commencing a line
complete without it. This might often be printed in a line by itself.
For example:

Ay,
And we're betrothed: nay more, our marriage-hour--
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. 4, 175.

Another irregularity is the insertion of syllables in the middle of
lines. The dramatic verse is doubtless descended from the Old English
decasyllables of Chaucer, and that his verse was divided actually into
two sections is evinced by the punctuation of some MSS. The _licenses_
accorded to the beginnings and endings of the whole verse were also
allowed, with some modification, to the end and beginnings of these
_sections_, and accordingly, in early poetry, many verses will appear to
a modern reader to have a syllable too many or too few in the part where
his ear teaches him to place a caesura. Exactly similarly, but more
sparingly, syllables are omitted or inserted at the central pause of
Shakespeare's verse, especially when this pause is not merely metrical,
but is in the place of a stop of greater or less duration; and most
freely when the line in question is broken by the dialogue.

The following examples of a superfluous syllable at the middle pause are
taken out of the beginning of the _Tempest_:

Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember? I. 2. 38.

But blessedly help hither. O, my heart bleeds. I. 2. 63.

Without a parallel; those being all my study. I. 2. 74.

With all prerogative:--hence his ambition growing. I. 2. 105.

The extra syllables may be at the commencement of the second section:

He was indeed the Duke; out o' the substitution. I. 2. 103.

And the following are defective of a syllable:

Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered. I. 2. 5.

Make the prize light. One word more; I charge thee. I. 2. 452.

To these 'licenses' we may add verses sometimes with one and sometimes
with two additional feet, and many half verses, and some a foot too
short. When these inequalities are allowed, the reader will perceive
much simpler and more general methods of scanning some lines supposed to
be unmetrical than the Procrustean means adopted by Sidney Walker for
reducing or multiplying the number of syllables in words.

E. _Punctuation._

We have now to state our practice of punctuation. The Folio and other
editions, starting with very different principles from those that guide
the punctuation of this day, have acted on those principles with
exceeding incorrectness. Questi