syllables. If thus, as is for instance pre-eminently the case with our mother tongue, these root-stems appropriate almost invariably the accent to themselves, such an accent is to an overwhelming degree one of the sense, _significance',_ not a definition, however, in which the medium--that is, the utterance as sound--would be free, or could assert the relation of the length, shortness, or accentuation of syllables independently of the intelligible content of the words. Consequently a rhythmical configuration of time-movement and emphasis liberated from the stem syllable and its meaning can here no longer be maintained. We have merely left us, in contradistinction to the former hearing of the ample sound and duration of such long and short beats in their varied juxtaposition, a general impression of sound,[26] which is apprehended.
entirely aloof from the accented fundamental syllable with its weight of significance. And, indeed, apart from this, as we have seen, the ramification of the stem into syllables as modified into particular words is also an independent process. Such words receive thereby an independent worth, and, while preserving their own significance, they make us at the same time hear the identical coalescence of meaning and accent, which we have observed in the case of the stem or root word around which they are ranged. We are therefore forced to restrict our attention to the sense of every word; and, instead of being occupied with the natural length and shortness of syllables and their sensuous[27] accentuation, are only able to hear the accent asserted by the main and substantive meaning.
(_γγ_) In such modern languages the element of rhythm has little room for its display, or at least the soul has little freedom left to expatiate within it, because, as observed, time and the equable stream of syllabic sound as emitted from its movement is superseded[28] by a more ideal relation--that is to say, by the sense and meaning of the words, and thereby the force of the more independent configuration of rhythm is suppressed. We may in this connection compare the principle of rhythmical versification with the plastic arts. We find in both that the ideal significance is not as yet asserted in its independence, nor does the former expressly define the length and accent of syllables, but rather the meaning of the words is wholly blended with the sensuous medium of the inherent time duration and sound, with a result that does complete justice to the claim of such externality, wholly absorbed in the ideal form and movement of the same. If, however, such a principle is renounced, and yet despite of this, but in accordance with the necessary demand of art, the sensuous medium is permitted to retain a certain force of resistance as against the exclusive assertion of ideal content,[29] in order to this end to divert the ear's attention,--in the case that is, where what we may call the plastic moment of that more ancient mode of syllabic quantity, as it is on its own account, and the tonal quality inseparable from the general rhythm rather than independently asserted --when this, as I say, has been destroyed, then we have no other means[30] at hand save the express and artistically configurated sound of articulate speech simply, and retained as such in its isolation. And this leads us to our second main type of versification--in other words, _rhyme._ (_b_) _Rhyme_ From an objective standpoint it is possible to seek to explain the need of a novel treatment of language from the deterioration into which the classical languages fell through their contact with foreign relations. Such a development, however, lies in the nature of the facts themselves. The earliest example of conformity with the ideality of its content attempted by poetry is to be traced in the length and shortness of syllables in independence from their significance, for the mutual relations of which, caesurae and so forth, art elaborates its rules, rules which it is true generally coincide with the character of the content in its broad outlines, but which none the less, in matters of individual detail, do not suffer either the length or shortness of a syllable, nor its accent, to depend exclusively on the intelligible significance making such a formal aspect subordinate, to the point of entire detachment, to the same.[31] The more ideal, however, and spiritual the represented idea becomes, the more it tends to detach itself from this objective aspect, which increasingly fails to present such ideality in plastic guise, and finally reaches a point of self-concentration in which the, so to speak, corporeal element of speech is in a measure wholly wiped away, and for the rest merely asserts that wherein the intelligible significance is reposed as necessary to its communication; all else is only admitted, by way of by-play, as insignificant. Now romantic art, in respect to the entire type of its conception and presentation, effects a similar passage over to this concentrated synthesis of ideality, when it sets out in search for the material which corresponds to this subjective content in audible sound.[32] Following these lines romantic poetry also, inasmuch as it generally lays most stress on the ideal tones[33] of feeling, becomes absorbed in its preoccupation[34] with the distinct and independent ring and tones of letters, syllables, and words; perfecting such a process to its final satisfaction, as it learns, either in their association with ideality, or in their connection with the architectonically intelligible penetration[35] of such music, to separate such syllabic and other verbal sounds or to relate or interlace them one with another. From this point of view we may affirm that it is not simply by way of accident that rhyme is elaborated in romantic poetry. It is a necessary feature of it. The requirement of soul-life, to discover itself again, is thereby more fully asserted, and finds a real source of satisfaction in the identity of the rhyme, which declares an indifference[36] to the unyielding laws of the time-measure, and, by virtue of its recurrence of similar sounds, gives exclusive effect to an effort which conducts the conscious self back to itself. It is by this means that versification is made to approach more closely the musical art as such, that is, the vivid tones of soul-life itself, and is, from this point of view, liberated from the, relatively speaking, gross material of human speech, in other words from what we have referred to as the natural measure of quantity.
With regard to points of special interest in this subject, I will confine myself to the following general observations: _First_, upon the origin of rhyme.
_Secondly_, upon a few more definite features by which we may distinguish the sphere of rhyme from that of rhythm in verse.
_Thirdly_, upon the types under which we may classify rhyme generally.
(_α_) We have already seen that rhyme belongs in its form to the art of romantic poetry, which requires such a more pronounced emphasis of its configurated syllabic sound posited thus on its own account. And it is thus effected to the extent that the ideal activity of volition[37] discovers its own presence by this means in the objective medium of tone. Where such a need is asserted we have a mode of speech in part meeting absolutely the conditions of form I outlined above when discussing the necessity of rhyme; and in addition it makes use of the old forms of language at hand, the Latin for example, which, though of other constitution and mainly applicable to rhythmical versification, it employs agreeably to the character of the new principle, or reconstructs the same so far into a new language that the element of rhythm disappears, and rhyme becomes, as in the Italian and French languages, the matter of all importance.
(_αα_) In this respect we find throughout Christendom that rhyme is introduced into Latin versification at a very early date with much insistence, although, as observed, it rested on other principles.
These principles, however, are rather adapted from the Greek language; and, so far from testifying to the fact that they originated from the Latin speech itself, rather prove, under the modified character they possess, a tendency which itself approaches the romantic type. In other words, the poetry of Rome, on the one hand and in its earliest days, discovered its source not in the natural length and shortness of syllables, but rather measured the value of syllables relatively to their accent; and in consequence of this it was only through a more accurate knowledge and imitation of Greek poetry that the prosodical principle of this was received and followed. And, moreover, the Romans rendered more obdurate the flexible, joyous sensuousness of Greek metres, more particularly by their use of more insistent pauses at the caesura, as we find such not only in the hexameter, but also in the alcaic and sapphic metres, hardening the effect thus to a structure of more stringent outline and more severe regularity. And indeed, apart from this, even in the full bloom of Latin literature, and from their poets of finest culture, we have already plenty of rhymes. Thus from Horace, in his _Ars poetica_ (verses 99-100), we get the following: Non satis est, pulchra esse poemata: dulcia _sunto,_ Et quocunque volent, animum auditoris _agunto._ Though the poet was probably quite unconscious of the fact, it is none the less a strange coincidence that, in the very passage in which Horace enforces the obligation that poems should be _dulcia_, we discover a rhyme. Similar rhymes occur in Ovid with still more frequency. Even assuming such to be accidental, the fact remains that they appear to have been not offensive to Roman ears, and might consequently be permitted, although as isolated exceptions, to slip into the composition. Yet the profounder significance of romantic rhyme is absent from such playful exceptions. The former does not assert the recurrent sound merely as sound, but the ideal content or meaning implied in it. And it is precisely this which constitutes the fundamental difference between modern rhyme and the very ancient rhyme of the Hindoos.
As for the classical languages, it was after the invasion of barbarism, and on account of the destruction of accentuation and the assertion of that uniquely personal note of emotion referable to Christianity, that the rhythmical system of verse passed into that of rhyme. Thus, in his hymn to the Holy Spirit, Ambrosius entirely regulates the versification according to the accent of the meaning expressed, and breaks into rhyme. The first work of St. Augustine against the Donatists is in the same way a rhymed song; and also the so-called Leonine versicles, as expressly rhymed hexameters and pentameters, are easily distinguishable from the accidental exceptions of rhyme previously noticed. These and other examples like them mark the point of departure of rhyme from the more ancient rhythmical system.
(_ββ_) Certain writers have no doubt attempted to trace the origin of the new principle of versification in _Arabian_ literature. The artistic education, however, of the famous poets of the East is of later date than the appearance of rhyme in western Christendom; and any Mohammedan art of a more early time exercised no real influence on the West. We should, however, add that we find from the first in Arabian poetry essential affinities with the romantic principle, in which the knights of Europe, at the time of the crusades, very readily made themselves at home; and consequently it is not difficult to understand how, in the affinity of spiritual tendencies[38] which they shared, and in which the poetry of Eastern Mohammedanism no less than Western Christianity finds its source, though removed in the world from each other, we meet for the first time and on its own independent footing a novel type of verse writing.
(_γγ_) A _third_ source, to which again, independently of either the influence of the classic languages or the Arabic, we may trace the origins of rhyme and all that it implies, are the _Germanic_ languages, as we find them in their earliest Scandinavian development.
As illustration of this we have the songs of the ancient Edda, which, though only in more recent times, collected and edited, unquestionably date from a former age. In these, as we shall see later on, it is not, it is true, the genuine rhyme-sound which is elaborated in its perfection, but rather an effective emphasis upon particular sounds of language, and a regularity defined by rule, with a definite repetition of both aspects.
(_β_) Yet more important than the question of origin is the characteristic _difference_ between the new system and the old. I have already adverted to the fundamental feature of importance here; it only remains to establish it more narrowly.
Rhythmical versification attained its most beautiful and richest development in the field of Hellenic poetry, in which we may discover the most eminent features of the type wherever it obtains. Briefly they are as follows: _First_, the sound, as such, of letters, syllables, or words does not here constitute its material, but rather the syllabic sound in its _temporal duration_, so that attention must neither exclusively be directed to particular syllables or words, nor to the purely qualitative similarity or identity of their sound. On the contrary, the sound still remains in inseparable union with the static time-measure of its specific duration; and in the forward movement of both the ear has to follow the value of every separate syllable no less than the principle which obtains in the rhythmical progression of all equally together. _Secondly_, the measure of long and short syllables, no less than that of rhythmical rise and fall, and varied animation derived from more deliberate caesurae and moments of pause, depends upon the _natural_ element of the language, without permitting any introduction of that type of accentuation, by virtue of which the actual _meaning_ of the word leaves its impress on a syllable or a word. The versification asserts itself in its collocation of feet, its verse accent, its caesurae, and so forth in this respect as fully independent as the language itself, which also, outside the domain of poetry, already accepts accentuation from the natural quantity of syllables and their relations of juxtaposition, and not from the significance of the root-syllable. On this account, _thirdly_, we have as the vital emphasis of certain syllables, first, the verse accent and rhythm, and, secondly, all other accentuation, both of which aspects, in their twofold contribution to the varied character of the whole, pass in and out of one another without any mutual derangement or suppression; and in like manner respectively they satisfy the claim of the poetical imagination in fully admitting the expressiveness due, by virtue of the nature of their position and movement, to words which, in respect to their intelligible meaning, are of a greater importance than others.
(_αα_) The first alteration, then, effected by rhymed verse in the previous system is this indisputable validity of _natural quantity_,[39] If, therefore, any time-measure at all is permitted to remain, it is compelled to seek for a basis for such quantitative pause or acceleration, which it refuses any longer to find in the natural quantity, of syllables, in some other province. And this, as we have seen, can be no other than the intrinsic meaning of syllables and words. It is this _significance_ which in the final instance determines the quantitative measure of syllables, so long as such is still regarded as essential at all, and by doing so transfers the criterium from the purely objective medium[40] and its natural structure to the ideal subject-matter.
(_ββ_) A further result follows from this of yet more importance. As I have already pointed out, this collocation of the emphasis on the significant stem-syllable dissipates that other independent diffusion of it in manifold forms of inflexion, which our rhythmical system is not yet forced to treat as negligible, in contrast to the stem, because it deduces neither the natural quantity of syllables nor the accent which it asserts from the intelligible significance. In the case, however, where such an explication,[41] with its co-ordination in verse-feet according to the quantity of syllables in their natural stability, falls away the entire system therewith necessarily collapses, which reposes on the time-measure and its laws. Of this type, for example, is French and Italian poetry, the metre and rhythm of which are absolutely non-existent as understood by the ancients. The entire question is here merely one of a definite number of syllables.
(_γγ_) For such a loss there is only one possible compensation--that of _rhyme._ In other words, if--this is one aspect--it is no longer time-duration which receives objective expression, by means of which the sound of syllables flows on freely in the even movement that intrinsically belongs to them; if, furthermore, the intelligible significance dominates over the stem-syllables, and coalesces with the same without further organic expatiation into a determinate unity, we have no sensuous medium, such as is able to maintain itself independently of the time-measure, no less than this accentuation of the stem-syllables, finally left to us other than just this syllabic sound.
Such a sound, however, if it is to secure an independent attention, must, in the _first_ place, be of a far more insistent kind than the interchange of different tones, such as we met with in the older verse metres; and its assertion must be of a far more overwhelming character than the stress of syllables can lay claim to in ordinary speech.
What we now require has not only to compensate us for the loss of the articulate time-measure, but it further undertakes to reassert the sensuous medium in its opposition to that unqualified predominance of the accentuated significance. For when once the conceptive content has essentially attained the ideality and penetration of mind,[42] for which the sensuous aspect of speech is of no importance, the verbal sound must enforce itself still more positively and coarsely as distinct from this ideality in order to arrest our attention at all.
In contrast, therefore, to the gentle movements of rhythmical euphony, rhyme is a crude expedient,[43] which requires an ear by no means either so trained or sensitive as that presupposed by Greek verse.
_Secondly,_ though it is true that rhyme does not here assert itself so much as distinct from the meaning of the stem-syllables simply as it does from the entire ideal content, yet it does at the same time so far assist the natural verbal sound as to win for it a relatively secure stability. But this object can only be attained if the sound[44] of particular words affirms itself in exclusive distinction from the resonance of other words, and thus secures an independent existence, by virtue of which _isolation_ it satisfies the claims of the formative aspect of the verbal medium in forceful beats of sound.
Rhyme is therefore, at least in its contrast to the evenly transfused movement of rhythmic euphony, a detached exhibition of exclusive tonal expression. _Thirdly,_ we found that it was the ideality of the conscious self which, by virtue of its effort of ideal synthesis, came into its own, and discovered its personal satisfaction in such recurrences of sound. If, then, the means used in the older type of versification, with its copious variety of structure, disappear, there only remains, if we look at poetry, under the aspect of its _medium,_ to support this principle of self-recovery, the more formal repetition of wholly identical or similar sounds, whereby again we are able to unite under an intelligible scheme[45] the assertion and relation of closely associated meanings in the rhyme-sounds of expressive words.
The metre of rhythmical verse we may regard as a variously articulate interrelation of manifold syllabic quantities. Rhyme, on the contrary, is from one point of view more material;[46] yet, on the other hand, is itself more abstractly placed within this medium. In other words, it is the mere recollection of mind and the ear of the recurrence of identical or related sounds and significations--a recurrence in which the poet is conscious of his own activity, recognizes, and is pleased to recognize, himself therein as both agent and participant.
(_γ_) Finally, on the question of the particular _types_ under which we may classify this more modern system of romantic poetry, I only propose to advert briefly to what appears to me of most importance in respect to alliteration, assonance, and ordinary rhyme.
(_αα_) The first, or at least the most thorough, example of _alliteration_ is that we find elaborated in the earliest Scandinavian poetry, where it supplies the fundamental basis, whereas assonance and the terminal rhyme, albeit these two aspects play a by no means unimportant part, are, however, only present in certain particular kinds of such poetry. The principle of alliterative rhyme, letter rhyme, is rhyme in its most incomplete form, because it does not require the recurrence of the entire syllable, but only that of one identical letter, and primarily the initial letter only. Owing to the weakness of this type of recurrent sound it is, in the first place, therefore necessary that only such words should be used in its service, which already independently possess an express accent on their first syllable; and, secondly, these words must not be remote from one another, if the identity of their commencement is to make a real impression on the ear. For the rest, alliterative letters may be a vowel, no less than a double or single consonant; but it is primarily consonants which are of most importance in the scheme. Based on such conditions, we find in Icelandic poetry[47] the fundamental rule that all alliterative rhymes require accentuated[48] syllables, whose initial letters must not in the same lines occur in other substantives which have the accent on the first syllable; and, along with this, of the three words, the initial letters of which constitute the rhyme, two must be found in the first line, and the third, which supplies the dominant alliteration, must be placed at the commencement of the second line. We may add further that, in virtue of the abstract character of this identical sound of initial letters, words are generally made alliterative proportionally to the importance of their signification.
We find, therefore, that here, too, the relation of accented sound to the meaning of words is not entirely absent. I cannot, however, pursue this subject into more detail.
(_ββ_) _Secondly_, _assonance_ has nothing to do with initial letters, but makes a nearer approach to rhyme in so far as it is a recurrence in identical sound of the same letters in the middle or at the termination of different words. It is not necessary, of course, that these assonant words should in all cases come at the conclusion of a line; they may fall into other places. Mainly, however, it is the concluding syllables of lines which come into this mutual relation of assonance, as contrasted with alliteration which is effective rather at the line's commencement. In its richest elaboration we may associate this assonance of language with the Romance nations, more especially the Spanish, whose full-toned language is peculiarly adapted to this recurrence of the same vowels. As a rule, no doubt assonance is here restricted to vowels. But the language further permits of other variety of assonance, not only that of vowels, but also that of identical consonants and consonants in association with one vowel.
(_γγ_) That which, as above described, alliteration and assonance are only able to establish with incompleteness is abundantly fulfilled by _rhyme._ In it, and expressly to the exclusion of initial letters, we have asserted the wholly equable sound of entire verb stems,[49] which are, by virtue of this equability, brought into an express relation with their tonal utterance. We have no mere question now of the number of the syllables. Words of one syllable, no less than others of two or more, may be rhymed. By this means we not only get the masculine rhyme, which is restricted to words of one syllable, but also the feminine rhyme, which embraces words of two syllables, as also the so-called gliding rhyme, which reaches to three or even more syllables. It is in particular the languages of Northern Europe which incline to the first type, Southern languages to the second, such as the Italian and Spanish. The German and French languages would appear to lie between these two extremes. Rhymes of more than three syllables are rarely to be met with in any language.
The position of the rhyme is at the conclusion of the lines, in which the rhyming word, although there is certainly no reason that it should ever concentrate in itself the ideal expressiveness of the significance, nevertheless does attract attention to itself so far as the verbal sound is concerned; and, furthermore, it makes the different verses or stanzas follow one another either in accordance with the principle of a wholly abstract recurrence of the same rhyme, or by uniting, separating, and mutually relating them in a more elaborate mode of regulated change, and variously symmetrical interweaving of different rhymes with correspondent relations, sometimes more near, at others more remote, of every degree of complexity. In such a process the particular rhymes will at one point stare us in the face at once, or they will appear to have a game of hide-and seek; so that in this way our ear, as it listens, will at one time receive instant satisfaction, at another it will only find it after considerable delay, wherein the expectation will, as it were, be coquetted with, deceived, and kept on the stretch, until the assured end from point to point of artistically arranged recurrence is reached, and with it the hearer's approval.
Among the various types of the poetic art it is pre-eminently _lyric_ poetry, which, by virtue of its ideality and personal quality of expression, most readily avails itself of rhyme, and thereby converts language itself into a music of emotion and melodic symmetry, a symmetry not merely of time-measure and rhythmical movement, but of the kind of resonance which finds a responsive echo in the inner life itself. To promote this, therefore, the art elaborates in its use of rhyme a more simple or complex system of strophes, every one of which is part of one organic whole. Examples of such an interplay of melodic sound, whether steeped in emotion or rich in ingenuity, are the sonnet, canzonet, triolet, and madrigal. Epic poetry, on the contrary, so long as it does not mingle lyrical subject-matter with its more native character, preserves a more equable advance in its construction, which does not easily adapt itself to the strophe. We have an obvious illustration of this in the triplet stanzas of Dante's "Divine Comedy," as contrasted with the lyrical canzonets and sonnets of the same poet.
However, I must not permit myself to go further into detail.
(_c_) Now that we have in the above investigation separated rhythmical versification from rhyme, and _contrasted_ the same, we may now proceed, _thirdly_, to ask ourselves whether a _combination_ of the two is not also intelligible, and, indeed, actually employed. The existence of certain more recent languages will render exceptional and important aid to the solution; in other words, we cannot deny to these either a partial reassertion of our former rhythmical system, or, in certain respects, an association of the same with rhyme. We will, for example, confine our attention to our mother tongue, and, in reference to the first-mentioned aspect, it will be sufficient to recall Klopstock, who would have as little of rhyme as possible; who not merely in epic, but also in lyrical poetry, set himself to imitate the ancients with the greatest enthusiasm and persistency. Voss and others have followed in his steps, ever striving to enforce with increased strictness principles upon which to base this rhythmical treatment of our language. Goethe, on the contrary, never felt quite himself in his classical syllabic measures. He asks himself, not without reason: Stehn uns diese weiten Falten Zu Gesichte, wie den Alten?[50] (_α_) I will in this connection merely reiterate what I already have observed upon the distinction which exists between ancient and more modern languages. Rhythmical versification is based upon the _natural_ quantity of syllables, possessing therein an essentially stable criterion, which the ideal expression can neither limit, alter, or weaken. Such a natural measure is, however, abhorrent to more recent languages; in these it is only the _verbal_ accent of the ideal significance, which makes one syllable long in its contrast to others, which are defective in such significance. Such a principle of accentuation, however, does not supply any audible compensation for the absence of the natural quantity, or rather it adds to the actual uncertainty of such a measure. For the more strongly emphasized significance of a word can at the same time make another short, despite the fact that, taken by itself, it possesses a verbal accent, so that the criterion accepted is wholly one of mutual relation. _Du liebst,_ can, for instance, according to the stress of the emphasis which is thrown, according to the sense intended, either on both words, or one or the other, be a spondee, iambus or trochee. No doubt the attempt has been made, even in our own tongue, to return to the _natural_ quantity of syllables, and to create rules with this intent; but in the presence of the overwhelming importance that the intelligible significance and the accent it asserts has secured such a reference to theory is quite impracticable. And in truth this agrees with the state of the facts.
If the natural measure is really to constitute the essential basis, the language ought not as yet to have become such an instrument of soul expression as it is of necessity in our own times. Once allow, however, that it has already in its course of development thus secured such a mastery of the intelligible purport over the sensuous or native material, and it follows that the fundamental test for the value of syllables is not to be deduced from the objective quantity itself, but rather from that whereof words are themselves indicative as means. The emotional impulse of a free intelligence refuses to allow the temporal activity of language, as such, to establish itself in the independent form of its native and objective reality.
(_β_) Such a conclusion, however, does not necessarily imply that we are forced to oust altogether from our German language the rhymeless rhythmical treatment of the syllabic measure; it merely in essential respects points to this, that it is not possible, conformably with the character of the structure of our modern speech, to retain the plastic consistency of the metrical medium as it was secured by the ancient world. We must consequently seek for and elaborate some further element in poetical composition by way of compensation, which on its own independent account is of a more ideal[51] character than the stable natural quantity of syllables. Such an element is the accent of the verse, no less than the caesura, which as now constituted, instead of moving independently of the verbal accent, coalesce with the same, and thereby receive a more significant, albeit a more abstract assertion, in virtue of the fact that the variety of that previous threefold accentuation, which we discovered in the rhythmical type of classical poetry, on account of this very coalescence necessarily disappears.
It, however, equally follows as a result that we only retain the power with conspicuous success to imitate the rhythmic movement of such poetry where its impression on our ear is most emphatic. We no longer possess, that is to say, the stable quantitative basis for its more subtle distinctions and manifold connections, and the more crude mode of accentuation, which we do possess in its place, to emphasize our measure, is intrinsically no sufficient substitute.
(_γ_) To state, then, finally, what this actual _association_ of the rhythmical mode of verse with rhyme is, we may go so far as to affirm that it is the absorption, although to a limited extent, by the more modern form of versification of the more ancient one.
(_αα_) The predominant distinction of the natural syllabic quantity by means of the verbal accent is in fact not an entirely satisfactory principle of the _mere medium._ It does not arrest the ear's attention, even on the side of sense simply, so far as to make it appear, absolutely and everywhere unnecessary, where the ideal aspect of the poetical content is paramount, to summon the complementary assistance of the sound and response of syllables and words.
(_ββ_) It is, however, at the same time necessary in the interest of metre that an equally strong contrasting force should be set up to that of the rhyme sound. In so far, however, as it is _not_ the distinction of syllables in their natural quantity and _its variety_, which has to be co-ordinated and made predominant, we have, in respect, to this temporal relation, no other expedient left but the _identical repetition_ of the same time-measure; in this the element of accented _beat_ will tend to assert itself in a far more emphatic degree, than is compatible with the rhythmical system. As an illustration we have our German rhymed iambics and trochaics, in the recitation of which far more beat stress is admitted than is proper to the scansion of the unrhymed iambics of the ancients, although the caesura pause is capable of bringing into emphatic relief isolated words whose accent is mainly referable to their meaning, and is capable of further making all that remains dependent upon them a resisting effect to the abstract equality of the verse, and by so doing introduces a varied animation. And as in such a particular case, so we may assert generally, the time-beat cannot be of actual service in poetry with the force that is required of it in most musical compositions.
(_γγ_) Although, however, we may affirm it as a general rule that rhyme should be associated merely with such verse metres, which, by virtue of their simple changes of the syllabic quantity and their continuous recurrence of similar verse feet, do not on their own independent account give sufficiently effective modality to the element of sensuous medium in modern languages which admit at all of rhythmical treatment, yet the application of rhyme to the more profuse syllabic