(See 'Auxiliary and Connective Words,' p. 46; 'The Vice of Disarticulation,' p. 98; and 'Another Frightful Example,' p. 377.) THE STRUCTURE OF THE MEASURE. The vocal impulse of a rhythmical measure begins at the vowel opening of the accented syllable, and continues through the immediately following unaccented one or ones; a new impulse begins with the next accent, carrying upon its tide the next succeeding unaccented syllables; the pulsative impulse is renewed with the next accent, and so on. And, generally, the unaccented syllables are, by the law of organic action,— pulsation and remission,-enclitic to their immediately preceding accent. When two accents are contiguous, they begin two separate measures. When a sense group begins with one or more unaccented syllables, they are theoretically regarded as closing an imperfect measure, the pulsative syllable of which is wanting; but, practically, they are regarded as proclitic to the first accent. The tendency toward a pulsative, or rhythmical, utterance is based on the above-mentioned natural law: the easy, normal movement of the organs of breathing and voice is always rhythmical. It is analogous to the rhythm of tranquil breathing, of the pulse beat, of the cadence of the feet in walking, dancing, and running; of the sweep of the waves, the tides, the winds; of the swaying of boughs; of the alternanations of day and night, of the order of the seasons, of the flight of stars and systems through the fields of space. MECHANICAL RHYTHM. The lowest form of rhythm is when the successive accents receive the same quantity and force, and the time from accent to accent is uniform, while the pauses occur at regular intervals and are equal in time; as in prosodial scansion, singsong, and the child's lilting gabble of verse. RATIONAL RHYTHM. Rational, artistic rhythm does not defeat or obscure the sense, or take the place of it; does not give the accents a uniform vocal value: but subtracts force, quantity, inflection, volume, and color from unemphatic, and confers them upon emphatic, words; and incorporates into itself all the pauses of grouping and emphasis. It is an organic essential of all finished reading and oratory, as it is one of the chiefest charms of cultivated conversation. RATIONAL RHYTHM VS. METER. Compare the prosodial scansion of Longfellow's stanza,- with a rhythm that not only respects, but enforces, sense, sentiment, and 'the reading flow': Téll mel nót 17 in mournfull numbers, |-| is but an emptyl dream; -—| 17 For the sōul 7 | 7 is déad 717 that slumbers, —1 17 And things 7 láre not what they seem. I In the first line, 'not' is the principal emphatic word, and therefore claims the lion's share of pitch, force, quality, and of time, in quantity and pause, mostly in pause, since 'not', a variable, can receive but limited extension. 'Mournful numbers' should have moderate prolongation of the accents; 'tell' requires but accentual force and time. In the second line, 'dream' is the principal word, and its time should fill a whole measure; 'life' is the next most important word, capable of only slight extension, so that its emphasis depends upon stress and pause; 'empty' is debatable -may be made simply accentual, or emphasized by stress and intonation, without change of rhythm; 'but' should not receive even accent. In the third line, 'dead' is the leading word; 'slumbers' is little, if any, more than accentual, being implied in 'dream', of the second line; 'soul' is accentual, or little more. The first word of the line, 'For,' is debatable: it would be given accentual, or even emphatic, value, by some good readers; but the effect of the line, and of the stanza as a whole, is perhaps better, if 'For' is spoken without the accent. In the last line, 'are' is the chief word; 'seem' should receive moderate antithetic emphasis, by inflection and quantity; 'things' and 'what' are accentual; 'And,' unaccented. The vigilance and skill of the poet are constantly exerted, to shift the seat of principal emphasis, line by line, and stanza by stanza, so that the strongest rhythmical pulsations shall not occur at intervals too regular. In rhymed verse, corresponding lines-as, lines one and three, and lines two and four, of the example, should not have the strongest beat at the same point, unless for special effect. 'It is one of the chief beauties of good verse that the phrase groups, into which the words fall, do not coincide with the metrical groups of feet and lines, but form, as it were, patterns of their own upon the pattern of the meter. It is in this counterplay between the meter and the sense that the charm of versification lies. From this it follows as a practical corollary, that, to read verse well, one must so mark the rhythm as not to injure the sense, and so render the sense as not to spoil the rhythm.' In metrical scansion, time and force are evenly distributed: that is, each foot, or measure, occupies the same time in utterance as every other foot, and each accent has the same time and force as every other accent. In the present case, 'dream' and 'seem' are measures containing but one syllable; but, in scanning, they are pronounced with the stress and quantity of the other accents, with an after pause long enough to complete the time of the measure. 'AND THINGS SEEM NOT WHAT THEY ARE.' In adjusting the time so as to satisfy grouping and emphasis, as well as the reading flow, that is, in meeting the conditions of rational rhythm,-the measures, as presented to the eye, are broken and irregular. In the second score above, only seven of the twenty-five measures look like trochees; and yet the stanza is a fair average example of trochaic verse. Four measures- in,' in line one, is,'' that,' in line three, and And,' in line four-consist of a pause in place of the accent, and an unaccented syllable; one measure, For the,' third line, is made up of a pause and two unaccented syllables; and one measure, is but an,' line two, consists of a pause and three unaccented syllables. Three measures of silence-after 'numbers,' 'slumbers,' and are not'; and one double measure of silence-after 'dream' are necessary, for grouping and emphasis. To justify itself as vital and organic, rhythm must reconcile, coordinate, and utilize pause, quantity, stress, intonation, movement-everything that is necessary to express the thought and the emotion. MOVEMENT TRANSITIONS RHYTHMICAL. Time is the basis of rhythm; and, so long as the movement does not change, measures must occupy equal times. The movement transitions must themselves be rhythmical, and rhythmically adjusted to the ground scheme, so that the entire vocal presentation dovetails at all points, like the patterns of a mosaic. In the example, the measures, is but an,' For the,' should occupy the same time as in,'' is,' ' that,' And,' 'not 7,' 'Life 7,' 'soul 7,' 'dead 7,' 'things'; and these the same time as 'Tell me,' 'mournful,' 'numbers,' 'empty,' are not,' 'what they,' which are regular trochees. 'Dream' and 'seem' should fill the full measure. When the movement is quickened or retarded; when expletives are enclitic or interjected; when parentheses and subordinate grammatical elements generally are prefixed, interpolated, or subjoined,-all these changes of movement are to be adapted and fitted into the prevailing movement of the passage as a whole so that all is in rhythmical keeping. The sentence from Macaulay's 'Milton' (pp. 144, 173), presents a fine instance of acceleration, in the movement of the phrases, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments'; in which the measures have, or should have, the same time as prevails throughout the sentence; but they are accelerated measures—that is, more syllables are spoken in the time allotted to each measure. IMPERFECT MEASURES. When either the pulsative or the remiss portion of a measure is wanting, the time is filled out with a pause, and the measure is called Imperfect. But for the emphasis on 'not', in the first line of Longfellow's stanza, on 'Life', in the second, and on 'dead', in the third, the next following syllable would be enclitic, and in each instance there would be a single measure, a regular trochee,-'not in,' 'Life is,' 'dead that,'-instead of three imperfect measures. RATIONAL RHYTHM VS. PROSODY. It is, perhaps, well to know, theoretically, the prosody of the prosodists; but, practically, the reader can secure the knowledge and use of rhythm far more directly. Take the |