It is rather remarkable that a union of verse and prose, similar to this union of regular and irregular verse of our drama, occurs also in that of India. Sir William Jones tells us, in his preface to Sacontala, that the Hindoo plays "are all in verse where the dialogue is elevated, and in prose where it is familiar." Coleridge, who had not the slightest suspicion of the existence of metre in the dramatic prose, makes the following just remarks in a note on Fletcher's Custom of the Country:--"In all comic metres the gulping of short syllables and the abbreviation of syllables ordinarily long, by the rapid pronunciation of eagerness and vehemence, are not so much a licence as a law--a faithful copy of nature." This I think completely justifies the frequent use of the syncope and synæresis in metric prose. The same critic again says of Milton's noble conclusion of his treatise 'Of Reformation in England,' "Written in the fervour of his youthful imagination, in a high poetic strain that wanted metre only to become a lyrical poem." He felt, but did not see, that the metre actually _was_ there. The fact of this prose being metric causes us sometimes to doubt whether a passage should be printed as verse or as prose; and sometimes what is verse in one edition is prose in another. Thus Mercutio's celebrated account of Queen Mab, in Romeo and Juliet, which is most perfect decasyllabic verse, is properly printed as such in the 4to, 1597, while in all the subsequent early editions it is made prose; and prose it would probably have been at this day had no copy of that edition remained. On the other hand, most modern editors have most improperly printed the Nurse's speeches in the preceding scene as verse, while they are, and rightly, prose in all the original editions. An editor is, I think, at perfect liberty to use his judgement in this matter. The following extracts, in which the termination of each line is marked, will enable the reader to judge of the truth of my theory. I must at the same time remind him that such contractions as _I'll_, _I've_, are rare in these prose scenes, such being left to the knowledge and skill of the actor or reader.