by which, new combinations of sound are produced, of a singularly musical character.  It is evident from the inspection of the above line, that the division of the feet by the accents is quite independent of the division of words by the sense.  The sounds are melted into continuity, and re-divided again in a manner agreeable to the musical ear.”—­Ib., p. 486.  Undoubtedly, the due formation of our poetic feet occasions both a blending of some words and a dividing of others, in a manner unknown to prose; but still we have the authority of this writer, as well as of earlier ones, for saying, “Good verse requires to be read with the natural quantites [sic—­KTH] of the syllables,” (p. 487,) a doctrine with which that of the redivision appears to clash.  If the example given be read with any regard to the caesural pause, as undoubtedly it should be, the th of their cannot be joined, as above, to the word tale; nor do I see any propriety in joining the s of music to the third foot rather than to the fourth.  Can a theory which turns topsyturvy the whole plan of syllabication, fail to affect “the natural quantities of syllables?”

OBS. 22—­Different modes of reading verse, may, without doubt, change the quantities of very many syllables.  Hence a correct mode of reading, as well as a just theory of measure, is essential to correct scansion, or a just discrimination of the poetic feet.  It is a very common opinion, that English verse has but few spondees; and the doctrine of Brightland has been rarely disputed, that, “Heroic Verses consist of five short, and five long Syllables intermixt, but not so very strictly as never to alter that order.”—­Gram., 7th Ed., p. 160.[504] J. D. W., being a heavy reader, will have each line so “stuffed out with sounds,” and the consonants so syllabled after the vowels, as to give to our heroics three spondees for every two iambuses; and lines like the following, which, with the elisions, I should resolve into four iambuses, and without them, into three iambuses and one anapest, he supposes to consist severally of four spondees:—­

   “’When coldness wraps this suffering clay,
    Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?’

[These are] to be read,” according to this prosodian,

   “Whencoldn—­esswrapsth—­issuff’r—­ingclay,
    Ah! whith—­erstraysth’—­immort—­almind?”

“The verse,” he contends, “is perceived to consist of six [probably he meant to say eight] heavy syllables, each composed of a vowel followed by a group of consonantal sounds, the whole measured into four equal feet.  The movement is what is called spondaic, a spondee being a foot of two heavy sounds.  The absence of short syllables gives the line a peculiar weight and solemnity suited to the sentiment, and doubtless prompted by it.”—­American Review, Vol. i, p. 487.  Of his theory, he subsequently says:  “It maintains that good English verse is as thoroughly quantitative as the Greek, though it be much more heavy and spondaic.”—­Ib., p. 491.[505]