les in one, shall be equal to the sum of the times of the syllables
in the other. Beyond two pulsations there is no necessity for equality of
time. All beyond is arbitrary or conventional. A third or fourth pulsation
may embody half, or double, or any proportion of the time occupied in the
two first. Rhythm being thus understood, the prosodist should proceed to
define _versification_ as _the making of verses_, and _verse_ as _the
arbitrary or conventional isolation of rhythm into masses of greater or
less extent_."--_Ib._, p. 105.

OBS. 5.--No marvel that all usual conceptions and definitions of rhythm, of
versification, and of verse, should be found dissatisfactory to the critic
whose idea of _metre_ is fulfilled by the pompous _prose_ of Fenelon's
Telemaque. No right or real examination of this matter can ever make the
most immediately _recognizable_ form of poetry to be any thing else than
the form of _verse_--the form of writing in _specific lines_, ordered by
number and chime of syllables, and not squared by gage of the
composing-stick. And as to the derivation and primitive signification of
_rhythm_, it is plain that in the extract above, both are misrepresented.
The etymology there given is a gross error; for, "the Greek [_Greek:
arithmos_], _number_," would make, in English, not _rhythm_, but _arithm_,
as in _arithmetic_. Between the two combinations, there is the palpable
difference of three or four letters in either six; for neither of these
forms can be varied to the other, but by dropping one letter, and adding an
other, and changing a third, and moving a fourth. _Rhythm_ is derived, not
thence, but from the Greek [_Greek: rhythmos_]; which, according to the
lexicons, is a primitive word, and means, _rhythmus, rhythm, concinnity,
modulation, measured tune_, or _regular flow_, and _not "number_."

OBS. 6.--_Rhythm_, of course, like every other word not misapplied,
"conveys _its own idea_;" and that, not qualifiedly, or "_very nearly_,"
but _exactly_. That this idea, however, was originally that of
arithmetical _number_, or is nearly so now, is about as fanciful a notion,
as the happy suggestion added above, that _rhythm_ in lieu of _arithm_ or
_number_, is the fittest of words, _because_ "rhythm in prosody is _time_
in music!" Without dispute, it is important to the prosodist, and also to
the poet or versifier, to have as accurate an idea as possible of the
import of this common term, though it is observable t