is very pleasing to the ear, and it seems rather surprising that the stanza has not been more cultivated by our hymn writers. The following is an example:

I'll praise my Maker with my breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers:
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life and thought and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Hallelujah Metre.-Another stanza of considerable celebrity among psalms and hymns is that known as Hallelujah Metre. It is in iambic metre, and consists of eight lines. The first four are trimeters, rhyming alternately. The last four are dimeters, with the first rhyming to the fourth, and the second rhyming to the third. Thus:

Lord of the worlds above,

How pleasant and how fair
The dwellings of thy love,
Thy earthly temples are!
To thine abode

My heart aspires
With warm desires,

To see my God.

The sixth and seventh lines are often printed as one.

They go from strength to strength,

Through this vale of tears,

Till each arrives at length,

Till each in heaven appears;

O glorious seat,

Where God our King shall thither bring

Our willing feet!

Thus:

Other Metres. No names have been given to the various stanzas invented for those hymns which are in trochaic, anapæstic, or dactylic metre. In the hymn-books, they are absurdly called 6's, 7's, 8's, etc., according to the number of syllables in a line, as if that alone gave any clue to the rhythmic movement.

With all my powers of heart and tongue

is 8's just as much as

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah.

The difference between the lines is not in the number of syllables, but in the movement. One is iambic, the other trochaic.

The proper way of designating such metres is to add the name of the verse (that is Anapæstic, Dactylic, Trochaic, etc.,) immediately after the figures representing the number of syllables. Thus:

66

'Saviour, visit thy plantation," -8's, 7's, 4's, Trochaic.

"Jesus, lover of my soul," -7's, Trochaic.

"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing," - 8's and 7's, Trochaic.

"I would not live alway: I ask not to stay," - 11's, Anapœstic. "Thou 'rt gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,” — 12's and 11's, Anapastic.

"The voice of free grace cries, Escape to the mountain," - 12's, Anapastic.

"Daughter of Zion, awake from thy sadness,"-11's, alternately Dactylic and Anapastic.

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,' - 11's and 10's, Dactylic.

"Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,"-11's and 10's, Dactylic.

The formulas for these metres are exhibited in the following tables:

"Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near," is usually designated as 10's and 11's. The true construction of these stanzas is obscured by the way in which it is printed. For typographical convenience and economy of space, two lines are printed as one. If the hymn be printed in stanzas of eight lines, the true construction will at once appear, and the proper designation will be 5's and 6's, Anapastic. Thus:

VI. MODERN VERSE ACCENTUAL, NOT SYLLABIC.

Modern poetry, especially English poetry, is distinguished from that of the ancients by the manner in which the verses are measured, or rather by the manner in which we obtain the foot or measuring unit.

Ancient Verse.In Latin and Greek, syllables are divided into long and short, two short syllables being counted as equal to one long. A foot in those languages is determined by the length of time occupied, and the law of the verse is satisfied by making the foot of the right length, without reference to the number of syllables or the position of the accent.

Example.-Take for instance the word fund'us, and its derivatives funda'men, fundamentum. In these three words, the syllable fund- is invariably long. No shifting of the accent, no change of termination, affects the character of that syllable, or its availability for the purpose of versification. It still makes onehalf a foot. On the other hand, in the English words hu'man, human'ity, humanita'rian, the availability of the first syllable hu- for versification, is changed by the changing of the accent. According to this view,

Rights of English Syllables. A syllable in English has no inherent, indefeasible rights of its own, but is subject to the caprice of the accent, which makes the same identical syllable, now the third, and now the half, of a foot, now a part of an iambus, now of a trochee, now of an anapæst, and now of a dactyl.

The Difference.-Modern verse is governed by the accent; ancient verse was governed by the syllables, which had certain fixed and determinate lengths. Modern verse, therefore, is accentual; ancient verse was syllabic.

Importance of this Distinction.-This distinction, once made thoroughly familiar, will save a world of technical rules, and will throw light upon many points connected with the versification of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, which were stumbling-blocks to Pope and Dryden. The four poets first named, whether with or

without any definite theory on the subject, wrote according to the genius of the language and the dictates of a cultivated ear. That is, they wrote accentual verse. The two latter, desiring to refine upon the subject, and not comprehending in this respect the true genius of modern verse, attempted to subject it to the rules of the classic models.

Mistake of Pope and Dryden.—Setting out with an erroneous theory of what English verse ought to be, they found in their predecessors much that was pronounced faulty, that was at least contrary to the arbitrary rules which they had made for the government of verse, although they could not but pronounce even the objectionable passages highly beautiful and harmonious. Their procedure in this respect was about as wise as it would be for a painter to represent the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, or the Canterbury Pilgrims, dressed in the tunic and toga of the old Romans.

Present Opinion.-A more advanced stage of criticism has drawn clearly the line between ancient verse and modern, and shown wherein lie the genius and strength of the latter. It has also rescued English verse from the Procrustean bed upon which it was about to be stretched, and has restored it to the freedom of limb characteristic of its northern birth.

Present State of English Verse.- English verse for the last half century has been better in every respect than that of the half century of which Alexander Pope was the centre.

VII. ELISION.

One of the points about which the critics have been divided is the elision of vowels.

Take the following examples:

| Blest as the immōr|tal gods | is he. I

A pillar of state | deep on | his front | engraven. |

Explanation. In each of these examples, the foot printed in italics gives us three syllables where by analogy only two are expected. Such examples afford not the slightest difficulty, when we have once admitted that our verse is accentual, not syllabic. The two syllables which here accompany the accent are such as can easily be sounded