : our compelled sins 
 
 Stand more for number than account. M. M. ii. 4. 57. 
 
 My conceal'd lady to her cancell'd love. R. J. iii. 3. 98. 
 
 Good even to my ghostly confessor. R. J. ii. 6. 21. 
 
 Let it work; 
 
 For 't is the sport to have the e"nginer 
 Hoist with his own petar. H. iii. 4, 203. 
 So, ploner, Ib. i. 5. 162; mutiners, Cor. i. 1. 255. 
 
 Labienus hath with his Parthian force 
 Extended Asia from Euphrates. A. C. i. 2. 106. 
 
 * Not Shatcspere's. The enumeration of these redundant syllables in H8 enabled Mr. 
 Spedding, as early as 1850, to separate Fletcher's work from Shakspere's. Vid. N. Sh. Soc. 
 Trans., I., Appendix, p. 14. 
 
 t While it may not be necessary, evn for critical students, to read a permanent classic like 
 Shakspere with his own pronunciation (which is now fairly well made out, cf. Ellis, E. Eng. 
 Pron., Cap. VIII. 8), it is important for all to read him metrically ; and when we do aright, 
 we find, not that Shakspere himself changd the accent " for the sake of the metre," but that 
 since his time the regular accent of many words Ms changd. So with the resolutions, so 
 calld ; it is we moderns who hav done the changing, by reading as one syllable what in 
 Shakspere's time was two. And no observing student can fail to notice in the spokn lan- 
 gnage of modern poetry many slurrd contractions and other apparent irregularities of Shak- 
 spere's verse. It is when we try to print them that they seem " forced and unnatural " 
 
8 
 
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, 
 Hath motion. Son. 114. (Walker, LVII.) 
 Than twentj' silly-ducking observants. K. L. ii. 2. 109. 
 Ay, do, perseVer, counterfeit sad looks. M. N. D. iii. 2. 237. 
 So, H. i. 5. 162; perseverance, Mcb. iv. 3. 93. 
 
 At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa. P. v. 3. 4. 
 
 Cf. delectable, R2 ii. 3. 7; detestable, K. J. iii. 4. 29; horizon, 3 H<5 iv. 7.81; 
 implorators, H. i. 3. 129; maintain, 1 H6 i. 1. 71; mature, K. L. iv. 6. 228; plebeians, 
 Cor. v. 4. 39; A. C. iv. 12. 34; mankind, T. of A. iv. 1. 40; perspective, A. W. v. 
 3. 48; pursuit, Son. 143; purveyor, Mcb. i. 6. 22; receptacle, R. J. iv. 3. 39; relapse, 
 H5 iv. 3. 107; successors, H 8 i. 1. 60. 
 
 2. Some words have the accent nearer the end than with us now. (" Latin 
 [French] dissyllabic derivatives are oxytone." BEN JONSON.) ABBOTT, 
 490; ELLIS, 930, 931. 
 
 I say without characters fame lives long. R 3 iii. 1. 81; H. i. 3. 59. 
 
 Mark our contract; mark your divorce, young sir. W. T. iv. 4. 428 ; T. ii. 1. 151. 
 
 Our wills and fates do so contrary run. H. iii. 2. 221. 
 
 And world's exile is death: then banished. R. J. iii. 3, 20. 
 
 That no revenue hath but thy good spirits. H. iii. 2. 63. 
 
 Banisht this frail sepulchre of our flesh. R2 i. 3. 194. Cf. K. L. ii. 4, 134. 
 
 By heaven, she 's a dainty one, sweetheart. H 8 i. 4. 94. 
 
 As 't were triumphing at mine enemies. R 3 iii. 4. 91. 
 
 Cf. abjdct, R 3 i. 1. 106; aspect, A. C. i. 5. 33; R 3 i. 1. 155; commerce, T. C. i. 
 3. 105; compact, J. C. iii. 1. 215; corner, 3 H6 iv. 5. 6; edict, 2 HS iii. 2. 258; 
 exploits, HS i. 2. 121; instinct, Cor. v. 3. 35; obdurate, M. V. iv. 1. 8; opportune, 
 T. iv. 1. 26; portents, O. i. 2. 45; J. C. ii. 2. 50; prescience, J. C. i. 3. 199; 
 sinister, H 5 ii. 4. 85; triumph, 1 H 4 v. 4. 14; welcome, R 2 ii. 3. 170. 
 
 3. A word repeated in the same verse often has two accents the firs* 
 time, and one the second ; or occupies a whole bar the first time, and onl> 
 part of a bar the second ; and vice versa, according to emphasis. 
 
 These violent desires have \i-olent ends. R. J. ii. 6. 9. 
 
 Sti-ll so cruel ? Still so constant, lord. T. N. v. 1. 113. Cf. IV. 1. b. 
 
 Of greatest justice. Wri-yte, write, Rinaldo. A. W. iii. 4. 29. Cf. IV. 2. a. 
 
 Yield, Marcius, yi-eld. He-ar me one word. Cor. iii. 1. 215. Cf. IV. 1. a. 2. 
 
 Give me that : patience, pa,-ti-ence I need. K. L. ii. 4. 274. 
 
 Therefore and wherefdre sometimes have two accents ; never wherefore. 
 
 How cam'st thou hither, tell me and wherefore. R. J. ii. 2. 62; K. L. ii. 4. 106. 
 Make haste, therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime. Son. 70. 
 
 4. Some words have a double accent. 
 
 Try what repentance can ; what can it not ? 
 
 Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? H. iii. 3. 65. 
 
Toward the end of Shakspere's career the modern pronunciation became 
 prevalent, as shown in 
 
 Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours. T. v. 1. 185. 
 Cf. I, myself, fight not once in forty year (?). 1 H 6 i. 3. 91. 
 And banding thdmselves in contrary parts. 1 H 6 iii. 1. 81. 
 
 But the modern pronunciation is more common. SCHMIDT (Lex. p. 1413) 
 states the general rule that dissyllabic adjectives and participles throw the 
 accent back before nouns accented on the first syllable, when that is in the 
 arsis. E. g. the form cdmplete always precedes a noun accented on the first 
 syllable ; complete is always in the predicate. Compare 
 
 He is complete in feature and in mind. T. G. ii. 4. 73 ; and 
 A maid of grace and complete majesty. L. L. L. i. 1. 137. 
 That thou dread corpse again in complete steel. H. i. 5. 61. 
 Also, 
 
 And whom she finds forlorn, she doth lament. Lucr. 1500; and 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide. Sou. 33. 
 Cf . Adverse, pernicious enemy. R 2 i. 3. 82 ; and 
 Thy adverse party. Son. 35. 
 Verse to constancy confined. Son. 105; and 
 Forfeit to a confined doom. Son. 107. 
 Of our despised nobility. H iii. 2. 291 ; and 
 The pangs of despised love. H. iii. 1. 72. 
 Romeo is Exiled. R. J. iii. 2. 133; and 
 Calling home our Exiled friends. Mcb. v. 8. 66. 
 Obscure and lowly swain. 2 H 6 iv. 1. 50; and 
 His obscure funeral. H. iv. 5. 213. 
 Profound simplicity. L. L. L. v. 2. 52; and 
 These profound heaves. H. iv. 1. 1. 
 Secure foolhardy king. R 2 . v. 3. 43 ; and 
 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole. H. i. 5, 61. 
 Supposed sincere unholy in his thoughts. 2 H 4 i. 1. 202. 
 Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity. K. L. ii. 2. 111. 
 
 So, contrived, corrupt, dispersed, distinct, distract, exact, exhaled, ex- 
 pired, express, extreme, humane, profane, remiss, severe, supreme. Espe- 
 cially adjectives and participles with the prefix un-. 
 
 How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides. K. L. iii. 4. 30. ( Vid. Sch. 1. c. ff.) 
 
 5. Words in -ized and -ised throw the accent back (pron. ised). 
 
 As I by friends am well advertised. R 3 iv. 4. 501. 
 Why thy canonized bones hearsed in death. H. i. 4. 47. 
 And when this arm of mine hath chastised, R 3 iv. 4. 331. 
 Authoriz'd by her grandam shame itself. Mcb. iii. 4. 66. 
 Of Jacques Falconbridge solemnized. L. L. L. ii. 1. 42. 
 
10 
 
 6. French accent sometimes retaind. 
 
 Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal. R 3 i. 2. 245. 
 
 So, reason, merchant, fortune, pardon, merc^. This Romance accent in blank 
 verse, however, is commoner just before Shakspere (vid. SCHROEER, Die An- 
 fange des Blankverses in England, Anglia IV. 15 if.) : palace, mountain, manure, 
 envy, poison, season, honour, picture (SURREY); mischfef, entrailes (SACKVILLE); 
 marriage, experience (GASCOIGNE); lions, christall, etc. (SPENSER, Visions of 
 Belay)] hone'st, argue (LYLY). 
 
 7. Our spondee frequently trochaic in Shakspere. 
 
 Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings. Cy. ii. 3. 21. 
 
 I pray thee Launce, an if thou seest my boy, 
 
 Bid him make haste, and meet me at the north gate. T. G. iii. 1. 258. 
 
 On the bat's back I do fly. T. v. 1. 91. As hdrseback, now. 
 
 I take thy hand, this hand, 
 As soft as dove's down and as white as it. W. T. iv. 4. 374. 
 
 So, jay's nest, T. ii. 2. 173; swan's nest, Cy. iii. 4. 142; wealth's sake, C. E. 
 iii. 2. 6; fair-play,K. J. v. 1. 67. 
 
 III. CONTRACTIONS. (ELLIS, 939, 940.) 
 
 1. Prefixes dropt. (ABBOTT 466; ELLIS, p. 939). 
 
 (a)bove, Mcb. iii. 5. 31; (a)bout, T. i. 2. 220; (be)cause, Mcb. iii. 6. 21; 
 (ac)count, H. iv. 7. 17; (be)havior, H. i. 2. 81; (a)larum, Cor. i. 4. 9; (be)nighted, 
 K. L. iv. 5. 13; (an)noyance, H. iii. 3. 13; (ap)parel, K. L. iv. 1. 51; (com)plain, 
 Jb. iii. 1. 39; (e)scape, oftn; 'scuse for excuse, 0. iv. 1. 80; (at)tend,H. iv. 3. 47. 
 
 A soothsayer bids you (be)ware the ides of March. J. C. i. 2. 19. 
 
 (Be)c6mes (en)d^ar'd by being lack'd. A. C. i. 4. 44. 
 
 2. th in the middle of a word oftn dropt after a vowel. (ABBOTT, 466.) 
 In other the th is so completely dropt that it has becom our ordinary 
 
 " or." So whether is oftn writn wh'er (K. L. ii. 1. 55), and nearly always so 
 pronounct. 
 
 Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus. H. ii. 2. 17. 
 
 And whefAer he run or fly they know not whether. V. A. 51. 
 
 'Either Heav'w with light' ning strike the murderer dead, 
 
 Or earth gape open wide. R 3 i. 2. 64. 
 
 Glou. The king is in high rage. 
 
 Corn. Whiter is he going? K. L. ii. 4. 299; A. Y. i. 3. 92. 
 
 Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em. J. C. ii. 1. 298. 
 So, brother, R 2 v. 3. 137; further, 1 H* iii. 1. 257; hither, R3 i. 4. 250; thither, 
 S i. 4. 78; rather, 0. iii. 4. 25; neither, M. V. i. 1. 78. 
 
11 
 
 3. Contraction takes place when a vowel follows v. Cf. hast = havest; 
 has = haveth or haves ; o'er = over; e'er = ever; evil = ill, as now. 
 
 ILu-ing God, her conscience, and these bars against me. R 8 i. 2. 235. 
 Cf. M. V. iii. 2. 124; V. A. 828; 1 H* iii. 1. 34; T. A. v. 1. 61 ; A. W. v. 3. 123. 
 
 Travel you far <5n, or are you at the farthest. T. S. iv. 2. 73. 
 
 No marvel, my lord, tho' it affrighted you. R 3 i. 4. 64. 
 Cf. 'T is marie he stabb'd you not. B. Jonson, E. Man out H., v. 4. 
 
 A deVil, a bor-n de'v-il, in whose nature. T. iv. 1. 188. (Cf. II. 3.) 
 So also, Mcb. iv. 3. 56 ; H 5 iv. 1. 12; 1 H? i. 3. 85; cf. T. N. i. 5. 270. 
 
 The spirit that I have scene 
 May be a deale, and the deale hath power 
 T' assume a pleasing shape. H. ii. 2. 627; Q2. Q3. 
 
 So, dram of eale = evil (76. i. 4. 36) = ill, as now. Cy. v. 5. 60; K. J. iii. 
 4. 115; H&iv. 1. 5. 
 
 4. Final vocalic -r (-er, -re), -1 (-el, -le), m, and n, frequently resume the 
 force of consonants, particularly before another vowel or h, with correspond, 
 ing loss of syllable.* 
 
 Report should render him hourly to your ear. Cy. iii. 4. 153. Read : ren-dV'zm. 
 
 This letter he early bid me give his father. R. J. v. 3. 275. Read: le"Wr'e. 
 
 Cowards fa-ther cowards and base things sf-re base. Cy. iv. 2. 26. 
 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries. Son. 29. Read: trull deaf. 
 
 I 'd whisU' her off and let her drown the wind. 0. iii. 3. 262; K. L. iv. 2. 29. 
 
 In the dark backward and abysm of time. T. i. 2. 50. Read: abys-mo/. 
 
 The m&ssewgers from our sister and the King. K. L. ii. 2. 54; A. C. iii. 6. 31. 
 
 Had we done so at first, we had drovew ^em home. A. C. iv. 7. 4. Read: 
 
 we'd drov-wm. 
 So, driven, 0. i. 3. 232; and Heavew, givera, etc., as in modern hymns. 
 
 Needle in " Gammer Gurton's Needle " rymes wiihfeele. 
 Cf. And griping it the needle his finger pricks. Lucr. 319. 
 
 To thread the postern of a small needle's eye. R 2 v. 5. 17 ; K. J. v. 2. 157. 
 Ct. 1 am a ge'nflman of a company. H 5 iv. 1. 39 ; gen'man, UDALL. 
 
 * It must not be forgotn that the liquids 1, m, n, r, in English, as well as in the ancient 
 languages (vid. Am. Jour. Philol., I. 3. 282), are sounds capable of being prolongd and suscep- 
 tible of accent, and that consequently they can each form a syllable. ( Vid. Sievers, Phonetik, 
 p. 29, sqq.) E.g. hev-n heaven, not heav-2w ; han-d/, not hand-e or handle. iSweet, 
 252, 254.) Vocalic m occurs, for example, in the vulg. pron. el-m for elm, and in abysm, 
 chasw, prisnr. Final vocalic r, however, has for the most part becom the neutral vowel d (as 
 in but). E.g., " thd writ-9," for "the writer." But the r reappears before a vowel, ' tha 
 writa-r of books "; sometimes evn where it does not legitimately belong, as " the idea-r of it." 
 ( Vid. Storm. Eng. Phil., 1. 92.) Now a large number of contractions in Shakspere arise from 
 the surrender of this syllabic function of 1, m, n, and r. fid. W. D. WHITNEY, The Rela- 
 tion of Vowel and Consonant, Oriental and Linguistic Essays, p. 277 sqq. 
 
12 
 
 Aer, W. T. ii. 1. 20. 
 Cf. For him were levere Aave at his beddes heede. CHAUCEB, Prol. C. T. 293. 
 
 5. The force of r is also effectiv in certain classes of words (the greater 
 part of them composd of two short syllables), which are frequently con- 
 tracted into one syllable, or occupy monosyllabic places in the line, chiefly 
 when they are followed by vowels. E. g. : 
 
 Ham. Perchance 't will walk again. 
 
 Hor. I warrant it will. H. i. 2. 243. 
 
 *' have cast off forever; thou shalt, I warrant thee. K. L. i. 4. 332. 
 A barren detested vale you see it is. T. A. ii. 3. 92. 
 And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad. H. i. 1. 161; T. i. 2. 215. 
 Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake. 1 H 6 v. 4. 57. 
 So, Clarence, 3 H 6 iv. 1. 9; alarwm, Mcb. v. 5. 51; Cor. ii. 2. 80; flour'shing, 
 T. G. v. 4. 3; nourish, 2 HS iii. 1. 348 (cf. nurse). 
 
 6. The weakest unaccented syllable in polysyllables oftn slurrd over, 
 particularly i. (See 5, ad Jin.) 
 
 Judicious pun'shment! 'T was this flesh begot. K. L. iii. 4. 76. 
 His short thick neck cannot be eas'ly harm'd. V. A. 627. 
 Of smooth civiPty, yet am I inland bred. A. Y. ii. 7. 96. 
 
 So, prett'ly, heart'ly, am'ty, qual'ty hostiPty, curios'ty, importunity, indign'ty, 
 commun'ties, humid'ty, pur'ty; moiety, Son. 46. 
 
 Hold thee from this forever. The barbarous Scythian. K. L. i. 1. 118. 
 Our purpose necessary and not envious. J. C. ii. 1. 178. 
 Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate. Mcb. v. 4. 19. 
 Conjectural marriages making parties strong. Cor. i. 1. 198. (Cf. 10.) 
 Innocent milk in it most innocent mouth. W. T. iii. 2. 101. 
 
 01 Iv. How now, Malvolio ! 
 
 Mai. Ma'am, you 've done me wrong. T. N". v. 1. 336. 
 
 Go thou to sanctuary and good thoughts possess thee. R 3 iv. 1. 94. Vid. Ellis, p. 948. 
 
 So, blemish, W. T. iii. 2. 199; prom'sing, C. E. v. 1. 222; conference, Mcb. iii. 
 1. 80; majesty, A. W. ii. 1. 98; remedy, Mcb. iii. 2. 11; inventory, H 8 . iii. 2. 152; 
 stillitory, V. A. 74; Bartholomew, T. S. Ind. i. 105; Haverford, R 3 iv. 5. 7; ig- 
 nominy, M. M. ii. 4. Ill; Enobarbus, A. C. iii. 2. 55; par'lous = perilous, R 3 ii. 
 4. 35 ; canstick = candlestick, 1 H 4 iii. 1. 131. 
 
 7. Words in which a " light " vowel sound is preceded by a " heavy " 
 vowel sound are slurrd into monosyllables. 
 
 That 6n the view and knowing of these contents. H. v. 2. 44. 
 The which no sooner had his prowess confirm' d. Mcb. v. 8. 41. 
 And executing th' outward face of royalty. T. i. 2. 104. 
 
13 
 
 So, being, doing, seeming, saying, playing, growing, tying, drawing, blowing, 
 power, jewel. Cf. po'sy of a ring, H. iii. 2. 162. So, poetry and poet in Eliza- 
 bethan writers. Sheriff, 2 H 4 iv. 4. 4 = shrieve. 
 
 8. ed following d or t oftn not writn and when writn not pronounct. 
 
 For treason executed in our late King's days. 1 HS ii. 4. 91 ; v. 1. 169. 
 Was aptly fitted and natwrally performed. T. S. Ind. i. 87. 
 When service sweat for duty, not for meed. A. Y. ii. 3. 58. 
 And I of ladies most deject and wretched. H. iii. 1. 163. 
 The wild waves whist. T. i. 2. 379. MILTON, Nativ. Ode, 64. 
 Cf. Abb. 341, 342, and vid. H. ii. 1. 112; A. Y. i. 2. 156; M. V. iii. 2. 169; 
 M. Ado ii. 1. 189, etc.; H5 i. 2. 305; 1 H 4 v. 5. 13. 
 
 Similarly two dental syllables are contracted into one. E. g. it after let, 
 set, yet, etc. 
 
 I humbly set it at your will; but for my mistress. Cy. iv. 3. 13. 
 Yoii are a young huntsman, Marcus ; let it alone. T. A. iv. 2. 101. 
 You see is kill'd in him; and yet it is danger. K. L. iv. 7. 79. 
 
 9. ed of participles and preterits (particularly after palatals) contracted 
 into d (after k and s (sh) =t). 
 
 Lay me stark-naked and let the water flies. A. C. v. 2. 59 ; H. iv. 7. 52. 
 
 By what by-paths and indirect crook' d ways. 2 H 4 iv. 5. 185. 
 
 Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it. 3 H 6 v. 6. 79. 
 
 Alack, for lesser knowledge ! how accursed (= ') 
 
 In be"ing so bles*. W. T. ii. 1. 38. (Cf. III. 7.) T. i. 2. 61. 
 
 What can happen 
 
 To me above this wretchedness? All your studies 
 Make me a curse like this. H 8 iii. 1. 122. 
 Thus like a slave ragged, like a felon gyv'd. HEYWOOD. 
 Sometimes contracted and uncontracted in the same line. 
 
 Hence banished is banish'd from the world. E. J. iii. 3. 19. (Cf. II. 3.) 
 To this unlook'd for, unprepared pomp. K. J. ii. 1. 560. 
 That were embatailled and rank'd in Kent. Ib. iv. 2. 200. 
 Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd. R. J. iv. 5. 59. 
 
 10. The plural and the possessive case of nouns in which the singular ends 
 in s, se, ss, ce, and ge, frequently writn and more frequently pronounct 
 without additional syllable. (WALKER, LI. ; ABBOTT, 471.) 
 
 Doct. You see her eyes are open. 
 
 Gent. Avj but their sense are shut. Mcb. v. 1. 29 ; Son. 112. 
 
 The images of revolt and flying off. K. L. ii. 4. 91. 
 
 I '11 to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell. R. J. iii. 2. 141. 
 
 How many ways shall Carthage's glory grow. SURREY'S -<En. iv. (Walker.) 
 
 As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what. R 2 ii. 1. 250. 
 
14 
 
 For tinctures stains relics and cognizance*. J. C. ii. 2. 89; Ib. ii. 1. 148. 
 
 Are there balance' here to weigh the flesh? M. V. iv. 1. 255. 
 
 Sits on his horse' back at mine hostess' door. K. J. ii. 1, 289 ff. 
 
 Giving my verdict on the white rose' side. 1 R 6 ii. 4. 48. 
 
 Stept before targe' of proof (plural). Cy. v. 5. 5; A. C. ii. 6. 39. 
 Cf. KEATS, Endymion, iii., "brazen beaks and targe'; Rudders," etc. 
 Is modern English pulse, after same analogy, for pulses, in SHELLEY, Revolt of 
 Islam,) V. xlviii., " From both the hearts whose pulse in joy now beat together "? 
 
 So, George('s), R3 v. 3. 344; piirpose(s), Cy. iv. 3. 15; service(s), 0. i. 2. 18; 
 conve3 r ance(s), C. v. 1. 54. These verse. DANIEL. 
 
 Will see the porpoise and the dolphins play. SHIRLY, Narcissus. 
 
 12. Superlativ oftn contracted. 
 
 The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead, and vengeance for 't 
 
 Not dropt down yet. W. T. iii. 2. 202. 
 
 This is thy eld'st son's son. K. J. ii. 1. 177; Cy. i. 1. 58. 
 
 The stern'st good night. Mcb. ii. 2. 4. 
 
 Cf. Thou stroakd'st me and mad'st much of me, would'st give me. T. i. 2. 333. 
 So, thought'st, A. W. ii. 1. 133; spok'st, W. T. i. 2. 88; speak' st, L. L. L. iv. 
 1. 12; lov'st, W. T. i. 2. 174; split'st, ib. 349; great' st, A. W. ii. 1. 163; fair'st, 
 W. T. iv. 4. 112; new'st, Mcb. iv. 3. 174; deep'st, T. G. v. 4. 71; near'st, W. T. 
 iii. 2. 52; rar'st, P. v. 1. 233; faithfull'st, T. N. v. 117; strong' st, T. iv. 26; un- 
 pleasant' st, M. V. iii. 2. 254. Cf. POPE, Imit. Hor. Epist. i. 60, "arrant'st 
 puppy." 
 
 13. OTHER CONTRACTIONS (WALKER, V., VI.). Personal pronouns: it 
 ='t ; us = 's ; in the = i' the ; on the = o' the ; in his = in 's ; of his = o's ; 
 he has = h'as ; they have = they 've ; thou wert = th' wert ; you were = 
 you 're ; he were = h' were ; she were = sh' were, H. iv. 5. 14 ; at the = 
 at', K. L. ii. 4. 10, cf. Ib. ii. 2. 116; that it = that ', K. L. i. 1. 211. So, 
 this' = this is : 
 
 this* the poison of deep grief; it springs. H. iv. 5. 76. 
 
 This ' a good block. K. L. iv. 6. 187. 
 
 Rey. My lord, I have. 
 
 Pol. God be with you, fare you well. H. ii. 1. 69. 
 
 God b' wi' you = Good bye. B'wye old gentleman. SMOLLET, Rod'k Ran- 
 dom, ch. iii. ad fin. Cf. Godgigoden, R. J. i. 2. 57 = God give you good even ; 
 God dig you den, L. L. L. iv. 1. 43 ; Godild, H. iv. 5. 41 == God yield ; 
 's wounds, H. ii. 2. 604 = 'zounds, O. i. 1. 86 = God's wounds. So, 'sblood, 
 H. ii. 2. 384. Cf. By 'r leave, M. M. iv. 3. 115; Cy. ii. 3. 70 ; By 'r lady, R. J. 
 i. 5. 35, H. iii. 2. 140 ; and oftn in prose. 
 
15 
 
 IV. EXPANSIONS OR RESOLUTIONS.* 
 
 1. Liquids maintain their phonetic force as vowels. (See III. 4, note.) 
 a. 1. Syllabic r. (ELLIS, 451 ; ABBOTT, 477-480.) 
 
 You sent me deputy to I-re-land. H 8 iii. 2. 260. 
 
 I am the son of Hen-r-y the Fifth. 3 H^ i. 1. 107. 
 
 Farewell : commend me to your mfs-r-e'ss. R. J. ii. 4. 204. 
 
 Good my lord, the sdc-r-ets of nature. J. C. iv. 2. 74. 
 
 Ignomy in ransom and free pa-r-don 
 
 A're of two houses, lawful me-r-cy. M. M. ii. 4. Ill, 112; R3 iv. 4. 515. 
 
 (Cf. II. 6.) 
 
 So, mons-r-ous, Mcb. iii. 6. 8; ang-r-y, T. of A, iii. 5. 57; en-ir-ance., R. J. i. 
 4. 7; couiWr-y, T. N. i. 2. 21; Cor. i. 9. 17; pil-^r-im, A. W. iii. 5. 43; breth-r-en, 
 T. A. i. 1. 347; chil-dr-en, C. E. v. 1. 360; Ber-*r-am's, A. W.i. 1. 94; frus-<r-ate, 
 A. C. v. 1. 2. 
 
 2. This syllabic r (final) occurs most frequently after a long vowel sound. 
 
 As ffre drives out ffre, so pity pity. J. C. iii. 1. 171. 
 
 I know a bank wher-re the wild thyme blows. M. N. D. ii. 1. 249. 
 
 Hear, Nature, he-ar; de-ar Goddess, he'ar. K. L. i. 4. 297. 
 
 Hath turn'd my fefgned prayers on my head. R 3 v. 1. gl. 
 
 May-or, farewell, thou dost but what thou mayst. 1 H 6 i. 3. 86. 
 
 The greatest strength and pow-er he can make. R 3 iv. 4. 449. 
 So, fa-ir, T. iv. 1. 31; fa-re, K. J. v. 7. 35; md-re, K. L. ii. 4. 99; the*~re, R. J. 
 iv. 5. 36; whe"-re, H. i. 2. 185; ne-ar, Mcb. ii. 3. 146; te*-ars, Cor. v. 6. 101; 
 y-ar, T. i. 2. 53; si-re, A. W. ii. 3. 142; mo-re, K. L. v. 3. 168; yoii-r, W. T. iii. 
 2. 232. 
 
 3. This same r is oftn prolongd with a kind of burr, giving another 
 syllable. Cf . sirrah = sir. 
 
 Look how he makes to Caesar! marrk him! J. C. iii. 1. 18 ; T. i. 2. 88. 
 
 Strikes his breast harrd and anon he casts. H 8 iii. 2. 117. 
 
 The we'-ird sisters hand in hand. Mcb. i. 3. 32. 
 
 Do more than this in sp6rt. Father, father ! K. L. ii. 1. 37. 
 
 To show her bleeding body thorough Rome (= E. E. thurh), Lucr. 1851. 
 So, apa-rt, A. C. iii. 13. 47; a-rts, L. L. L. ii. 1. 45; thf-rd, 1 H<5 i. 1. 276; wo-rd, 
 H. iii. 4. 180; fou-rth, R 2 iv, 1. 112; hear-t, Cor. iii. 2. 54; lorrd, R 3 ii. 1. 110; 
 marrch, H 5 iii. 6. 150. 
 
 * Just as in music, rests may receive part of the time-allotment of a bar, so, effective disposi- 
 tion of pauses, even in accented positions, in the verse, may frequently obviate the necessity of 
 resolution. 
 
16 
 
 6. Syllabic 1. (Spenser inserts the unnecessary e in some of these words ; 
 as, handeling, F. Q. i. 8. 28; enterance, Ib. 34.) 
 
 A rotten case abides no han-dZ-ing. 2 H 4 iv. 1. 161. 
 
 Than Bolingbroke's return to England. R 2 . iv. 4. 263. 
 
 Why, then, I wi-ll. Fa-rewell, old Gaunt. R2 j. 2. 44. 
 
 Just as you left them, a-/J pris'ners, sir. T. v. 1. 8. 
 
 Yea, lookst thou pa-Ze ? Let me see the writing. R2 v . 2. 57. 
 
 Be free" and hea-Zthfiil. So tart a favor. A. C. ii. 5. 38. 
 
 This ignorant present and I fe6-l now. Mcb. i. 5. 58. 
 
 While lie himself keeps in the ccWd field. 3 H6 iv. 3. 41. 
 
 So frequently adverbs in -ly (Walker, p. 23), deep-Z-y, W. T. ii. 3; short-Z-y, R3 
 iv. 4; quick-/-y, M. M. ii. 4. So, assemb-Z-y, Cor. i. 1. 159; nob-Z-y, K. L. v. 1. 28; 
 humb-Z-er, H6 iii. 1. 56. Cf. fid-<#-er, T. S. ii. 1. 158; jug-^-er, M. N. D. iii. 2. 
 282; Lord Doug-Z-as, 1 H* v. 2. 33; dii-M, C. E. v. 1. 79: wi-M, J. C. iii. 2. 153; 
 changer-ing, M. N. D. ii. 1. 23; me-Z-ted, Ib. iv. 1. 163. 
 
 c. Syllabic n (less common). 
 
 Of quick cross light- ft-ing ? To watch, poor pe*rdu. K. L. iv. 7. 35. 
 
 With them, Sir Thomas Vaugh-'n, pris-'ra-ers. R 8 ii. 4. 43. 
 
 I do wander everywhere, 
 
 Swifter than the moo-n's sphere. M. N. D. ii. 1. 7. (Cf. 2. a. 5.) 
 
 Each man 's like mi-ne: y6u have shown all Hector's. A. C. iv. 8. 7. 
 
 Mine own and not mine 6w-w. A're you sure? M. N. D. iv. 1. 189 
 
 Which is most M-nt. Now 't is true. T. Ep. 3. 
 
 At a poor man's house: he lis'd me ki-wdly. Cor. i. 9. 83. 
 
 So, oftn nouns in -ness (Walker, p. 20), sick-n-ess, 1 H 4 iv. 1. Cf. H. ii. 2. 147 ff. 
 wit-n-ess, T. G. iv. 2. 110. So, frie-wds, M. M. iii. 1. 28; joi-nt, M. M. v. 1. 314; 
 go-ne, M. V. ii. 9. 72; the-wce, H. ii. 1. 148; Fra-nce, H 5 i. 2. 167; ord-w-ance 
 (not necessarily ordinance, as Ff.), H 5 ii. 4. 126; thor-ws, Ib. 329; sta-wd, H 8 i. 
 2. 85; gra-nt, T. i. 2. 79; ki-wg, Cy. v. 5. 407. 
 
 d Syllabic m (rare). 
 
 Lear. To this detested groo-wi. 
 
 Gon. A't your chofce, sir. K. L. ii. 4. 220. 
 
 But roo-m, fairy, here comes Oberon. M. N. D. ii. 1. 58. 
 Co-77ie, good fdllow, put my fr-on on. A. C. iv. 4. 3. 
 Card. Ro-we shall remedy this. 
 
 Glou. Roam thither th^n. 1 H<3 iii. 1. 51. 
 
 At a crackt drach-wi! Cushions leaden spoons. Cor. i. 5. 6. 
 Then shall the realm of Albion Co-we to great confus-ion. K. L. iii. 2. 92. 
 So Rome, A. C. i. 4. 73; co-mes (pron. ca'-mz),* M. N. D. iv. 1. 163. 
 
 * Phonetically in these cases in which the liquids appear, it is not necessary to suppose the 
 first vowel sound split up or prolongd. In fact, the impression (arising in part from the inad- 
 equacy of our graphic symbols) that this style of scansion is forct and unnatural will in 
 great measure vanish, if it be borne in mind that the language under consideration consists of 
 sounds, not letters, and that the accent treated of is not merely a series of isolated word- or 
 
17 
 
 e. Syllabic s (se, z). (Cf. colloq. "I sh'd think so.") 
 
 Ye-s, madam, he was of that consort. K. L. ii. 1. 97. 
 
 Where pray-ers cro-ss. A't what time to-morrow. M. M ii. 2. 159. 
 
 And an eternal cur-se fall on you. Mcb. iv. 1. 105. 
 
 Take time to paii-se ; and by the next new moon. M. N. D. i. 1. 83. 
 
 W6r-se and worse, she will not come ! vile ! T. S. v. 2. 93. (Cf . II. 3.) 
 
 Not in the wor-st rank of manhood say 't. Mcb. iii. 1. 103. 
 
 I pray you, si-rs, He in my tdnt and sleep. J. C. iv. 3. 246. 
 
 The gt>-</s, not the patricians, make it, and. Cor. i. 1. 75. 
 
 Why so brave, lor-c/s,* wh^n we join in league? K 2 iv. 1. 104. 
 
 2 Emphatic monosyllables oftn take the place of a whole foot, 
 a. Diphthongs t resolvd: 
 
 1. a* or &. Horrible si-tght! Now 1 see 'tis true. Mcb. iv. 1. 122. 
 
 Will you be ruled by me? A'y-y, my lord. H. iv. 7. GO. 
 
 2. e*. Stay-*/, the king hath thrown his warder down. Cor. i. 3. 118. 
 
 I '11 b' wf you straight. Go a little before. H. iv. 4. 31. 
 To faf-Z in the disposing of those chances. Cor. iv. 7. 40. 
 He humbly prays you speedy pay-^/ment. T. of A. ii. 2. 28. 
 So, may-y, R 2 ii. 1. 148; yea-?/, Cor. iii. 2. 2; hai-J, Mcb. i. 2. 5. (Cf. IV. 1. b.) 
 
 3. o". o but she '11 ke-ep her word. H. iii. 2. 214. 
 
 O o the difference of man and man ! K. L. iv. 2. 25. 
 Is go-ads, thor-ws, nestles, tails of wasps. W. T. i. 2. 329. 
 So, who-fe,K. L. i. 2. 14. (Cf. IV. 1 b.) 
 
 4. /. Forward not permanent, swe'e-t not lasting. H. i. 3. 8. 
 
 Speak, Lavmia, what accursed hand T. A. iii. 1. 66. 
 So, stee-1, Cor. i. 9. 45; yie-ld, 1 H6 iii. 1. 112. (Cf. IV. 1. b.) 
 
 syllable-accents, but a rythmical sentence- or verse-accent. A little close observation, too, of 
 ' our own natural rapid speech, will reveal many identical resolutions and contractions ; we do 
 not, however, attempt to represent them in our writn language. 
 
 * Formerly this word, and words like it, would hav com under IV. 1. a. 3. Now the r has 
 almost completely disappeard from it, so that it generally sounds like Idw-dz. Evn if the 
 pronunciation in Shakspere's time cannot be provn to hav existed exactly as intimated here 
 and in 2. a, its existence now enables the modern reader to account physiologically for many 
 apparent anomalies which otherwise must be left unexplaind as " arbitrary licenses for the 
 sake of the metre." 
 
 t The long vowels, so calld in English, are nearly all diphthongs. (Vid. Sweet, Handb. of 
 Phonetics, 200-208.) E. g. The sound in the pronoun I (cf. R. J. iii. 2. 45) vanishes into 
 either i (machine, Melville Bell) or i (pity, A. J. Ellis, Early Eng. Pron., 1100). The first 
 element also varies, as seen in /saiah (Ellis, p. 108 ; Storm, Eng. Phil., p. 75) ; in N. Eng. 
 it is generally a (father). "Stay-?/" vanishes in the same way: se* (Storm, p. 75; Ellis, 
 p. 1108); o in "goad" vanishes intow (full): gd u d. "Sweet" and "boot" vanish into 
 narrower vowel sounds (Sievers, Phonetik, p. 121), almost consonantal. Sweet writes them 
 iy and nw. It will thus be seen that this resolution of the " long " vowels in Shakspere'a 
 verse is but an anticipation of the phonetic spelling of our modern pronunciation of the same 
 sounds. (Vid. the Philological Society's New English Dictionary, p. xiv., 1884.) 
 
18 
 
 5. u w . Pull off my boo-t: harder, harder, so. K. L. iv. 6. 177. 
 
 But mdo-dy and dti-ZJ melancholy. C. of E. v. 1. 79. 
 He straight declined, drdo-p'd, took it deeply. W. T. ii. 3. 14. 
 Goo-d my lord, give me thy favor still. T. iv. 1. 204. 
 So, noo-n, W. T. i. 2. 290. (Cf. IV. 1. c.) 
 
 6. o. What say you, bo-ys? Will you bide with him? T. A. v. 2. 137, 
 
 Of their own chd-ce: one is Junius Brutus. Cor. i. 1. 220. 
 
 6. Exclamations : 
 
 Where be the knaves? Whd-at, no man at door! T. S. iv. 1. 125. 
 But so-ft f company is coming here. Jb. iv. 5. 26. 
 Cf. You and your cra-fts you have crafted fair. Cor. iv. 6. 118. 
 
 c. Emphasizd by position or antithesis : 
 
 When Caesar's hdad is <3ff. Ye-t I fe"ar him. J. C. ii. 1. 183. 
 
 Of goodly thousands. Bu-t for all this. Mcb. iv. 3. 44. 
 
 How in my strength you please. For you-w, Edmund. K. L. ii. 1. 114. 
 So, btK A. C. v. 1. 27; ye-*, K. L. i. 4. 365; T. A. iii. 2. 76. Especially em- 
 phatic pronouns (Cf. a), yoii-w, M. V. ii. 6. 24, Cor. v. 3. 192, O. iii. 4. 44, J. C. 
 iv. 3. 9; thoii-M (?), H* ii. 2. 128. 
 
 3. -ion (pron. si-on), two syllables, generally final. (ABBOTT, 479. List 
 in ELLIS, 948-950.) Very common. 
 
 Of Hamlet's transformat-i-on : so call it. H. ii. 2. 5. 
 
 Yet have I fierce affect-i-ons and think. A. C. i. 5. 17. 
 
 Jove, Jove ! this shepherd's pass-i-on 
 
 Is much upon my fash-i-on. A. Y. ii. 4. 61. 
 
 So, relig-i-on, K. J. iii. 1. 279; rebell-i-on, 3 H i. 1. 133, mill-i-on, T. A. ii. 1. 
 49; compan-i-on, P. i. 1. 4; obliv-i-on, T. C. iv. 5. 167; oce-an, H 5 iii. 1. 14; pu-is- 
 sance, 2 H* i. 3. 77; le-o-pard, 1 H6 i. 5. 31 ; cre-a-ture, 1 HS i. 6. 4; T. N. v. 1. 231; 
 ple-a-sures, T. A. i. 2. 151 (?ELLIS, p. 947); gor-ge-ous, K. L. ii. 4. 271; sur-ge-ons, 
 Ib. iv. 6. 196; ser-ge-ant, Mcb. i. 2. 3; extra-ordinary, H 4 iii. 1. 41; Ib. iii. 2. 78; 
 buri-ed, H$ iii. 3. 9; putrifi-ed, T. C. v. 9. 1; mortifi-ed, J. C. ii. 1. 324; miscarri-ed, 
 M. V. ii. 8. 29; follow-ed, Cor. i. 4. 42; consider-ed, R 8 iii. 7. 176; bus-i-ness, Cor. 
 v. 3. 8. 
 
 So also, final -ience, -lent, -iant, -ious, -iage, -ial, -ier. 
 
 And yet 't is almost 'gainst my consci-ence. H. v. 2. 307. 
 
 For I do know Fluellen vali-ant. H 5 iv. 7. 187. 
 
 Than the sea-monster ! Pray, sir, be pati-ent. K. L. i. 4. 283. 
 
 Did this in Caesar seem ambit-i-ous ? J. C. iii. 2. 95. 
 
 And in his wisdom hastes our marri-age. R. J. iv. 2. 145. 
 
 Too flattering sweet to be substanti-al. Ib. ii. 2. 141. 
 
 As you are friends, scholars, and soldi-ers. H. i. 5. 141. 
 
19 
 
 4. a. e mute pronounct. (Relic of Early Eng. pronunciation.) 
 
 Your grace mistak-es: only to be brief. R 2 Hi. 3. 9. 
 Till all thy bones with ach-es make thee roar. T. i. 2. 370. 
 Who 's there that knock-es so imperiously? 1 H 6 i. 3. 5. 
 She dreamt to-night she saw my statue. J. C. ii. 2. 76. 
 Latin statua; so Ib. iii. 2. 192; R3 iii. 7. 25. (Walker, LX.) 
 
 Be valued 'gainst your wife's command-e-ment. M. V. iv. 451. 
 
 (Cf. IV. 1. c.) 
 
 So, Glou-ces-ter, 1 U 6 i. 3. 62; Cat-es-by, R 3 iii. 1. 157; Wor-ces-ter, R 2 ii. 2. 58; 
 Col-e-ville, 2 H 4 iv. 3. 79; crad-1-es, T. C. iii. 3. 200. 
 
 b. Syllabic genitiv : 
 
 To show his teeth as white as whale's bones. L. L. L. v. 2. 332. 
 
 Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regi-ons. A. W. ii. 3. 300 ; T. iv. 1. 98. 
 
 o Syllabic French e. 
 
 The melancholy Jacqu-es grieves at that. A. Y. ii. 1. 26. 
 O my Paroll-es they have married me. A. W. ii. 3. 289. 
 His grace is at Marseill-es, to which place. Ib. iv. 3. 9. 
 Now Esperance, Percy, and set on. 1 H 4 v. 2. 97. 
 Dieu de batail-/es! Where have they this mettle? 
 " Viv-e le roi," as I have bankt their towns. K. J. v. 2. 104. 
 Cf. A wise stout cap(0tani and soon persuaded. 3 HG iv. 7. 30; Mcb. i. 2. 34. 
 Great mar(e)shal to Hen-r-y the Sixth. 1 HS iv. 7. 70. 
 Sink-a-pace for cinque pace. T. N. i. 3. 139. 
 
 V. ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 By means of the above contractions, softenings, etc., the reader may 
 avoid the so-calTd " extra " syllables in many of the trisyllabic measures. 
 To know when to contract and when to resolve, however, will depend very 
 much upon his musical ear and metrical taste. Bear in mind what has been 
 thrown out about the " time-allotment " of each bar and about the ry thmical 
 sentence- and verse-accent. (Cf. Sievers,* 25, 32-34.) Don't try to scan ; 
 
 * " Wir verstehen jetzt unter der Accentuirung eines Wortes die relative Charakteristik 
 aller seiner Silben, unter Satzaccentuirung die relative Charakteristik aller Theile einea 
 Satzes." (p. 177.) Cf. SWEET, 259 : " The only phonetic function of word-division is to indi- 
 cate occasionally the syllable-divisions in sentences. . . . Word-division is perfectly useless to 
 those readers who are practically familiar with the particular language : they do not hear any 
 word-division in rapid speech, and require it still less in slow, deliberate reading." 314. (Cf. 
 p. 115, and ELLIS, p 1206.) On pp. 117-119, Sweet prints a passage of Tennyson's blank verse, 
 " The Passing of Arthur," Shelley's "To-Night," and Keats's " In a Drear-nighted December," 
 representing graphically his own natural syllable-accentuation. Cf. F. TECHMER, Die Silbe, 
 Internationale Zeitschrift, Th. I. pp. 167-170. Leipzig, 1884. And ELLIS, On Accent and Em* 
 phasis, Phil. Soc. Trans. , 1873-74, p. 128 ff. " Of course the ordinary spelling-book syllabi- 
 
20 
 
 but aim at the sense. (See p. 21, Emerson.) "Be not too tame neither/' 
 that is, too slow. Head easily and naturally ; and just as in a musical " air 
 with variations " the melody of the " air " is never wholly obscured by the 
 " variations," so the characteristic type of Shakspere's verse will maintain 
 itself through all the ry thmical variations ; the " extra " syllables will of 
 themselves appropriate their rightful " time-allotment," most of them will be 
 obscured in pronunciation to the uniform vowel sound 9 (but), and many 
 of them will disappear altogether. Five stress-periods, however, will be dis- 
 tinctly markt : varying in emphasis, to be sure, but rarely exceeding five 
 in number. For the imported French heroic verse of six feet in two halves, 
 each with three accents, tho poems in this metre usherd in the Eliza- 
 bethan era,* was never quite in the spirit of English versification. That 
 Shakspere uses it occasionally for variety t is not surprising, considering the 
 place it filid in literature in his time ; but its slow, crawling movement is, 
 
 fication is pure nonsense. . . . The division of words was not marked in the older Greek or in 
 Sanskrit. In English, any one who compares the written with the spoken divisions must feel 
 how arbitrary the former are, and how widely the two divisions disagree. . . . Now the specific 
 differences on which alone depend the effects known as accent and emphasis form two distinct 
 classes according as they are fixt or free. The first class includes accent and the native in- 
 tonation of sentences ; the free class then includes emphasis and rhetorical expression. 
 The means at the disposal of speakers for both classes are length, pitch, force, and form, with 
 their successions and glides. But different languages differ greatly in their arrangement of 
 these as fixt and free. . . . Laconically English accent may be defined as fixt force and free 
 pitch. (So German and Italian, but in French, force and pitch, and even length, are practically 
 free ; hence there is no accent, but only emphasis.) In the classical languages, length was 
 fixt, and also the direction of the change of pitch ; but force was probably free." Cf. his Quan- 
 titative Pronunciation of Latin, Cap. V. The logical accent will of course vary with each 
 individual's interpretation ot the text. The rythmical accent, on the other hand, (charac- 
 terizd by increase of intensity, not by change of pitch,) occurs regularly, and marks the 
 verse-bars ; the effect of the rythmic accent is therefore to establish a definit rythm for the 
 ear, while that of the logical accent is to disestablish, this rythm by differently timed recur- 
 rences which set up different groupings of two three, or more bars. Cf. LANIER, p. 87. 
 
 * " Poems in this metre ushered in the aera of Elizabeth ; and no one can look with other 
 feelings than respect upon the favourite rhythm of a Howard, a Sidney, and a Drayton." 
 GUEST, Hist. Eng. Rythms, I. 255. 
 
 t For example, see H. iv. 5 141, quoted below. For a complete list of Shakspere's Alexan- 
 drines, see Mr. Fleay's exhaustiv paper in INGLEBY'S Shakspere : The Man and the Book, 
 Part II. (1881), p. 71 ff., in which all his earlier metrical tables, etc. are revisd and enlargd. 
 Up to All 's Well and Measure for Measure, the number of Alexandrines varies from half a 
 dozen to a dozen in each play (except R. J., surreptitiously printed with 27, all of which were 
 corrected in Q 2 , and R 2 with 54, all of which ought to hav been similarly corrected, but un- 
 accountably escapd). Shakspere's "Third Period " begins in A. W. and M. M. with a larger 
 proportion of Alexandrines, and with the still more decisiv change in the markt increase of 
 * extra mid-syllables " before the main caesura ; it begins to close with the appearance in Lear 
 of a new kind of Alexandrine, having a pause after the second syllable. This is common to the 
 " Fourth Period," which is characterizd not only by a larger proportion of Alexandrines, but 
 also by an increast number of caesuras after the second, fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, and 
 tenth syllables ; by an increase of brokn lines, of feminine and weak endings, and by a corre- 
 sponding decrease of rymed and end-stopt lines. See Appendix on the Verse Tests. 
 
21 
 
 as we shall see, quite foreign to his color-full rythmic variation of the 3-rythm 
 type. (On the term 3-rythm, see p. 32.) 
 
 An interesting confirmation of this view is furnisht by the corroborativ 
 evidence of the verse-tests, when applied to the question of the divided 
 authorship of H 8 , first suspected on moral and aesthetic grounds. Tennyson, 
 in his undergraduate days (1829-33), usd to read to his friends the genuine 
 parts of this play, and Emerson, in Representative Men (publisht 1850), little 
 suspecting Fletcher, said : 
 
 " In Henry VIII. I think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on 
 which his own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, 
 thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their 
 cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, where, 
 instead of the metre of Shakspeare, whose secret is that the thought constructs the 
 tune, so that reading for the sense will best bring out the rhythm, here the lines 
 are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence." 
 
 A careful comparison of this scene with any of Shakspere's undoubted 
 work (act i. scs. 2, 3 : ii. 3, 4; iii. 2 (to 203) ; and v. 1) will reveal the secret 
 of the immense musical difference between them. For while Shakspere's 
 double-ending lines are nearly all " run on," thereby varying the rhythm, 
 without destroying the five-barrd metrical type of the blank verse, Fletcher's, 
 on the other hand, are nearly all "end-stopt " ; the "extra" syllable, owing 
 to the pause, seems to begin a sixth bar, and the slow, heavy, un-Shaksperean 
 rhythm is therefore due to the fact that Fletcher's lines are really Alexan- 
 drines with a deficient final syllable. E. g. : 
 
 Farewell ! | a long | farewell,* || to all j my gr^at | nSss J | 
 This is | the state | of man : || to-day | he puts | forth | 
 The ten j der leaves j of hope ; || to-mor | row bios | soms, | 
 And bears | his blush | ing hon | ors thick | upon | him ; j 
 The third | day comes | a frost, || a kfll | ing frost, j | 
 
 And, when | he thinks, | good ea | sy man I full sure | If | 
 His great | ness is | a ripen | ing, nips | his root, j j 
 
 And then | he falls | as I | do, etc. iii. 2. 351 ff. 
 
 Yet Ellis says that " Shakspere seems never to hesitate to use a pure 
 Alexandrine when it suits his convenience " ; and he considers Abbott's 
 " trimeter couplet " t but a difference of terms ; for " the true Alexandrine 
 lias a pause at the end of the third measure" (p. 943). Ellis distinguishes 
 well- and lightly-markt Alexandrines (pp. 945-946), aad evn adds some 
 resulting from resolutions (p. 952). 
 
 * C FLETCHER'S Cupid's Revenge, iv. 4 : Farewell ! 
 
 To all our happiness, a long farewell ! " 
 
 t Apparent Alexandrines are often couplets of two verses of three accents each. They are 
 often thus printed as two short veraee in Ff. But the degree of separatenesa between the two 
 verses varies greatly. ABB. 600. 
 
22 
 
 A few comparisons, however, will reveal the artificial un-Shaksperean 
 accentuation of some of Mr. Ellis's " well-markt Alexandrines." ( Vid. his 
 own definition of Shakspere's verse, p. 5.) Compare : 
 
 The fliix | of com | pany. || Anon | a care | less hdrd. A. Y. ii. 1. 52, with 
 A A A A A 
 
 The flux 
 
 com-pany. A -non 
 
 And 
 
 care- less herd.* 
 
 [Cf. III. 6. 
 
 Tho' yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death, 
 The mem | ory | be green, || and that | it us j be-fitted 
 To bear our hearts in grief. ... II. i. 2. 1. Compare with 
 
 A A A A A A 
 
 
 The mem' ry be green, and that it us be - fitted or, be - fit.' 
 
 (III. 8.) 
 
 Now see commendable, M. V. i. 1. Ill, and contrast Ellis's reading: 
 'Tis swe"et | and com | men-da | ble in | your na j ture, Hamlet. H. i. 2. 87, with 
 A A A A A A 
 
 'Tis sweet and commend" - ble in your na - ture, Hamlet, or, and commend'ble. 
 
 Cf. As chil 1 dren from | a bear j| the V61 1 sees shun | ning him. Cor. i. 3. 34, and 
 A A A A A 
 
 childr'w from a bear the Vol - sees shun - ning him. 
 
 So, Allm6r|tal c6n|seque"n||ces have | pronounced | me thus. Mcb. v. 3. 5. 
 A~ mor 1 tal cons \ 'quence(s) || have | pronounced | me thus. 
 
 I prom | ise you | I am | afraid | to hdar | you te"ll It. Cor. i. 4. 65. 
 I prom'se | you I 'm | afraid | to he'ar | you tell 't. 
 
 Come sfs | ter, cous | in, I | would say, | pray par 1 don me*. R 2 ii. 2. 105. 
 Come sis | ter, cons' n, \ Pd say | pray par | don me". 
 
 Anne. I would I knew thy h^art. || Glou. 'T is ftgured fn my tongue. 
 Anne. I fdar me both are false. || Glou. Then ndver man was true. 
 Anne. Well, w^ll, put dp your sword. || Glou. Say tbdn my peace is made. 
 
 R3 i. 2. 193. 
 
 " On the musical notation, see p. 31, note, and p. 32. 
 
23 
 
 The pause may perhaps justify the last as "trimeter couplets." The fol- 
 lowing, however, are genuine Alexandrines. (Notice the caesuras.) 
 
 (Spenserian.) And these | does she | apply | for warn | ings and | portents. 
 J. C. iii. 1. 23. Cf. L. L. L. v. 2. 261; M. V. ii. 9. 25; T. L 2. 236. 
 
 (2d syl.} Whip him. \\ Were 't twen | ty of | the great | est trib | utaries. A. C. 
 iii. 13. 96. 
 
 (M f) Rinal \ do, \\ you | did nev | er lack j advice | so much. A. W. iii. 4. 19. 
 
 (4?A.) Shall there | attend you. \\ My re | compense | is thanks, | that's all. P. 
 iii. 4. 16. 
 
 (5th.) I '11 no | gainsay | ing. || Press j me not, | I beseech | you, so. W. T. i. 
 
 2. li). This pause is characteristic of W. T., as (8) is of HS. (FLEAY, /. c., p. 90.) 
 (6th. French.) Of your j dear fa | ther's death, || is't writ | in your | revenge. 
 
 II. iv. 5. 141. 
 
 (7th.) In mon | ument | al mock | ery. || Take | the in | stant way. T. C. iii. 
 
 3. 153. 
 
 (8^.) More worth | than emp | ty van J zties; || Yet prayers | and wishes. H 8 
 ii. 3. 69. 
 
 At Mar | ia | na's house | to-night. || Her cause | and yours. M. M. iv. 3. 145. 
 Marian's? as Helen for Helena, M. N. D. i. 1. 208. Cf. Cor. v. 1. 68. 
 
 (9^.) The os | tenta | tion of | our love | which, || left | unshown. A. C. iii. 6. 51. 
 
 (Wth.) Let it j be grant j ed you | have seen | all this || and praise. Cy. ii. 4. 92. 
 
 (llth?) The war | like ser | vice he | has done | consid | er: || think. Cor. iii. 3. 49. 
 
 Cf. A cherry Mp, a bonny eye, a passing, pleasing tongue. R 3 i. 1. 94, seven 
 measures ! 
 
 Cf. also T. A. i. 1. 203, a saturnine; and L. L. L. ii. 1. 232 ff., 4-rhythm. 
 
 Lines with four accents are very rare, unless there is, (1.) a pause,* or 
 (2.) interruption in the line. When there is (3.) a change of thought, they 
 are not uncommon. This is calld the logical pause. 
 
 (1.) Must give us pause, i ' | There *s the respe'ct. H. iii. 1. 68. 
 
 (2.) He 's ta'en. [Shout.] And hark, they shout for joy. J. C. v. 3. 32. 
 
 (3.) Let us withdraw. | ' | 'T will be a storm. K. L. ii. 4. 290. 
 
 Dramatic speeches oftn do not fit at the end ; and interjectional and par- 
 tial lines are not infrequently met with, particularly in scenes where passion 
 is at its height. Vid. K. L. iv. 6. 112, sqq., 198, sqq. The highest passion 
 expresses itself in prose. O. iv. 1. 34-44. 
 
 * On the rythmical value of the pause, vid. LANIER, p. 187, ff. 
 
24 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 ON THE VALUE OF THE VERSE TESTS IN ESTABLISHING THE 
 CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 
 
 Whatever may be the value of possessing the chronological order of 
 Shakspere's plays,* it must be admitted that nothing of late years has con- 
 tributed more to fixing that order than the critical investigation of the poet's 
 versification which has been made chiefly by the members of the New Shak- 
 spere Society.! Some of the results of their work may be indicated by 
 comparing the chief metrical characteristics of the earliest and the latest 
 plays. In the early plays, for example, not only do the lines themselves 
 pause at the end, without any "extra" syllables, but there is a pause in the 
 sense there as well. The proportion of the " run-on " lines to these " end- 
 stopt " lines, as they are called, in L. L. L. (Shakspere's first genuine play), is 
 1 in 18.14, or 5.5 % ; in W. T. it is 1 in 2.12 or 47.2 %. This is Mr. Furnivall's 
 " end-stopt test," first employed by Bathurst in 1857. (See Introduction to 
 the Leopold Shakspere, 76 (2), and Gervinus's Commentaries, p. xxv.) Count- 
 ing by speeches instead of by lines, this test reveals a similar falling off in 
 speeches ending with the end of the line, and a corresponding increase of 
 speeches ending in the middle of the line. In C. ofE., for example, 1 speech 
 in 81.33 is mid-stopt, or 1.23 % ; in W. T., 1 in 1.49 or 66.9 % ! This is Prof. 
 Ingram's " speech-ending " test workt out by Mr. Pulling (N. Sh. Soc. Trans., 
 1877-79, iii., p. 458.) In like manner, dissyllabic or feminine endings increase 
 from4%inZ.L.Z. to 44% in n* ! HERTZBERG, Pref. to Cymbeline. The 
 proportion of lines containing " extra mid-syllables " (i. e. before the caesural 
 pause) to blank-verse lines varies, for example, from 1 in 286 or 0.35 % in 
 
 * Cf. FURNESS'S Variorum, Lear, p. 382. For lists of the various evidences of 
 chronological sequence, external and internal, see DOWDEN'S Primer, Chap. IV, 
 J. W. HALES in London Academy, Jan. 17, 1874, and DR. INGLEBY'S Shakspere: 
 The Man and Book, Pt. II., 1881. The latter contains the latest and most com- 
 prehensiv summary. For history of the verse tests, see PROF. INGRAM' s paper in 
 N. Sh. Soc. Trans., 1874, p. 442. 
 
 f " The New Shakspere Society was founded in the autumn of 1873, to do honour 
 to SHAKSPERE, to make out the succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of 
 his mind and art, to promote the intelligent study of him, and to print texts illus- 
 trating his works and his times/' First Report, July, 1875. 
 
 "Never before had the importance of studying Shakspere as a whole, of ascer- 
 taining, on evidence, the order of his plays, and then following, carefully and 
 lovingly, the development of his mind and its expression in verse, been duly insisted 
 on, or the methods and facts of the case set forth. But henceforward the principles 
 advocated by the Society from its foundation are part and parcel of the Shakspere 
 criticism of the present and the future." Second Report, August, 1879 
 
25 
 
 T. G. to 1 in 28.1 or 3.56 % in W. T. ! This last test of Mr. Fleay's (Ingleby 
 I.e.) is the only one resembling the pause-test suggested by Mr. Spedding, 
 N. Sh. Soc. Trans., 1874, p. 20. Again, in the early plays, the youthful poet 
 naturally made free use of ryme. L. L. L., for example, contains two rymed 
 lines to one of blank verse ; T., on the other hand, has but two rymed lines 
 altogether, and W. T. not one ! This is Mr. Fleay's " ryme-test." (N. Sh. 
 Soc. Trans., 1874. Shakspere Manual, 1876. Applied to all extant plays from 
 1590-1G40 in Ingleby's Shakspere : Man and Book, II., p. 57 ff.) Furthermore, 
 the early plays contain no " light " or " weak " endings. Light endings (per- 
 sonal and relative pronouns, auxiliaries, etc., allowing a slight pause) appear in 
 considerable numbers for the first time in Mcb. Weak endings (proclitics : 
 prepositions and conjunctions, allowing no pause), first in A. C. This is Prof. 
 Ingram's test, which, combined with the others, is very effectiv in fixing 
 the order of the fourth period plays. ( Vid. N. Sh. Soc. Trans., 1874, pp. 448- 
 450, where table of proportions and lists of endings may be found. These 
 lists are corrected and enlargd by the test-committee of the St. Petersburg 
 Shakspere Circle in Englische Studien, III. Bd. 3 heft, p. 483 ff.) The follow- 
 ing table will show at a glance the results of the above tests applied to the 
 three earliest and the four latest plays : 
 
 
 
 
 j 
 
 jj 
 
 2 
 
 g 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 A 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 w 
 
 U 
 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 Name of 
 Play. 
 
 Proportion of 
 Run-on Lines. 
 
 9 3 
 
 
 
 Proportion of 
 Mid-stopt Spee 
 
 Percentage of 
 Mid-stopt Spee 
 
 Proportion of 
 Mid-syllables. 
 
 Percentage of 
 Mid-syllables. 
 
 Percentage of 
 or Feminine Ei 
 
 Percentage of 
 Light Endings 
 
 Percentage of 
 Weak Ending* 
 
 Proportion of 
 Ryme Lines to 
 Blank Verse. 
 
 Love's Labor's Lost 
 
 1 in 18.4 
 
 5.5 
 
 Iinl7.6* 
 
 5.81 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 8t 
 
 
 
 1 in .58 
 
 Comedy of Errors 
 
 1 in 10.7 
 
 9.3 
 
 lin 81.33 
 
 1.23 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 lin 3 
 
 Two (lent, of Verona 
 
 lin 10 
 
 10 
 
 lin 21.54 
 
 4.64 
 
 lin 286 
 
 .35 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 lin 11 
 
 
 lin 3.02 
 
 RRR 
 
 1 in 1 61 
 
 61 86 
 
 1 in 42 1 
 
 ?R7 
 
 33 
 
 2 88 
 
 1 71 
 
 1 in 729 
 
 Cymbeline " 
 
 1 in 2.52 
 
 R97 
 
 1 in 1 66 
 
 60 36 
 
 1 in 32 4 
 
 R 00 
 
 32 
 
 9 90 
 
 1 93 
 
 1 in 30 
 
 Winter's Tale . . . 
 
 1 in 2.12 
 
 47.2 
 
 1 in 1.49 
 
 66.93 
 
 1 in 28.1 
 
 3.56 
 
 31.09 
 
 3.12 
 
 2.36 
 
 lill 00 
 
 Henry VHE .... 
 
 1 in 2.03 
 
 49.2 
 
 1 in 1.5* 
 
 65.59 
 
 1 in 33.5 
 
 2.70 
 
 44 
 
 3.93 
 
 3.23 
 
 liii oo 
 
 * My own count. Total speeches in L. L. L., 1128; prose 526, verse 602 : part-line 116, 
 single-line 221, song 11, end-stopt 219, mid-stopt 35, of which 9 are followd by speeches be- 
 ginning with the beginning of the line. If these be reckond as part-line speech-endings, the 
 proportion is 1 in 23.15 or 4.32%, thereby bringing the play nearer to its rightful position. 
 Total speeches in IP (Shakspere's part) 279, all verse : part-line 63, single-line 12, end-stopt 22, 
 mid-stopt 182, only 8 of which are followd by speeches beginning with the beginning of the 
 line, and 6 of these occur at the entrance or exit of a speaker. 
 
 t Total number. 
 
26 
 
 " On the whole, then," says Mr. Fleay, in his latest paper, " we may say 
 that by means of metrical tests we can always distinguish, generally deter- 
 mine authorship, and usually ascertain at what period of an author's life a 
 work was written. The conclusions drawn by me as to authorship or date 
 are always based on large numerical differences. ... To the fallacy of the 
 exact percentage-differential doctrine, however, the ryme test is an impor- 
 tant exception. Not only is there a gradual disuse of ryme by every author 
 from 1590-1 640 as he grows older, but there is also a growing dislike on the 
 part of the public to the mixture of ryme and verse." (Mr. Fleay cites as 
 one proof, a scene from HEY WOOD'S Royal King and Loyal Subject, acted in 
 1603 but not publisht till 1637. Many rymed lines hav evidently been 
 alterd to unrymed lines, to suit the changd fashion of the times which the 
 author describes in the prolog. Revision, therefore, and alteration, must 
 always be taken into consideration in applying the tests.) "For general 
 chronological arrangement, then," he concludes, " I attach the highest im- 
 portance to this ryme test. For separating the periods of Shakspere's work 
 I rank the weak-ending test first in distinguishing the third and fourth 
 periods ; the extra-middle syllable for separating the second and the third ; 
 the ryme test for separating the first and second. For determining where 
 revision has been at work, the short lines, especially at the beginning and 
 end of speeches, are most useful." 
 
 When these verse tests, then, corroborate the external evidence and the 
 conclusions of the higher criticism based upon the evidence of gradually 
 improving style and taste, profounder characterization, deeper reflection and 
 pathos, loftier imagination and passion, broader humanity, and steadier 
 moral grip, evidence no less conclusiv because it cannot be definitly 
 stated or numerically measurd, it will be seen that the critical study of 
 the Poet's versification has not been without valuable results in helping to 
 reveal to lovers of Shakspere "the greater Man than all his works," and in 
 bringing about those conditions which have made possible " a new Victorian 
 school of Shakspereans," and the production of such books as DOWDEH'S 
 Shakspere : His Mind and Art. 
 
 The following table will show, in parallel columns, Dr. Dowden's and Mr. 
 Furnivall's arrangement of the groups and the succession of the plays.* 
 
 * " The student will observe in my arrangement early, middle, and later Comedy ; early, 
 middle, and later History ; and early, middle, and later Tragedy. Not only is it well to view 
 the entire body of Shakspere's plays in the order of their chronological succession, but also to 
 trace in chronological order the three separate lines of Comedy, History, and Tragedy." 
 DOWDEN, Mind and Art, p. x., 1879 3 . " It would for many reasons be important and interest- 
 ing to ascertain the date at which each work of Shakspere came into existence ; but as a fact 
 this has not been accomplished, and we may safely say that it never will be accomplished. To 
 understand in all essentials the history of Shakspere's character and art, we have obtained 
 what is absolutely necessary, when we have made out the succession, not of Shakspere's plays, 
 but of his chief visions of truth, his most intense moments of inspiration, his greater discov- 
 eries about human life." Ib. p. 378. 
 
27 
 
 FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 DOWDEN. 
 
 " In the Workshop." 
 
 1. Pre-Shaksperean Group. 
 
 (Toucht by Shakspere.) 
 1588-90. Titus Andronicus. (Blood, 
 
 bombast, and fire.) 
 1590-91. 1 Henry VI. 
 
 2. Early Comedies. 
 
 1590. Love's Labour 's Lost. 
 
 1591. Comedy of Errors. 
 1592-3. Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 1593-4. Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 3. Early History and Poems. 
 
 (Marlowe-Shakspere Group.) 
 1591-2. 2, 3 Henry VI. 
 
 1593. Richard III. 
 
 ? 1592. Venus and Adonis. 
 1593-4. Lucrece. 
 
 4. Early Tragedy. 
 
 1591, Romeo and Juliet. 1596-7. 
 
 5. Middle History. 
 
 1594. Richard II. 
 
 1595. King John. 
 
 FURNIVAI/L. 
 V 1588-1594. 
 
 a. Titus Andronicus (not Shakspere's) 
 
 b. The Mistaken-Identity Group. 
 ? 1588-9. Love's Labours Lost. 
 
 ? 1589. Comedy of Errors. 
 ? 1590-1. Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 c. Link Play. 
 1590-1. Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 d. The Passion Group. 
 1591-3. Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 1593. Venus and Adonis. 
 1593-4. Lucrece. 
 1588-99. Passionate Pilgrim. 
 
 e. The Early Histories. 
 ?1593. Richard'll. 
 
 ? 1592-4. 1, 2, 3 Henry VI. 
 ? 1594. Richard III. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 " In the World." 
 
 6. Middle Comedy. 
 1595. Merchant of Venice. 
 
 7. Later History. 
 (History and comedy united.) 
 1597-8. 1/2 Henry IV. 
 1599. Henry V. 
 
 8. Later Comedy. 
 (a.) Rough and boisterous. 
 ? 1597. Shrew. 
 
 ? 1598. Merry Wives. (No sadness.) 
 (b. ) Joyous, refined, romantic. 
 
 1598. Much Ado. (Musical sad- 
 
 ness. ) 
 
 1599. As You Like It. (Jacques, 
 
 link to the next group.) 
 1600-1. Twelfth Night. 
 
 ? 1595-1601. 
 
 a. The Life-Plea Group. 
 ? 1595. King John. 
 ? 1596. Merchant of Venice. 
 
 b. A Farce. 
 
 V 1596-7. Taming of the Shrew. 
 c. Falstaff. Trilogy of Henry IV., V. 
 1596-7. 1 Henry IV. 
 1597-8. 2 Henry IV. 
 1598-9. Merry Wives. 
 
 1599. Henry V. 
 
 d. The Sunny or Sweet Tune Come- 
 dies. 
 1599-1600. Much Ado. 
 
 1600. As You Like It. 
 
 1601. Twelfth Night. 
 
28 
 
 (c.) Discordant sadness. 
 1601-2. All 's Well. (Serious earnest.) 
 1603. Measure for Measure. (Se- 
 vere, dark.) 
 ? 1603. Troilus, 1607. (Bitter, ironical.) 
 
 e. The Darkening Comedy, 
 1601-2. All's Well. 
 f. Sonnets. 
 (? 1595-1605, Dowden.) 
 
 THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 11 Out of the Depths." 
 9. Middle Tragedy. 
 
 1601. Julius Ccesar. (Error and 
 misfortune rather than crime.) 
 
 1602. Hamlet. 
 
 10. Later Tragedy. 
 
 1604. Othello. (Jealousy and mur- 
 
 der.) 
 
 1605. Lear. (Ingratitude and par- 
 
 ricide.) 
 
 1606. Macbeth. (Ambition and 
 
 murder.) 
 
 1607. Antony and Cleopatra (Vo- 
 
 luptuousness). 
 
 1608. Coriolanus (Alienation from 
 
 country). 
 
 1607-8. Timon (Alienation from hu- 
 manity). 
 ( Timon is the climax !) 
 
 1601-1608. 
 a. Unfit Nature, Under-Burden-failing 
 
 Group. 
 1601. Julius Ccesar. 
 
 1602-3. Hamlet. 
 
 7 1603. Measure for Measure, 
 b. The Tempter-yielding Group. 
 
 ?1604. Othello. 
 1605-6. Macbeth. 
 
 c. 1st. Ingratitude, Cursing Play. 
 1605-0. King Lear. 
 
 d. The Lust or False-Love Group. 
 71606-7. Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 71606-7. Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 e. 2d. Ingratitude, Cursing Group. 
 
 V 1607-8. Coriolanus. (Haughtiness.) 
 ? 1607-8. Timon. (Misanthropy.) 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD. 
 
 " On the Heights.' 
 
 11. Romances. 
 
 1608. Pericles (Marina). 
 
 1609. Cymbeline. 
 
 1610. Tempest. 
 1610-11. Winter's Tale. 
 
 12. Fragments. 
 1612. Two Noble Kinsmen. 
 
 1612-13. Henry VIII. 
 
 1609-1613. 
 Reunion, Reconciliation, Forgiveness. 
 
 a. By Men. 
 1608-9. Pericles. 
 1609-10. Tempest. 
 
 b. By Women (mainly). 
 ?1610. Cymbeline. 
 
 1611. Winter's Tale. 
 1612-13. Henry VIII. 
 1612-13. Two Noble Kinsmen. 
 
29 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 DESCRIPTIV LIST OF A FEW OF THE MOST IMPORTANT 
 WORKS ON ENGLISH VERSE. 
 
 In addition to the books mentiond in the note to the Preface, the student 
 who wishes to continue the subject with the help of the very latest work on 
 phonetics may be referrd to the elaborate analyses of audible speech (physical- 
 acoustical, after HELMHOLTZ, and anatomical-physiological, with excellent illus- 
 trations of the organs of speech, etc., etc.) by F. TECHMER, in the first num- 
 ber of the new Internationale Zeitung.* The numerous plates and tables will 
 be very helpful, evn to those who do not read German. The notes contain 
 almost a complete bibliografy of the subject. Cf. his PhonetiJc, Leipzig, 1880. 
 See also the references in the notes to pp. 11, 17, 19, above, and cf. W. D. 
 WHITNEY on The Elements of English Pronunciation, in his Oriental and Lin- 
 guistic Studies, p. 202 ff. (New York, 1874). 
 
 * F. TECHMER, Naturwissenschaftliche Analyse und Synthese der fforbaren 
 ; M3, p. 69 ff.; and Transskription mittels der Lateinischen Kursivschrift, p. 
 171 ff. of the new Internationale Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, 
 I. Bd. 1. heft, Leipzig, 1884. The oft-repeated query may recur at this point : What 
 has all this about phonetics, etc., to do with Shakspere's Versification, or with Eng- 
 lish Metre ? Unfortunately the query itself is a good example of how little re- 
 flection is givn to this branch of our subject. Mr. Ruskin, in one of his petulant 
 moods, once wrote, in reply to a request for his interpretation of a passage in Shak- 
 spere (Yon gray lines that fret the clouds, J. C. ii. 1. 103, 104), * You say not one 
 man in 150 knows what the line means. My dear Furnivall, not one man in 15,000 
 in the nineteenth century knows, or ever can know, what any line, or any word 
 means, used by a great writer. For most words stand for things that are seen, or 
 things that are thought of : and in the nineteenth century there is certainly not one 
 man IQ 15,000 who ever looks at anything, and not one in 15,000,000 capable of a 
 thought." The proportion may not be quite the same ( !), but how few of us really 
 observ, or are conscious for any length of time, that we read and write one lan- 
 guage and speak a very different one. To be sure, since the advent of the printing- 
 press, with its manifold reproductions, the "letter" has been gradually extending 
 its sole original function of representing sound, till now a Frenchman, for example, 
 can learn to read English from a book, and an Englishman French. The readers, 
 however, hav but to exchange countries and becom speakers, to realize that what 
 they hav learnd is not the English, not the French language. " Language is made 
 up of sounds, not letters.' 11 The divorce of sound and letter, however, has now con- 
 tinued so long in English, that English-speaking people hav almost completely lost 
 their "phonetic sense" ; so that this subject of actual sound relations, which is at 
 once one of the most essential, and in other countries one of the simplest, in language 
 study, has to be pursued and applied by American students, not only with earnest, 
 conscious effort, but in the face of no little conservativ opposition. But as " we 
 
30 
 
 Now it is the deficiency in this physiological analysis of sound and the phe- 
 nomena of spokn language that makes the early works on English Verse now 
 almost valueless, and many of the late works almost irreconcilably contradic- 
 tory. MITFORD (1804) and GUEST (1838) are treasure-houses of examples, 
 but their theories are erroneous and impracticable. In the Transactions of the 
 Philological Society, London, 1874, p. 624, PROF. J. B. MAYOR, in an article en- 
 titled Dr. Guest and Dr. Abbott on English Metre, characterizes the followers of 
 the former as of the intuitivist school, and the followers of the latter as of the 
 mechanical routine school. (Cf. ABBOTT'S English Lessons for English People, pp. 
 152, 153.) PROF. MAYOR'S own idea of metrical accent is that it amounts 
 merely to "the distinction between emphatic and unemphatic syllables" (p. 
 637). His critical examination of the versification of Macbeth, however, in 
 which he applies his (insufficient) theory, is worth consulting, particularly on 
 the subjects of contractions and Alexandrines (Phil. Soc. Trans., 1875-76, p. 414). 
 The first clear * light thrown on the subject was by MR. ELLIS'S valuable 
 paper on The Physical Constituents of Accent and Emphasis (Phil. Soc. Trans., 
 1874, p. 113). He there distinguishes in the sounds of spokn verse : length, 
 pitch, force, and form (including succession, glide, jump, and silence). See 
 above, p. 19, note. And in the Phil. Soc. Trans. 1876, p. 443, he defines 
 English rythm as being " primarily governed by alternations and groups of 
 strong and weak syllables, and materially influenced by alternations and 
 groups of long and short, high and low, heavy and light syllables, and great and 
 small pauses." PROF. MAYOR, however, (ib. t 454,) objects to his elaborate 
 over-analysis, saying : " The one thing to attend to is the variation of force, 
 arising either from emphasis in the case of monosyllables, or from the word- 
 accent in polysyllables. When this is thoroughly grasped, it may be well to 
 
 should avoid violent revolution in the words and externals of religion," so we should 
 avoid violent revolution in the words and externals of language and literature. (Cf. 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD, Last Essays, Works, ed. 1883, vol. vii. pp. xxi, xxix, 227; and 
 Introduction to the Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration, 1875 ; and his latest b<^K, 
 Isaiah of Jerusalem, 1883.) Yet not until still greater effort is made on th^ part 
 of teachers, at least, to restore this lost "phonetic sense," or to arouse tb<j above- 
 mentiond complainants to an appreciation of the fact that it is lost, and on the 
 part of readers, as well as speakers, of the living English language, to recognize the 
 importance of "sound" knowledge, can we hope for better methods or more satis- 
 factory results in our language work, particularly in such matters as this of Versi- 
 fication, where the rythm entirely depends, not upon how the lines look, but upon 
 how they sound. We do not ask for a radical change in spelling, but merely for a 
 disposition to recognize the living reality beneath the arbitrary symbol. It is n't 
 encouraging to hav every attempt to find out and show the thing as it is condem'd 
 as " flat burglary," or worse, on our (mythical) "dear old mother tongue." 
 
 * At least in flashes. This brief abstract, like all the others, to be clearly appre- 
 hended, must be read in the original with the author's illustrativ examples. There 
 is, of course, space here for the main outlines only, the most important points in 
 each theory. 
 
31 
 
 notice how the rhythm thus obtained receives a further coloring from pitch, 
 length, or silence, from alliteration, and in various other ways, but all these 
 arc secondary." MR. S. H. HODGSON, on the other hand, (English Verse, in 
 Outcast Essays, pp. 207-360, London, 1881,) tho he follows ELLIS in recogniz- 
 ing in every articulate sound four inseparable elements, duration, pitch or ac- 
 cent, color or tone, and loudness or force, thinks that there is more difference 
 between time, the quantitative element, and the three qualitative elements of 
 sound, than there is between these three among themselves (p. 227). Yet, 
 while agreeing with MR. COVENTRY PATMORE that stress or accent is the 
 sole source of English metre (Study of English Metrical Law, prefixt to his 
 Amelia, Lond., 1878), he is of the opinion that he employs it illogically to divide 
 time into isochronous bars. English metres, he thinks, do not aim at dividing 
 time into equal or proportionate lengths ; they aim at a response of phrase to 
 phrase, or sound to sound. " Quantity, therefore, in the sense of lengths of 
 concrete speech markt off by stresses, is obviously very different from quan- 
 tity in the sense of equal lengths of the time which speech occupies, and still 
 more from the measured quantity of syllables, giving rise to feet measured 
 and defined by the length and number of syllables they consist of." (p. 237.) 
 But because English verse sounds are not confined, like those of Greek and 
 Latin, to a single proportion, 1 : 2, and are not likewise fixt in quantity, (the 
 same sounds forming sometimes short, sometimes long syllables,) it is not to 
 be inferrd that there is no such thing as time-quantity in English verse 
 sounds.* The fact, too, that rythm frequently depends upon silences which 
 
 * That it takes some time to pronounce English words, both in prose and verse 
 is self-evident, and every one who doesn't read the blank verse of Shakspere's lat- 
 est plays as prose (owing to its baffling variety of pause-substitutions, its great 
 of double-ending and run-on lines, and its complex interplay of logic-, sen- 
 tence-, and word-accent) must be aware of at least one cause of the rythm in the con- 
 ess that each whole line has approximately the same time-allotment. So 
 iiiantity in English verse we can unquestionably feel; (and we feel it in 
 e manner that we find the way about our homes in the dark, or go up 
 and down familiar flights of steps without looking, we know just when we are 
 about to reach the top or bottom ; so we detect by ear lines that are too long or too 
 ) whether we can definitly say more is uncertain. Mr. Lanier's application 
 of the theory that the printed word is a measure of rythm, the merest tyro in pho- 
 netics knows to be fallacious ; for it is only by chance that our word-division, as 
 ordinarily printed, represents the words as actually pronounct in the verse. But 
 tho we cannot, with perfect accuracy, divide the time-allotment of each whole line 
 into equal smaller time-allotments, the musical notation possesses so many points 
 of superiority over all other schemes, that, with this reservation, it has been 
 adopted for practical school use. As every piece of music is interpreted differently 
 by different performers, according as each introduces various "holds," "rests," etc., 
 etc., not provided for in the notes, so every verse, according to this notation, is sub- 
 ject to the same accidents of individual taste or rythmical feeling. (The selection of 
 
32 
 
 cannot be accented, and that a series of random sound-units, tho accented 
 regularly, are not rythmical unless there pre-exist some simple harmonious 
 time-relations between the sound-units themselves, suggests the inference 
 that accent is not the sole cause of English verse. " This misconception has 
 arisen out of the failure to discriminate primary rhythm from secondary 
 rhythm." (SIDNEY LANIER, Science of Eng. Verse, New York, 1880.) By 
 primary rythm he means the simple pre-existing time-relations between the 
 sound-units ; and by secondary rythm, the arrangement, by means of accent, 
 of this primary rythmic material into groups or bars (p. 103). When the 
 rythmic accent recurs at that interval of time represented by three units 
 of any sort, no matter among how many sounds this amount of time may 
 be distributed, we have the effect upon the ear of 3-ry thm ; by four units, 
 that of 4-rythm. These two classes of secondary rythm comprise, as types, 
 nearly all the combinations made by sound-units in English verse (p. 127). 
 Applying, then, the musical notation used by SCHMIDT in his Introduction 
 to the Rhythmic and Metric of the Classical Languages, if we take the type of 
 Shakspere's verse to be a line-group of five bars, each of the typical form 
 A (allowing all the variations of written music), we shall have 
 
 n perhaps a more scientifically accurate scheme than even 
 ELLIS'S improvement on the conventional definition gives us, 
 and also one more in harmony with the spirit of English blank verse viewd 
 historically as a variation of the 3-rythm type of versification, which, from 
 Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, has been used by English poets with 
 an almost passionate preference over the other type, seen in Locksley Hall 
 and in the classical hexameters, the 4-rythm type. The following scheme 
 exhibits a modern variation of this 3-rythm type ; it is also the most ancient. 
 
 II : 
 
 E^IEj=pz=p=^rf5E5ES^^^^^p: 
 
 ~ -8- b a b E=b--ft zb Ezb ib -bSrir^b; 
 
 Half a league, half a league, half a league on - ward. 
 
 Hi 
 
 Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. 
 
 Cf. SWINBURNE'S Aialanta in Calydon, and W. MORRIS'S Love is Enough. 
 Piers Plowman (1362), " who was the first that observed the true quantity of 
 our verse without the curiositie of rime," * exhibits the moving forward of the 
 accent : 
 
 the note E of the bass cleff in the following examples has no significance ; it was 
 only takn for convenience.) 
 
 * FRANCIS MERES, Palladia Tamia, 1598, N. Sh. Soc. Trans., TV. Series, 1874, 
 p. 156. 
 
33 
 
 ' In a sdm - - er 86* - son, whan soft was the sdn - ne, 
 
 shop - e 
 
 shdp - - e w^r - e. 
 
 In Chaucer's verse we pass from what may be called the ancient heroic 
 verse to the modern. In the first of the following examples observe that the 
 types of Chaucer's verse and of Shakspere's early work are identical ; in the 
 second, notice the similarity of the time-allotments in the last bar : 
 
 --^T 
 
 | * fi- 
 
 ~t t- 
 
 * *-- 
 
 H 1 
 
 3 * ^ 
 
 
 Q. ^ 1 1 
 Whil - om, 
 
 as old 
 
 - e sto - 
 
 i ^ i 
 
 ries tell 
 
 J ^ 1 ! _J 
 en us, 
 
 
 There was 
 
 a duk 
 
 that hight - 
 
 e The 
 
 - se - us. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Knighte's Tale, 1 
 
 3iron. 
 
 What is 
 
 the end 
 
 of stud 
 
 - y? Let 
 
 me know. 
 
 King. 
 
 Why, that 
 
 to know 
 
 which else 
 
 we should 
 
 not know. 
 
 Biron. 
 
 Things hid 
 
 andbarr'd, 
 
 you mean, 
 
 from com 
 
 - mon sense? 
 
 King. 
 
 Ay, that 
 
 is stud 
 
 -y's god - 
 
 like rec 
 
 - om - pense. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. L. L. i. 1. 55 
 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 _^_ 
 
 * it-I 
 
 -b 1 T- 
 
 H h--tr 
 
 1 =5 f^ J? 
 
 
 SL ^ 1 L 
 
 -V 1 L_ 
 
 
 When that A - prill -e with his schowr - es swoot - e 
 The drought of Marche hath perc - ed to the root - e. 
 
 Prolog. C. T. 1, 2. 
 
 To be or not to be, that is the question. 
 
 Whe'th - er 'ti no - bier in the mind to suffer 
 
 The slings and ar - rows of out - ra - geous fortune, 
 O'r to take arms a - gainst a sea of troubles. 
 
 H. iii. I. 56. 
 
 In the second and fourth lines the first bar in each is changd to the form 
 which is the type of POE'S Raven, LONGFELLOW'S Psalm 
 
 Of course these schemes 
 rythmical theme upon 
 
 of Life, EMERSON'S Brahma, etc. 
 are general types only of the 
 
 which the poets have composed the melodious structure of their verse. 
 It would be absurd to read Chaucer's verses without their rythmical pause- 
 substitutions, as it would be to imagine Hamlet following rigidly the above 
 scheme. Shakspere, we have seen, as he grew in metrical insight and 
 
power, .discarded ryme, and by an immense variety of time-allotments in each 
 of the five bars, and by a rythmical disposition of word and logical accent, 
 created a music of his own, which bore but little superficial resemblance to the 
 regular melody of the Chaucerian variation of the 3-rythm type. (See above 
 on the Verse Tests.) 
 
 Some further useful hints perhaps may be got from PROF. SKEAT'S 
 paper on Alliterative Metre (in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, 
 1868), and in MR. SYMOND'S article on Milton's BlankVerse, in the Fortnightly 
 Review, December, 1874. COLERIDGE'S Preface to Christabel, and POE'S 
 Rationale of Verse, are interesting as curiosities. As usual, in all bibliograf- 
 ical notes, however slight, (not excepting the subject of English,) the "latest 
 and best " work is by a German. Aided by the Old-English publications 
 of the London societies, DR. J. SCHIPPER, in his Englische Metrik, l ter Theil, 
 (Bonn, 1882,) has produced the most scientific and comprehensive history of 
 English verse that has yet appeared. The part now publisht, however, only 
 comes down to Chaucer, and is therefore most useful to students of Early 
 English. 
 
 Among the useful books on the abov subjects publisht since these 
 notes were first printed, the following may be mentiond: A Handbook of 
 Poetics for Students of English Verse. F. B. GUMMERE, Ph. D., Boston, Ginn 
 & Co., 1885. The Prose in Shakspere's Plays : the Rules for its Use and the 
 Assistance that it gives in Understanding the Plays. HENRY SHARPE. Paper 
 read before New Sh. Soc. London, Dec. 11, 1885. Elementarlmch des Ge- 
 sprochenen Englisch. HENRY SWEET. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1886. A 
 most excellent summary of the main features of London spokn English, 
 with text and glossary, which, tho designd for German beginners in Eng- 
 lish, will be found useful by those who know but little German. Students 
 of phonetics who read German may consult the following additional wrk3 
 with profit : Die Sprachlaute im Allgemeinen und Die Laute des En^ischen t 
 Franzosischen,und Deutschen im Besondern. DR. MORITZ TRAUTMAIN, Leip- 
 zig, 1884-85. (Die Warier und Sdtze im Allgemeinen und Die Englischen, Fran- 
 zosischen, und Deutschen Worter und Sdtze im Besondern, announced by the 
 same.) Zur Veranschaulichung der Lautbildung. F. TECHMER, Leipzig, 1885 
 (with wall-chart). 
 
 October, 1886. 
 
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