A Handbook of the English Language, Robert Gordon Latham [some good books to read txt] 📗
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2. Common octosyllabics.—Four measures, x a, with rhyme, and (unless the rhymes be double) eight syllables (octo syllabæ).—Butler's Hudibras, Scott's poems, The Giaour, and other poems of Lord Byron.
3. Elegiac octosyllabics.—Same as the last, except that the rhymes are regularly alternate, and the verses arranged in stanzas.
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went,
In that new world which now is old:
Across the hills and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.—Tennyson.
4. Octosyllabic triplets.—Three rhymes in succession. Generally arranged as stanzas.
I blest them, and they wander'd on;
I spoke, but answer came there none;
The dull and bitter voice was gone.—Tennyson.
5. Blank verse.—Five measures, x a, without rhyme, Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, Cowper's Task.
6. Heroic couplets.—Five measures, x a, with pairs of rhymes. Chaucer, Denham, Dryden, Waller, Pope, Goldsmith, Cowper, Byron, Moore, Shelley, &c. This is the common metre for narrative, didactic, and descriptive poetry.
7. Heroic triplets.—Five measures, x a. Three rhymes in succession. Arranged in stanzas. This metre is sometimes interposed among heroic couplets.
8. Elegiacs.—Five measures, x a; with regularly alternate rhymes, and arranged in stanzas.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homewards plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.—Gray.
9. Rhymes royal.—Seven lines of heroics, with the last two rhymes in succession, and the first five recurring at intervals.
This Troilus, in gift of curtesie,
With hauk on hond, and with a huge rout
Of knightes, rode, and did her company,
Passing all through the valley far about;
And further would have ridden out of doubt.
Full faine and woe was him to gone so sone;
But turn he must, and it was eke to doen.—Chaucer.
This metre was common with the writers of the earlier part of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It admits of varieties according to the distribution of the first five rhymes.
10. Ottava rima.—A metre with an Italian name, and borrowed from Italy, where it is used generally for narrative poetry. The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso, are all written in this metre. Besides this, the two chief epics of Spain and Portugal respectively (the Auraucana and the Lusiados) are thus composed. Hence it is a form of poetry which is Continental rather than English, and naturalized rather than indigenous. The stanza consists of eight lines of heroics, the six first rhyming alternately, the last two in succession.
Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears,
Which suddenly along the forest spread;
Whereat from out his quiver he prepares
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head;
And, lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears,
And onward rushes with tempestuous tread,
And to the fountain's brink precisely pours,
So that the giant's join'd by all the boars.
Morgante Maggiore (Ld. Byron's Translation.)
11. Terza rima.—Like the last, borrowed both in name and nature from the Italian, and scarcely yet naturalized in England.
The Spirit of the fervent days of old,
When words were things that came to pass, and Thought
Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold
Their children's children's doom already brought
Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,
The chaos of events where lie half-wrought
Shapes that must undergo mortality:
What the great seers of Israel wore within,
That Spirit was on them and is on me:
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din
Of conflicts, none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the wilderness, the sin
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.
12. Alexandrines.—Six measures, x a, generally (perhaps always) with rhyme. The name is said to be taken from the fact that early romances upon the deeds of Alexander of Macedon, of great popularity, were written in this metre. One of the longest poems in the English language is in the Alexandrines, viz. Drayton's Poly-olbion, quoted above.
13. Spenserian stanza.—A stanza consisting of nine lines, the first eight heroics, the last an Alexandrine.
It hath been through all ages ever seen,
That with the prize of arms and chivalrie
The prize of beauty still hath joined been,
And that for reason's special privitie;
For either doth on other much rely.
For he meseems most fit the fair to serve
That can her best defend from villanie;
And she most fit his service doth deserve,
That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve.—Spenser.
Childe Harold and other important poems are composed in the Spenserian stanza.
14. Service metre.—Couplets of seven measures, x a. This is the common metre of the Psalm versions. It is also called common measure, or long measure. In this metre there is always a pause after the fourth measure, and many grammarians consider that with that pause the line ends. According to this view, the service metre does not consist of two long lines with seven measures each; but of four short ones, with four and three measures each alternately. The Psalm versions are printed so as to exhibit this pause or break.
The Lord descended from above, | and bow'd the heavens most high,
And underneath his feet He cast | the darkness of the sky.
On Cherubs and on Seraphim | full royally He rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds | came flying all abroad.—Sternhold and Hopkins.
In this matter the following distinction is convenient. When the last syllable of the fourth measure (i.e. the eighth syllable in the line) in the one verse rhymes with the corresponding syllable in the other, the long verse should be looked upon as broken up into two short ones; in other words, the couplets should be dealt with as a stanza. Where there is no rhyme except at the seventh measure, the verse should remain undivided. Thus:
Turn, gentle hermit of the glen, | and guide thy lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale | with hospitable ray—
constitute a single couplet of two lines, the number of rhymes being two. But,
Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide thy lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray—(Goldsmith)
constitute a stanza of four lines, the number of rhymes being four.
15. Ballad stanza.—Service metre broken up in the way just indicated. Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina, &c.
16. Poulterer's measure.—Alexandrines and service metre alternately. Found in the poetry of Henry the Eighth's time.
PART VII.THE DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
§ 541. Certain parts of England are named as if their population were preeminently Saxon rather than Angle; viz., Wes-sex ( = West Saxons), Es-sex ( = East Saxons), Sus-sex ( = South Saxons), and Middle-sex, ( = Middle Saxons).
Others are named as if their population were preeminently Angle rather than Saxon; thus, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk once constituted the kingdom of the East Angles, and even at the present moment, are often spoken of as East Anglia.
§ 542. It is safe to say that the dialects of the English language do not coincide with the distribution of these terms. That parts of the Angle differ from parts of the Saxon districts in respect to the character of their provincialisms is true; but it is by no means evident that they differ on that account.
Thus, that the dialect of Hampshire, which was part of Wes-sex, should differ from that of Norfolk, which was part of East Anglia, is but natural. There is a great space of country between them—a fact sufficient to account for their respective characteristics, without assuming an original difference of population. Between the Saxons of Es-sex and the Anglians of Suffolk, no one has professed to find any notable difference.
Hence, no division of the English dialects into those of Saxon or those of Angle origin, has been successful.
Neither have any peculiarities in the dialect of Kent, or the Isle of Wight, verified the notion of the population for those parts having been originally Jute.
Nor yet has any portion of England been shown by the evidence of its dialects, to have been Frisian.
§ 543. Yet the solution of such problems is one of the great objects of the study of provincial modes of speech.
§ 544. That Jute characteristics will be sought in vain is the inference from §§ 7-13.
That differential points between the Angles and Saxons will be sought in vain is also probable.
On the other hand, differential points between the Frisians and Angles are likely to be discovered.
§ 545. The traces of the Danes, or Northmen, are distinct; the following forms of local names being primâ facie evidence (at least) of Danish or Norse occupancy.
a. The combination Sk-, rather than the sound of Sh-, in such names as Skip-ton, rather than Ship-ton.
b. The combination Ca-, rather than Ch-, in such names as Carl-ton rather than Charl-ton.
c. The termination -by ( = town, habitation, occupancy,) rather than -ton, as Ash-by, Demble-by, Spills-by, Grims-by, &c.
d. The form Kirk rather than Church.
e. The form Orm rather than Worm, as in Orms-head.
In Orms-kirk and Kir-by we have a combination of Danish characteristics.
§ 546. In respect to their distribution, the Danish forms are—
At their maximum on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire; i.e., in the parts about Spills-by.
Common, but less frequent, in Yorkshire, the Northern counties of England, the South-eastern parts of Scotland, Lancashire, (Ormskirk, Horn-by), and parts of South Wales (Orms-head, Ten-by).
In Orkney, and the northern parts of Scotland, the Norse had originally the same influence that the Anglo-Saxon had in the south.—See the chapter of the Lowland Scotch.
This explains the peculiar distribution of the Norse forms. Rare, or non-existent, in central and southern England, they appear on the opposite sides of the island, and on its northern extremity; showing that the stream of the Norse population went round the island rather than across it.
§ 547. Next to the search after traces of the original differences in the speech of the Continental invaders of Great Britain, the question as to the origin of the written language of England is the most important.
Mr. Guest has given good reasons for believing it to have arisen out of a Mercian, rather than a West-Saxon dialect—although of the Anglo-Saxon the West-Saxon was the most cultivated form.
This is confirmed by the present state of the Mercian dialects.
The country about Huntingdon and Stamford is, in the mind of the present writer, that part of England where provincial peculiarities are at the minimum. This may be explained in various ways, of which none is preferable to the doctrine, that the dialect for those parts represents the dialect out of which the literary language of England became developed.
Such are the chief problems connected with the study of the provincial dialects of England; the exhibition of the methods applicable to their investigation not being considered necessary in a work like the present.
NOTE.
That Saxon was the British name of the Germanic invaders of Great Britain is certain.—See § 45.
The reasons which induce me to consider it as exclusively British, i.e., as foreign to the Angles, are as follows,—
a. No clear distinction has ever been drawn between, e.g., an Angle of Suffolk, and a Saxon of Essex.
b. The Romans who knew, for some parts at least, every inch of the land occupied by the Saxons of Germany, as long as there is reason for believing that they took their names from German sources, never use the word. It is strange to
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