d syllables, and unemphatical monosyllabic words.[483]

The quantity of a syllable, whether long or short, does not depend on what
is called the long or the short sound of a vowel or diphthong, or on a
supposed distinction of accent as affecting vowels in some cases and
consonants in others, but principally on the degree of energy or loudness
with which the syllable is uttered, whereby a greater or less portion of
time is employed.

The open vowel sounds, which are commonly but not very accurately termed
_long_, are those which are the most easily protracted, yet they often
occur in the shortest and feeblest syllables; while, on the other hand, no
vowel sound, that occurs under the usual stress of accent or of emphasis,
is either so short in its own nature, or is so "quickly joined to the
succeeding letter," that the syllable is not one of long quantity.

Most monosyllables, in English, are variable in quantity, and may be made
either long or short, as strong or weak sounds suit the sense and rhythm;
but words of greater length are, for the most part, fixed, their accented
syllables being always long, and a syllable immediately before or after the
accent almost always short.

One of the most obvious distinctions in poetry, is that of rhyme and blank
verse. _Rhyme_ is a similarity of sound, combined with a difference:
occurring usually between the last syllables of different lines, but
sometimes at other intervals; and so ordered that the rhyming syllables
begin differently and end alike. _Blank verse_ is verse without rhyme.

The principal rhyming syllables are almost always long. Double rhyme adds
one short syllable; triple rhyme, two. Such syllables are redundant in
iambic and anapestic verses; in lines of any other sort, they are
generally, if not always, included in the measure.

A _Stanza_ is a combination of several verses, or lines, which, taken
together, make a regular division of a poem. It is the common practice of
good versifiers, to form all stanzas of the same poem after one model. The
possible variety of stanzas is infinite; and the actual variety met with in
print is far too great for detail.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Verse, in the broadest acceptation of the term, is poetry, or
metrical language, in general. This, to the eye, is usually distinguished
from prose by the manner in which it is written and printed. For, in very
many instances, if this were not the case, the reader would be puzzled to