A Grammar of the English Tongue

And may at last my weary ageFind out the peaceful hermitage,The hairy gown, and mossy cell,Where I may sit, and nightly spellOf ev'ry star the sky doth shew,And ev'ry herb that sips the dew.           Milton.

Of ten, which is the common measure of heroick and tragick poetry,

Full in the midst of this created space,Betwixt heav'n, earth, and skies, there stands a placeConfining on all three; with triple bound;Whence all things, though remote, are view'd around,And thither bring their undulating sound.The palace of loud Fame, her seat of pow'r,Plac'd on the summit of a lofty tow'r;A thousand winding entries long and wideReceive of fresh reports a flowing tide.A thousand crannies in the walls are made;Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade.Tis built of brass, the better to diffuseThe spreading sounds, and multiply the news;Where echoes in repeated echoes play:A mart for ever full; and open night and day.Nor silence is within, nor voice express,But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease;Confus'd and chiding, like the hollow roarOf tides, receding from th' insulted shore;Or like the broken thunder heard from far,When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.The courts are fill'd with a tumultuous din,Of crouds, or issuing forth, or ent'ring in:A thorough-fare of news; where some deviseThings never heard, some mingle truth with lies:The troubled air with empty sounds they beat,Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.           Dryden.

In all these measures the accents are to be placed on even syllables; and every line considered by itself is more harmonious, as this rule is more strictly observed. The variations necessary to pleasure belong to the art of poetry, not the rules of grammar.

Our trochaick measures are Of three syllables,

Here we mayThink and pray,Before deathStops our breath:Other joysAre but toys.           Walton's Angler.

Of five,

In the days of old,Stories plainly told,Lovers felt annoy.           Old Ballad.

Of seven,

Fairest piece of well form'd earth,Urge not thus your haughty birth.           Waller.

In these measures the accent is to be placed on the odd syllables.

These are the measures which are now in use, and above the rest those of seven, eight, and ten syllables. Our ancient poets wrote verses sometimes of twelve syllables, as Drayton's Polyolbion.

Of all the Cambrian shires their heads that bear so high,And farth'st survey their soils with an ambitious eye,Mervinia for her hills, as for their matchless crouds,The nearest that are said to kiss the wand'ring clouds,Especial audience craves, offended with the throng,That she of all the rest neglected was so long;Alledging for herself, when, through the Saxons' pride,The godlike race of Brute to Severn's setting sideWere cruelly inforc'd, her mountains did relieveThose whom devouring war else every where did grieve.And when all Wales beside (by fortune or by might)Unto her ancient foe resign'd her ancient right,A constant maiden still she only did remain,The last her genuine laws which stoutly did retain.And as each one is prais'd for her peculiar things;So only she is rich, in mountains, meres and springs,And holds herself as great in her superfluous waste,As others by their towns, and fruitful tillage grac'd.

And of fourteen, as Chapman's Homer.

And as the mind of such a man, that hath a long way gone,And either knoweth not his way, or else would let alone,His purpos'd journey, is distract.

The measures of twelve and fourteen syllables were often mingled by our old poets, sometimes in alternate lines, and sometimes in alternate couplets.

The verse of twelve syllables, called an Alexandrine, is now only used to diversify heroick lines.

Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to joinThe varying verse, the full resounding line,The long majestick march, and energy divine.           Pope.

The pause in the Alexandrine must be at the sixth syllable.

The verse of fourteen syllables is now broken into a soft lyrick measure of verses, consisting alternately of eight syllables and six.

She to receive thy radiant name,    Selects a whiter space.           Fenton.When all shall praise, and ev'ry lay    Devote a wreath to thee,That day, for come it will, that day    Shall I lament to see.           Lewis to Pope.Beneath this tomb an infant lies    To earth whose body lent,Hereafter shall more glorious rise,    But not more innocent.When the Archangel's trump shall blow,    And souls to bodies join,What crowds shall wish their lives below    Had been as short as thine!           Wesley.

We have another measure very quick and lively, and therefore much used in songs, which may be called the anapestick, in which the accent rests upon every third syllable.

May I góvern my pássions with ábsolute swáy,And grow wíser and bétter as lífe wears awáy.           Dr. Pope.

In this measure a syllable is often retrenched from the first foot, as

Diógenes súrly and próud.           Dr. Pope.When présent, we lóve, and when ábsent agrée,I thínk not of Íris, nor Íris of me.           Dryden.

These measures are varied by many combinations, and sometimes by double endings, either with or without rhyme, as in the heroick measure.

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us,'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,And intimates eternity to man.           Addison.

So in that of eight syllables,

They neither added nor confounded,They neither wanted nor abounded.           Prior.

In that of seven,

For resistance I could fear none,    But with twenty ships had done,What thou, brave and happy Vernon,    Hast atchiev'd with six alone.           Glover.

In that of six,

'Twas when the seas were roaring,    With hollow blasts of wind,A damsel lay deploring,    All on a rock reclin'd.           Gay.

In the anapestick,

When terrible tempests assail us.    And mountainous billows affright,Nor power nor wealth can avail us,    But skilful industry steers right.           Ballad.

To these measures and their laws, may be reduced every species of English verse.

Our versification admits of few licences, except a synalœpha, or elision of e in the before a vowel, as th' eternal; and more rarely of o in to, as t' accept; and a synaresis, by which two short vowels coalesce into one syllable, as question, special; or a word is contracted by the expulsion of a short vowel before a liquid, as av'rice, temp'rance.

Thus have I collected rules and examples, by which the English language may be learned, if the reader be already acquainted with grammatical terms, or taught by a master to those that are more ignorant. To have written a grammar for such as are not yet initiated in the schools, would have been tedious, and perhaps at last ineffectual.