SECTION IV.—­THE KINDS OF VERSE.

The principal kinds of verse, or orders of poetic numbers, as has already been stated, are four; namely, Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, and Dactylic.  Besides these, which are sometimes called “the simple orders” being unmixed, or nearly so, some recognize several “Composite orders” or (with a better view of the matter) several kinds of mixed verse, which are said to constitute “the Composite order.”  In these, one of the four principal kinds of feet must still be used as the basis, some other species being inserted therewith, in each line or stanza, with more or less regularity.

PRINCIPLES AND NAMES.

The diversification of any species of metre, by the occasional change of a foot, or, in certain cases, by the addition or omission of a short syllable, is not usually regarded as sufficient to change the denomination, or stated order, of the verse; and many critics suppose some variety of feet, as well as a studied diversity in the position of the caesural pause, essential to the highest excellence of poetic composition.

The dividing of verses into the feet which compose them, is called Scanning, or Scansion.  In this, according to the technical language of the old prosodists, when a syllable is wanting, the verse is said to be catalectic; when the measure is exact, the line is acatalectic; when there is a redundant syllable, it forms hypermeter.

Since the equal recognition of so many feet as twelve, or even as eight, will often produce different modes of measuring the same lines; and since it is desirable to measure verses with uniformity, and always by the simplest process that will well answer the purpose; we usually scan by the principal feet, in preference to the secondary, where the syllables give us a choice of measures, or may be divided in different ways.

A single foot, especially a foot of only two syllables, can hardly be said to constitute a line, or to have rhythm in itself; yet we sometimes see a foot so placed, and rhyming as a line.  Lines of two, three, four, five, six, or seven feet, are common; and these have received the technical denominations of dim’eter, trim’eter, tetram’eter, pentam’eter, hexam’eter, and heptam’eter.  On a wide page, iambics and trochaics may possibly be written in octom’eter; but lines of this measure, being very long, are mostly abandoned for alternate tetrameters.

ORDER I.—­IAMBIC VERSE.

In Iambic verse, the stress is laid on the even syllables, and the odd ones are short.  Any short syllable added to a line of this order, is supernumerary; iambic rhymes, which are naturally single, being made double by one, and triple by two.  But the adding of one short syllable, which is much practised in dramatic poetry, may be reckoned to convert the last foot into an amphibrach, though the adding of two cannot.  Iambics consist of the following measures:—­