RULES FOR READING VERSE.

On the Slides or Inflexions of Verse.

THE first general rule for reading verse is, that we ought to give it that measured harmonious flow of sound which distinguishes it from prose, without falling into a bombastic, chant ing pronunciation, which makes it ridiculous. This medium, like all others where excellence resides, is not very easy to hit; and here, as in similar cases, the worst extreme must be avoided. For this purpose, it will not be improper, before we read verse with its poetical graces, to pronounce it exactly as if it were prose: this will be depriving verse of its beauty, but will tend to preserve it from deformity: the tones of voice will be frequently different, but the inflexions will be nearly the same.

But though an elegant and harmonious pronunciation of verse will sometimes oblige us to adopt different inflexions from those we use in prose, it may still be laid down as a good general rule, that verse requires the same inflexions as prose, though less strongly marked, and more approaching to monotones. If, therefore, we are at a loss for the true inflexion of voice on any word in poetry, let us reduce it to earnest conversation, and pronounce it in the most familiar and prosaic manner, and we shall, for the most part, fall into those very inflexions we ought to adopt in repeating verse.

This observation naturally leads us to a rule, which may be justly looked upon as the fundamental principle of all poetic pronunciation: which is, that wherever a sentence, or member of a sentence, would necessarily require the fall

ing inflexion in prose, it ought always to have the same inflexion in poetry; for though, if we were to read verse prosaically, we should often place the falling inflexion where the style of verse would require the rising, yet in those parts where a portion of perfect sense, or the conclusion of a sentence, necessarily requires the falling inflexion, the same inflexion must be adopted both in verse and prose. Thus in Milton's description of the deluge, in Paradise Lost:

Meanwhile the south-wind rose, and, with black wings
Wide hov'ring, all the clouds together drove
From under Heav'n: the hills, to their supply,
Vapour and exhalation dusk and moist

Sent up amain: and now the thicken'd sky
Like a dark ceiling stood; down rush'd the rain
Impetuous, and continu'd till the earth
No more was seen; the floating vessel swam
Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow
Rode tilting o'er the waves.

Par. Lost, b. xi. v. 738.

In this passage, every member forming perfect sense, if read as so many lines of prose, would end with the falling slide, and this is the slide they ought to end with in verse. The member, indeed, which ends with impetuous, ought to have the rising slide, because, though it forms perfect sense, it is followed by a member which does not form sense of itself, and for this reason would necessarily adopt the rising slide if it were prose.

In the same manner, though we frequently suspend the voice by the rising inflexion in verse, where, if the composition were prose, we should adopt the falling, yet, wherever in prose the member or sentence would necessarily re-. quire the rising inflexion, this inflexion must necessarily be adopted in verse. An instance of

all these cases may be found in the following example from Pope:

He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe;
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns;
What varied being peoples ev'ry star;
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God or thee?

Pope's Essay on Man.

If this passage were prose, every line but the fifth might end with the falling inflexion: but the fifth being that where the two principal constructive parts unite, and the sense begins to form, here, both in prose and verse, must be the principal pause, and the rising inflexion. The two questions with which the ninth and tenth line end ought to have the rising inflexion also, as this is the inflexion they would necessarily have in prose; though from injudiciously printing the last couplet, so as to form a fresh paragraph, the word whole is generally pronounced with the falling inflexion, in order to avoid the bad effect of a question with the rising inflexion at the end of a paragraph; which would be effectually prevented by uniting the last couplet to the rest, so as to form one whole portion, and which was undoubtedly the intention of the poet.

Having premised these observations, I shall endeavour to throw together a few rules for the reading of verse, which, by descending to particulars, it is hoped will be more useful than those very general ones, which are commonly

to be met with on this subject, and which, though very ingenious, seem calculated rather for the making of verses than the reading of them.

Of the Accent and Emphasis of Verse.

RULE I. IN verse, every syllable must have the same accent, and every word the same emphasis, as in prose: for though the rhythmical arrangement of the accent and emphasis is the very definition of poetry, yet, if this arrangement tends to give an emphasis to words which would have none in prose, or an accent to such syllables as have properly no accent, the rhythmus, or music of the verse, must be entirely neglected. Thus the article the ought never to have a stress, though placed in that part of the verse where the ear expects an accent.

EXAMPLE.

Pope.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never failing vice of fools. An injudicious reader of verse would be very apt to lay a stress upon the article the in the third line, but a good reader would neglect the stress on this, and transfer it to the words what and weak. Thus also, in the following example, no stress must be laid on the word of, because we should not give it any in prosaic pronunciation.

Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made

Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade. Pope.

For the same reason the word as, either in the first or second line of the following couplet, ought to have no stress.

Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise.

Pope.

The last syllable of the word excellent, in the following couplet, being the place of the stress, is very apt to draw the reader to a wrong pronunciation of the word, in compliance with the rhythmus of the verse.

Their praise is still, the style is excellent;
The sense they humbly take upon content.

Pope.

But a stress upon the last syllable of this word must be avoided, as the most childish and ridiculous pronunciation in the world. The same may be observed of the word eloquence and the particle the in the following couplet:

Pope.

False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place. If, in compliance with the rhythmus, or tune of the verse, we lay a stress on the last syllable of eloquence, and on the particle the in the first of these verses, to a good judge of reading scarcely any thing can be conceived more disgusting.

When the Poetical Accent is to be preserved, and when not.

RULE II. ONE of the most puzzling varieties in reading verse is that which is occasioned by the poet's placing a word in such a part of the line as is quite inconsistent with the metre of the verse. It is one of the most general rules in reading, that every word is to have the same accent in verse, that it has in prose. This rule, however, admits of some few exceptions. Many of our good poets have sometimes placed words so unfavourably for pronunciation in the common way, that the ear would be less disgusted with