OBS. 5.—­No marvel that all usual conceptions and definitions of rhythm, of versification, and of verse, should be found dissatisfactory to the critic whose idea of metre is fulfilled by the pompous prose of Fenelon’s Telemaque.  No right or real examination of this matter can ever make the most immediately recognizable form of poetry to be any thing else than the form of verse—­the form of writing in specific lines, ordered by number and chime of syllables, and not squared by gage of the composing-stick.  And as to the derivation and primitive signification of rhythm, it is plain that in the extract above, both are misrepresented.  The etymology there given is a gross error; for, “the Greek [Greek:  arithmos], number,” would make, in English, not rhythm, but arithm, as in arithmetic.  Between the two combinations, there is the palpable difference of three or four letters in either six; for neither of these forms can be varied to the other, but by dropping one letter, and adding an other, and changing a third, and moving a fourth. Rhythm is derived, not thence, but from the Greek [Greek:  rhythmos]; which, according to the lexicons, is a primitive word, and means, rhythmus, rhythm, concinnity, modulation, measured tune, or regular flow, and not “number.”

OBS. 6.—­Rhythm, of course, like every other word not misapplied, “conveys its own idea;” and that, not qualifiedly, or “very nearly,” but exactly.  That this idea, however, was originally that of arithmetical number, or is nearly so now, is about as fanciful a notion, as the happy suggestion added above, that rhythm in lieu of arithm or number, is the fittest of words, because “rhythm in prosody is time in music!” Without dispute, it is important to the prosodist, and also to the poet or versifier, to have as accurate an idea as possible of the import of this common term, though it is observable that many of our grammarians make little or no use of it.  That it has some relation to numbers, is undeniable.  But what is it?  Poetic numbers, and numbers in arithmetic, and numbers in grammar, are three totally different sorts of things. Rhythm is related only to the first.  Of the signification of this word, a recent expositor gives the following brief explanation:  “RHYTHM, n. Metre; verse; numbers.  Proportion applied to any motion whatever.”—­Bolles’s Dictionary, 8vo.  To this definition, Worcester prefixes the following:  “The consonance of measure and time in poetry, prose composition, and music;—­also in dancing.”—­Universal and Critical Dict. In verse, the proportion which forms rhythm—­that is, the chime of quantities—­is applied to the sounds of syllables.  Sounds, however, may be considered as a species of motion, especially those which are rhythmical or musical.[487]