[1] _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-76.
[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine
varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows:
subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong,
superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch,
weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of
time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is
the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to
expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from
expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch,
and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of
conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks
interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at
the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest
variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine
different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of
length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five
varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist ... If the analysis
of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the
intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to
admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for
each syllable to be considered." (_Chapters on English Metre_, p. 69.)
[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of
reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589),
said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his
accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his
words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.)
[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another
stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward
I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p.
246.
Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe, a stounde herkneþ to my song of duel, þat
deþ haþ diht vs newe (þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!) of a knyht,
þat wes so strong, of wham god haþ don ys wille; me þuncheþ þat deþ haþ
don vs wrong, þat he so sone shal ligge stille.
The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza
is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of
the French, being in fact a translation of a French original.
[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made
with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of
which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old
musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of
_syllables_." (See the entire passage on _Christabel_, in the
Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to _Imagination and Fancy_. For a
criticism of the metrical structure of _Christabel_, see Robert
Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ (ed. 1901, pp. 73-75).)