"Comedy of Errors," the introduction of the two Dromios transforms into pure farce certain scenes that were pure comedy in the original form of the play by Plautus.

The Opera is simply a drama in which the parts are intended to be sung instead of being spoken.

The Melodrama.-This name is given to a composition part of which is intended to be spoken and part sung. Its most prominent characteristic is a certain exaggeration of sentiment and effect. The term is now loosely applied to sentimental minor plays in general. In both the opera and the melodrama the composition is aided by stage fixtures, dress, etc., to an extent not allowable in strict tragedy or comedy.

CHAPTER II.

METRE.

WHEN the rhythm of a composition becomes so regular that it can be reduced to a law, it is called Metre. Like rhythm, metre is employed, primarily, for the pleasurable expression of high passion, but it is often applied in cases where there is little passion, and where its only warrant is the pleasurable effect produced. Abbott observes that "the unrhythmical expression of intense passion is, when prolonged, extremely painful, producing pain untempered by any feeling of artistic pleasure," and calls attention to the fact that while Shakespeare uses prose for dialogue, light conversation, letters, etc., he almost invariably employs metre when the feeling of the speaker becomes impassioned. For example, in the following speech of Brutus to the Roman populace, just after the assassination of Cæsar, the first six lines are intentionally directed to the understanding of the mob rather than to its feelings; but as the orator begins to appeal to its feelings, in the seventh line, note how nearly he approaches to metre, while in the eighth and following lines the scansion becomes almost perfect:

"As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him:
As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it:
As he was valiant, I honor him:

But, as he was ambitious, I slew him.

There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune;
Honor for his valor; and death for his ambition.
Who is here so base that would be a bondman?
If any, speak | ; for him | have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman ?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.

Who is here so vile that will not love his country?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.

I

pause for a reply.

All.

None, Brutus, none.

"Brutus. Then none have I offended."

While, therefore, prose seems to be the most natural and easy form of composition, it is yet an historical fact that in the literature of every nation poetry has preceded prose. For example, the "Iliad " of Homer and the "NiebelungenLied" of the early Germans were each composed and handed down from mouth to mouth long before there was any prose literature in either the Greek or the German language respectively. This seeming paradox is to be explained on the same ground as is the more frequent use of figurative language among all early and uncultivated peoples: living near to nature, they spoke the language of nature-which is poetry. A recent writer* (Dr. Raymond of Princeton College) propounds the following ingenious theory of the development of metre: "Before the age of books, those who prepared literature published it by repeating it in public. Every man who did this had, of course, his own peculiarities of utterance, which, as he continued to repeat his productions, he would cultivate and render more and more peculiar. These peculiari

A

ties, moreover, would be shown in the arrangement of his words and sentences, so as to fit his elocution. further development in this direction would cause these reciters after a time to use versification, etc., etc."

Apparently by force of the example of the early poets, the philosophers who immediately followed them cast their compositions in the same metrical form, though the spirit and the diction of poetry were almost entirely absent. The same example has been followed in much modern verse; such, for example, as that in Pope's "Essay on Man," and his "Essay on Criticism," Bickersteth's "Yesterday, To-day, and Forever," and much of Holland's

*Poetry as a Representative Art," p. 20.

"Katrina" and of Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish." The term didactic poetry, given to some of this modern verse, is really a misnomer; didactic verse would be more proper. Poetry belongs to passion and imagination, not to the mere communication of dry facts and theories. The only warrant for using a metrical arrangement in treating of a purely prosaic subject is the aid thus given to the memory. This value of metre is thus explained by Herbert Spencer :*

"That we do take advantage of metrical language to adjust our perceptive faculties to the force of the expected articulations is clear from the fact that we are balked by halting versification. Much as, at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a step more or less than we counted upon gives us a shock, so, too, does a misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable."

Perhaps the most common illustration of this use of metre merely as an aid to the memory is found in the wellknown doggerel verse beginning,

"Thirty days hath September," etc.

It is a use which, considered independently, is as limited as it is generally objectionable.

By reference to the definition of metre given at the beginning of this chapter, it will be seen that it is not required that the rhythm of all composition be reducible to the same law in order to become metre, but only that some definite law be observable. For example, in the first verse of Milton's "Paradise Lost,"

"Of man's first disobedience and the fall,"

the law may be stated in the form of a mathematical proportion: i.e., on the basis of accent, the first syllable is to the second as the third is to the fourth or the fifth is to the sixth, etc.; but in the following verse from an early English poet the law, though easily perceptible, is based

* 66 Philosophy of Style," p. 35.

upon the recurrence of certain initial letters rather than upon accent, as in the first case:

"In a somer seson, when softe was the sonnë."

The laws of metre in general will be found to depend, respectively, upon some one of the five following bases:

1. Number.-Syllables merely counted and not otherwise classified. This is a very rare basis. An approximate illustration is found in certain forms of French verse, where, as in French prose, the accents are not marked.

2. Quantity.-Syllables classified according to the time necessary to pronounce them. This is most clearly seen in the Greek and Latin verse. In one sense it applies to modern English verse; for though ours is an accentual rhythm, it is evident that more time is really employed in pronouncing an accented than an unaccented syllable. Take the following detached verses from Robert Browning for illustration:

(a) "Would hide head safe when hand had flung its stone." (b) "Makes slow mute passage through two ranks as mute." 3. Alliteration.-Syllables classified according to their initial letters. This is exemplified in the early English verse, some of which, however, is based on accent as well. The law of this alliteration was, that at least two important words in the first verse and one in the second verse of every couplet must begin with the same letter; e.g.,

"Yet hoved [waited] there an hundred

In howes [caps] of silk."

4. Accent.-Syllables classified accordingly as they are pronounced more or less loudly than those next to them. This is seen, primarily, in modern English blank verse; e.g., "Almighty! Thine this universal frame." Here the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables, counting consecutively from the left, are pronounced more loudly than are the first, third, fifth, etc.

5. Rhyme.-Syllables classified accordingly as they have the same vowel sound, followed by the same, and preceded