_; so that the movement from _weak_ to
_strong_ may be from _long_ to _short_, and _vice versa_: as if a trochaic
movement might arise from iambic measure, and an iambic movement from
trochaic feet! This absurdity comes of attempting to regulate the
_movement_ of verse by accent, and not by quantity, while it is admitted
that quantity, and not accent, forms the _measure_, which "signifies _the
proportion of time_." The idea that _pauses belong to measure_, is an other
radical error of the foregoing note. There are more pauses in poetry than
in prose, but none of them are properly "_parts_" of either. Humphrey says
truly, "_Feet_ are the _constituent parts_ of verse."--_English Prosody_,
p. 8. But L. Murray says, "_Feet and pauses_ are the constituent parts of
verse."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 252. Here Sheridan gave bias. Intending to
treat of verse, and "the pauses peculiarly belonging to it," the
"_Caesural_" pause and the "_Final_," the rhetorician had _improperly_ said,
"The constituent _parts_ of verse are, feet, and pauses."--_Sheridan's
Rhetorical Gram._, p. 64.

[502] "But as many Ways as Quantities may be varied by Composition and
Transposition, so many different Feet have the _Greek_ Poets contriv'd, and
that under distinct Names, from two to six Syllables, to the Number of 124.
But it is the Opinion of some Learned Men in this Way, that Poetic Numbers
may be sufficiently explain'd by those of two or three Syllables, into
which the rest are to be resolv'd."--_Brightland's Grammar_, 7th Ed., p.
161.

[503] "THE BELLS OF ST. PETERSBURGH."

"Those ev'ning bells, those ev'ning bells,
_How_ many a tale their music tells!"--_Moore's Melodies_, p. 263.

This couplet, like all the rest of the piece from which it is taken, is
iambic verse, and to be divided into feet thus:--

"Those ev' | -ning bells, | those ev' | -ning bells,
How man | -y a tale | their mu | -sic tells!"

[504] Lord Kames, too, speaking of "English Heroic verse," says: "Every
line consists of ten syllables, _five short and five long_; from which
[rule] there are but two exceptions, both of them rare."--_Elements of
Criticism_, Vol. ii, p. 89.

[505] "The Latin is a far more _stately_ tongue than our own. It is
essentially _spondaic_; the English is as essentially _dactylic_. The
_long_ syllable is the spirit of the Roman (and Greek) verse; the _short_
syllable is the essence of ours."--_Poe's Notes upon English Verse;
Pioneer_, Vol. i