Having once inquired of Mr. Coleridge something respecting a nicety in
hexameters, he asked for a sheet of paper, and wrote the following. These
hexameters appear in the last edition of Mr. C.'s Poems, though in a less
correct form, and without the condensed and well-expressed preliminary
remarks. Two new lines are here also added.
"The Hexameter consists of six feet, or twelve times. These feet, in the
Latin and Greek languages, were always either dactyls, or spondees; the
time of a dactyl, being only that of a spondee. In modern languages,
however, metre being regulated by the emphasis, or intonation of the
syllables, and not by the position of the letters, spondees can scarcely
exist, except in compound words, as dark-red. Our dissyllables are for
the most part, either iambics, as desire; or trochees, as languid. These
therefore, but chiefly the latter, we must admit, instead of spondees.
The four first feet of each line may be dissyllable feet, or dactyls, or
both commingled, as best suits the melody, and requisite variety; but the
two last feet must, with rare exceptions, be uniformly, the former a
dactyl, the latter a dissyllable. The amphimacer may, in English, be
substituted for the dactyl, occasionally.