2.  The Relation of the Rhyme to the Verse Pause.

Determinations of the minimal satisfactory verse pause were made with a view to comparing the minimum in unrhymed with that in rhymed verses.

The stanza used was of the following form: 

I.   34      34      34      p. 
II.   "       "       "       "
III.   "       "       "       "

The minimal satisfactory verse pauses were: 

Without Rhyme.       With Rhyme. 
Subject.   L.      6                  4
"      J.      5                  4
"      Mc.     6                  4
"      R.      7                  4
"      B.     6-7                 3.5
"      G.      6                  3.5
"      Mi.    6-7                 3.25

It thus appears that the minimal pause which is satisfactory, is less when rhyme is present than when it is not present.  Similar determinations were made for the maximal satisfactory verse pauses, as follows: 

Without Rhyme.       With Rhyme. 
Subject.   L.      9-10               11
"      J.       8                  9
"      Mc.      9                  9
"      R.     10-11             10-11
"      B.       9                  9
"      G.     11-12               11
"      Mi.     10                 10

(A few experiments were tried with verse pauses of different length in the same stanza.  A difference of one fourth the value of the pause is not detected, and unless attention is called to them, the pauses may vary widely from one another.)

This shows that the rhyme reduces the necessary pause in verse to the mere foot pause; while at the same time as great a pause is possible with rhyme as without it.  Aside from the table above, a large number of the records made for other purposes support this statement:  whenever rhyme was introduced, the verse pause was made equal to the foot pause, or even slightly less than it, and was always found satisfactory.

Numerous cases of introduction of lags into the verses of rhymed stanzas go to show that irregularities in such verses do not affect the length of the pauses.

Two hypotheses suggest themselves in explanation of the striking fact that the verse pause becomes unnecessary at the close of a rhymed verse.

The unity is now a new kind of verse unity; the rhyme is a regular recurrent factor like the accent of a foot, and the series of rhymes generates a new rhythm.  In the rhymed stanza we are to see not a set of verses, like the verse of blank verse, but a new and enlarged verse unity.

There are several decided objections to this conception.  First, the verse pause may be eliminated, but its elimination is not essential to the rhyme effect; the verse pause may still be as long, if not longer, with rhyme.  Secondly, the larger unity into which the verses enter is not in many cases a unity made up exclusively of rhymed verses.  Verses without rhyme alternate with rhymed verses, and have