The second of the objections to the usual terminology, that there is no real _foot_ in English verse, has already been considered. If there are no regular units of measure in our verse, then to attempt constantly to find such units, and to use terms that imply their existence, is certainly a mistake. But those are on the wrong track who would find the divisions of the verse in the natural phrase-divisions of English speech.[55] In "_arma virumque cano_" the syllable _vi-_ is far more closely connected with the syllable _-rum_, for all prose purposes, than with the preceding syllables; but in the verse the Romans thought of it as being in the same foot with _arma_; and later in the verse the last syllable of _cano_ is rhythmically connected (over the barrier of a comma) with the first of _Trojæ_. Indeed, the Latin poets instinctively avoided the regular coincidence of metrical units with word or sentence units. Precisely the same thing is true of English verse. It has been suggested more than once that the great preponderance, among English dissyllables, of those accented on the first syllable, goes to explain our preference for iambic over trochaic measures; and that one reason why the rhythm of _Hiawatha_, for example, so soon wearies the ear, is because its metrical divisions and word divisions so frequently coincide. The fundamental principle of verse is that it sets up a new order of progress which constantly conflicts with, yet without destroying, the order of progress of common prose speech. So the _foot_ means, not a unit of measure for the words, but for the syllables viewed as rhythmical sound; and the attempt has already been made to show that it represents the time-interval between the regularly recurring accents of the normal metre. When there are two syllables in the interval, it is convenient to call the foot an iambus, a trochee, a pyrrhic, or a spondee; when there are three, it is convenient to call the foot an anapest or a dactyl. According to this system, the number of feet in the metre will always depend on the number of regularly recurring accents, which of course is not the case in classical prosody. For the same reason, all exceptional feet can be named by one of the six terms indicated, except where (as in Swinburne's "Choriambics") some classical metre is deliberately imitated. There is no sufficient reason for speaking of the choriambus as occurring in Shakspere's verse, because where four syllables occur in such succession as to form a sort of choriambus, they will be found to fill the place of _two_ ordinary feet, not of one; hence it would be irrational to combine them into one exceptional foot. But on this matter of convenience in the terminology of verse, one cannot do better than to refer the reader to Mr. Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, where a refreshingly simple system is set forth, such as will not break down under any reasonable test.