dry and lifeless a priori theories, that the harmonies of Chaucer's versé are to be recognized. Let the reader throw aside and forget the learned rubbish that has gathered around it, and, starting with two or three simple rules for the management of the rhythm, its subtler elements will gradually unfold themselves to him, and he will soon be prepared cordially to subscribe to all that Mrs. Browning, in her "Book of the Poets," has written on the subject: "We cannot help observing, because certain critics observe otherwise, that Chaucer utters as true music as ever came from poet or musician; that some of the sweetest cadences in all our English are extant in his 'swete upon his tongue,' in completest modulation. Let 'Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join' the Io pæan of a later age, the 'eurekamen' of Pope and his generation. Not one of the 'Queen Anne's men,' measuring out tuneful breath upon their fingers, like ribbons for topknots, did know the art of versification as the old rude Chaucer knew it. Call him rude for the picturesqueness of the epithet; but his verse has, at least, as much regularity in the sense of true art, and more manifestly in proportion to our increasing acquaintance with his dialect and pronunciation, as can be discovered or dreamed in the French school. Critics, indeed, have set up a system based upon the crushed atoms of first principles, maintaining that poor Chaucer wrote by accent only! Grant to them that he counted no verses on his fingers; grant that he never disciplined his highest thoughts to walk up and down in a paddock-ten paces and a turn; grant that his singing is not after the likeness of their singsong; but there end your admissions. It is our ineffaceable impression, in fact, that the whole theory of accent and quantity held in relation to ancient and modern poetry stands upon a fallacy, totters rather than stands; and that, when considered in connection with such old moderns as our Chaucer, the fallaciousness is especially apparent. Chaucer wrote by quantity, just as Homer did before him, just as Goethe did after him, just as all poets must. Rules differ, principles are identical. All rhythm presupposes quantity. Organ-pipe or harp, the musician plays by time. Greek or English, Chaucer or Pope, the poet sings by time. What is this accent but a stroke, an emphasis, with a successive pause to make complete the time? And what is the difference between this accent and quantity but the difference between a harp-note and an organ-note? otherwise, quantity expressed in different ways? It is as easy for matter to subsist out of space, as music out of time." The first thing to which the attention of a reader is likely to be called who takes up Chaucer for the first time, and without any knowledge of the syllabication of his language, is the apparent deficiency of his verses. Many will appear to him, to use Dryden's expression, "lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one." But it will rarely happen that a verse will appear redundant. This fact alone should have awakened suspicion in Dr. Nott and his followers, as to the soundness of his theory that the principle of Chaucer's verse is rhythmical and not metrical. For if not metrical, why should it not as frequently exhibit excess as deficiency? We would, in fact, in such case, expect the redundant verses to predominate. But, with such verses, the inexperienced reader is seldom troubled. His difficulty consists in filling out the measure-a difficulty arising almost wholly from the fact that many terminations, now mute, regularly constituted a light syllable in Chaucer's time. The first of these that may be noticed are, the ending -es of the genitive or possessive singular and the plural of nouns, and the ending -ed of the preterites and past participles of the weak or regular verbs. The latter still frequently constitutes a distinct syllable in verse, and, in Spenser's poetry, and in the poetry generally of his age, it is the rule and not the exception for it to do so; and it was then, no doubt, often made a distinct syllable even in prose and in ordinary speech. Nor was the ending -es entirely dispensed with, in poetry, as a distinct syllable. Examples of its use are frequent in Spenser: "As whylome was the antique worldës guize.” Faerie Queene, 3, 1, 39. "And eke, through feare, as white as whales bone." "High-minded Cleopatra, that with stroke F. Q., 3, 1, 15. Of aspes sting her selfe did stoutly kill."-F. Q., 1, 5, 50. "In wine and oyle they wash his woundës wide."-F. Q., 1, 5, 17. "Who from them fled, as light-foot hare from vew Of hunter swift and sent of houndës trew."-F. Q., 3, 4, 46. The final -tion, (usually spelled in Chaucer, cioun or cion,) which now makes but one syllable, being pronounced like the word shun, makes invariably two in Chaucer's verse, as it constantly does in the poets and dramatists of the Elizabethan period; e. g., in the following verse from the Legende of Goode Women, the word 'devocion,' must be pronounced as a word of four syllables, thus de-vo-ci-on: "Farewel my boke and my devocion." This is Spenser's invariable rule. The following passage from the Faerie Queene, B. 1, c. 3, st. 6, affords good examples: "Whose yielded pryde and proud sub-miss-i-on, Still dreading death, when she had marked long, And drizling teares did shed for pure af-fect-i-on." In regard to the final -e, which has been the chief subject of dispute among prosodists, I am not aware that anything better has been advanced than what Tyrwhitt says of it in his "Essay on the Language and Versification of Chaucer:" "Nothing will be found of such extensive use for supply ing the deficiencies of Chaucer's metre as the pronunciation of the e feminine; and as that pronunciation has been for a long time totally antiquated, it may be proper here to suggest some reasons for believing (independently of any arguments to be drawn from the practice of Chaucer himself) that the final e in our ancient language was very generally pronounced as the e feminine is at this day by the French. "With respect to words imported directly from France, it is certainly quite natural to suppose that, for some time, they retained their native pronunciation, whether they were nouns substantive, as hoste, ver. 753, face, ver. 1580, etc.; or adjectives, as large, ver. 755, straunge, ver. 13, etc.; or verbs, as grante, ver. 12756 [14237, of Wright's ed.], preche, ver. 12327 [13808, of Wright's ed.], etc.; and it cannot be doubted that in these and other similar words in the French language, the final e was always pronounced, as it still is, so as to make them dissyllables. "We have not, indeed, so clear a proof of the original pronunciation of the Saxon part of our language; but we know, from general observation, that all changes of pronunciation are usually made by small degrees; and, therefore, when we find that a great number of those words which in Chaucer's time ended in e originally ended in a, we may reasonably presume that our ancestors first passed from the broader sound of a to the thinner sound of e feminine, and not at once from a to e mute. Besides, if the final e in such words was not pronounced, why was it added? From the time that it has confessedly ceased to be pronounced, it has been gradually omitted in them, except where it may be supposed of use to lengthen or soften the preceding syllable, as in hope, name, etc. But, according to the ancient orthography, it terminates many words of Saxon original where it cannot have been added for any such purpose, as herte, childe, olde, wilde, etc. In these, therefore, we must suppose that it was pronounced as an e feminine, and made part of a second syllable, and so, by a parity of reason, in all others in which, as in these, it appears to have been substituted for the Saxon a. "Upon the same grounds we may presume that in words terminated according to the Saxon form in en, such as the infinitive modes and plural number of verbs, and a great variety of adverbs and prepositions, the n only was, at first, thrown away, and the e, which then became final, continued for a long time to be pronounced as well as written. "These considerations seem sufficient to make us believe that the pronunciation of the e feminine is founded on the very nature of both the French and Saxon parts of our language; and, therefore, though we may not be able to trace the reasons of that pronunciation in all cases so plainly as in those which have been just mentioned, we may safely, I think, conclude with the learned Wallis,* that what * Gramm. Ling. Anglic., c. 1. § 2.: "Originem vero hujus e muti, nequis miretur unde devenerit, hanc esse judico; nempe, quod antiquitus pronunciatum fuerit, sed obscuro sono, sicut Gallorum e fœmininum. . . . Certissimum autem hujus rei indicium est ex antiquis poetis petendum; apud quos reperitur illud e promiscuè vel constituere vel non constituere novam syllabam, prout ratio carminis postulaverit." Tyrwhitt adds, that "from considering the gradual extinction of the e feminine in our language, and observing that the French, with whom he [Wallis] conversed, very often suppressed it in their common speech, he has been led to predict that the pronunciation of it would, perhaps shortly, be disused among them as among ourselves. The prediction has certainly failed, but, notwithstanding, I will venture to say that at the time when it was made, it was not unworthy of Wallis' sagacity. Unluckily for its success, a number of eminent writers happened, at that very time, to be growing up in France, whose works having since been received as standards of style, must probably fix, for many centuries, the ancient usage of the e feminine in poetry, and, of course, give a considerable check to the natural progress of the language. If the age of Edward III. had been as favourable to letters as that of Louis XIV.; if Chaucer and his contemporary poets had acquired the same authority here that Corneille, Moliere, Racine, and Boileau, have obtained in France; if their works had |