where the _dernier pas_ is composed of another choriambus. I hope you do
not disapprove of choriambi introduced into the internal part of the
line, but as you only mention, approvingly, the incipient and final
choriambus I am half afraid that you do.
I shall not be satisfied if you profess to tolerate them sometimes “for
the sake of expression,” a principle on which we admire many
deformities, and among them those multiplied elisions that make Virgil’s
line a “monstrum nonendum informe” in itself: The plea of _expression_
in versification is something like the plea of _expediency_ in morals;
and the internal choriambi do not seem to me reduced to such a last
resource. When a dactyl, or amphibrach, begins the verse, the choriambus
appears to follow it in a singularly pleasing manner, giving to the
cadence of the line a swelling graceful movement which is quite
delightful to my ear: as in Lord Byron’s