metre. In the following example spondees are mixed with the

anapæsts:

Not a drum was heard, | not a funeral note. -WOLFE.

A purer specimen may be found in one of the Hebrew.melodies, in which the line contains three anapæsts ::

And the voice of my mourning is o'er, |

And the mountains behold | me no more. |

The amphiambic quatrain, in which each line has either four amphiambuses, or three with an iambus, is the metre of a great number of ballads and songs. The rhymes are sometimes coupled, sometimes alternate. Examples :—

I saw from the beach, when | the morning | was shining,

A bark o'er the waters | move gloriously on. |--MOORE.
Count Albert has armed him | the Paynim | among, |

Though his heart it was false, yet | his arm it was strong.

SCOTT.

2. The six-line stave, triple measure, is only used, so far as know, in amphiambic endecasyllabics. Scott's Lochinvar is an instance.

3. The eight-line stave in the amphiambic tetrameter, or tetrameter catalectic,1 is a noble measure. Examples :

Then blame not | the bard if | in pleasure's | soft dream, | &c.—MOORE. I climbed the dark brow of the mighty | Helvellyn. |-SCOTT.

There are also eight-line staves in fives, and in fives and sixes. These are dactylic. Examples :

Over the mountains,

And | over the waves, |
Under the fountains,

And | under the graves, &c.
Where shall the | traitor rest, |

He the deceiver, | &c.-SCOTT.

A line which falls short by one syllable of the full measure of four

amphiambuses, is so designated.

A dactylic stave in sixes, fives, and fours, varying in the number of lines, was used by Hood with great effect in his Bridge of Sighs :

One more Unfortunate

Weary of breath |

Rashly importunate |

Gone to her death. [

There are many other varieties, but the rules already given will probably enable the student to name and classify them as he falls in with them.

PINDARIC Measures.

As

These hold an intermediate position between stanzas and continuous verse. They are divided into strophes, which seldom contain more than twenty-eight or fewer than fourteen lines. Irregularity may be said to be their law; the lines, as well as the strophes, are of different lengths, and the rhymes are arranged in half a dozen different ways. For an example, see p. 472. a general rule they are in iambic measure; but trochaic lines are sometimes introduced with striking effect. Thus in Gray's Bard, which consists of nine strophes, six containing fourteen, and three, twenty lines, each shorter strophe opens with a trochaic line, so as to produce the sense of abruptness which the poet was aiming

at:

Ruin seize thee | ruthless | king. |

Confusion on thy banners wait. [

INDEX.

Abbreviations :-Bp. for Bishop; Abp. for Archbishop; flor. for floruit
(flourished); n. for note. When only one date is given it is that of death.