“Though I confess
Any man would
Desire to have her, and by any means,
At any rate too, yet this common hangman
That hath whipt off a thousănd măids heads already—
That he should glean the harvest, sticks in my stomach!”
In all comic metres the gulping of short syllables, and the abbreviation
of syllables ordinarily long by the rapid pronunciation of eagerness and
vehemence, are not so much a license as a law,—a faithful copy of nature,
and let them be read characteristically, the times will be found nearly
equal. Thus, the three words marked above make a _choriambus_ -- u u, or
perhaps a _pæon primus_ - u u u; a dactyl, by virtue of comic rapidity,
being only equal to an iambus when distinctly pronounced. I have no doubt
that all B. and F.’s works might be safely corrected by attention to this
rule, and that the editor is entitled to transpositions of all kinds, and
to not a few omissions. For the rule of the metre once lost—what was to
restrain the actors from interpolation?
“The Elder Brother.”