Thirdly; it is a gross mistake to suppose that the Greek dactylic line is 'the model in this matter'--the matter of the English Alexandrine. The Greek dactylic line is of the same number of feet--bars--beats--pulsations--as the ordinary dactylic-spondaic lines among which it occurs. But the Alexandrine is longer by one foot--by one pulsation--than the pentameters among which it arises. For its pronunciation it demands _more time_, and therefore, _ceteris paribus_, it would well serve to convey the impression of length, or duration, and thus, indirectly, of slowness. I say _ceteris paribus_. But, by varying conditions, we can effect a total change in the impression conveyed. When the idea of slowness is conveyed by the Alexandrine, it is not conveyed by any slower enunciation of syllables--that is to say, it is not _directly_ conveyed--but indirectly, through the idea of _length_ in the whole line. Now, if we wish to convey, by means of an Alexandrine, the impression of velocity, we readily do so by giving rapidity to our enunciation of the syllables composing the several feet. To effect this, however, we must have _more_ syllables, or we shall get through the whole line too quickly for the intended time. To get more syllables, all we have to do, is to use, in place of iambuses, what our prosodies call anapoests.[1] Thus, in the line, Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main, the syllables '_the unbend_' form an anapoest and, demanding unusual rapidity of enunciation, in order that we may get them in in the ordinary time of an iambus, serve to suggest celerity. By the elision of _e_ in _the_, as is customary, the whole of the intended effect is lost; for _th'unbend_ is nothing more than the usual iambus. In a word, wherever an Alexandrine expresses celerity, we shall find it to contain one or more anapoests--the more anapoests, the more decided the impression. But the tendency of the Alexandrine consisting merely of the usual iambuses, is to convey slowness--although it conveys this idea feebly, on account of conveying it indirectly. It follows, from what I have said, that the common pentameter, interspersed with anapoests, would better convey celerity than the Alexandrine interspersed with them in a similar degree;--and it unquestionably does. [Footnote 1: I use the prosodial word "anapoest," merely because here I have no space to show what the reviewer will admit I have distinctly shown in the essay referred to--viz: that the additional syllable introduced, does _not_ make the foot an anapoest, or the equivalent of an anapoest, and that, if it did, it would spoil the line. On this topic, and on all topics connected with verse, there is not a prosody in existence which is not a mere jumble of the grossest error.] * * * * *