equally differentiated from a primitive ejaculatory form of utterance. Speech, as we have it, originated with man; but long before the existence of man, there must have been lower orders of creation in which the tendencies subsequently developed into speech and music, both existed in distinct and different forms. In fact, all the modes of expression mentioned by Schmidt-talking, singing, and dance-gesturing-have correspondences, respectively, in the chirping, singing, and fluttering of the bird. Spencer is undoubtedly right in saying that poetry is "a form of speech used for the better expression of emotional ideas.”) It, and all the higher forms of eloquence, are developed from talking with a musical orwhat is the same thing-an emotional motive. And Schmidt is undoubtedly right in recognizing that the three forms of expression which he mentions have a tendency to run into one another. Whether one start out to talk, or sing, or gesture, he may end by doing all three. This fact has been true, probably, as long as man has existed; and in this sense, dance and song-i. e., music in connection with rhythmical language, undoubtedly preceded the earliest known recitative poems. But it is a different thing to say that poetry, which is distinctively an artistic development of language, is nothing but a development of dance and song. In no true sense can this be affirmed, although of course poetry, music, and dancing have all influenced one another, and in important particulars the principles underlying all are the same. It has been shown from analogy that language, as used by the early reciters, had a natural tendency to become rhythmical; also from history, that the various forms of existing poetry were developed from the recitative. The strongest argument in favor of the view just advanced, however, has yet to be presented. It is found in the fact that the elements of all poetic, as well as of elocutionary forms, can be traced to the physical requirements of the organs of speech, and to these not as they are used in singing, but, distinctively, in talking, One can sing without suggesting any thing that can be developed into verse or rhythm; but it is impossible for him to talk, without suggesting what can be developed into both. In order to recognize the truth of this statement, we have merely to listen to a man talking. As we do so, two characteristics of speech will at once attract our attention. One is the pause or cessation of sound, following groups of syllables, which form phrases or sentences, containing anywhere from two to a dozen words; the other is the accent, given to every second, third, or fourth syllable. This word accent is used here, by the way, not in its restricted classic etymological sense (from ad and cano, to sing to), which will be explained hereafter, but in its modern English sense, meaning merely the emphasis or ictus given to certain syllables. Results that are universal-and the pause and accent are so, notwithstanding the alleged lack of the latter in the French language-are usually founded on requirements of nature. The pause results, primarily, from the construction of the human lungs; the accent, from that of the human throat. The speaker checks his utterance in order to breathe; he accents it because the current of sound-in talking, but not in singing-flows through the vocal passages in a manner similar to that in which the blood pulses through the veins, or fluid is emptied from the neck of a bottle-i. e., with what may be termed alternate active and passive movements. The active movements, which cause the accents, open the throat more freely than the passive ones, and in doing so may change, as will be shown hereafter, either the duration, force, pitch, or quality of the tone, or all of these together. Observe the difference between the accented and unaccented syllables of tartarize, Singsing, murmuring, barbarous, sassafras, Lulu, papa. It is only necessary to observe these facts in order to recognize that the line in verse, at the end of which, when regularly constructed, the reader necessarily pauses, is an artistic development of the phrase, which we find in all natural conversation. In fact, Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, seems to hint at some such a development in prose, for he says the period must be divided into clauses, easily pronounced at a breath, ei àvánvεvo7o5. It is generally acknowledged that the principal mental process involved in art-construction is comparison. This causes all men, both consciously and unconsciously, both for convenience and pleasure, to take satisfaction in putting like with like. The moment this tendency is applied to groups of sylla bles separated by pauses, it leads men to place, if possible, a like number of syllables in each group, and thus have between the pauses like intervals of time. But an arrangement of this kind is the primary characteristic of verse. Take one of the earliest verse-forms-Hebrew parallelism -so called because made up of two phrases, each of which contains a parallel or equivalent statement: I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; O magnify the Lord with me ; I sought the Lord, and he heard me ; -Psalms xxxiv., I−4. Even the English translation shows that this was constructed according to the principle just mentioned. The Hebrew, feeling that the end of the sentence was the appropriate place in which to pause, and wishing to pause at regular intervals, tried to make his sentences of equal length. This was his way of producing the same effect that we have in our verse. The method of the early Greek, too, seems to have been the same. "In recitative poetry," says Schmidt, to whom I have already referred, "which appropriated to itself the simplest forms, occurs the most primitive sort of rhythmical period, the recitative verse; this consists of two sentences," similar in arrangement to that of the Hebrew, "which either have equal length, or the second of which is catalectic or 'falling,' or is even shortened by an entire measure." In the later Greek poetry, however, as in our own, the length of the line does not determine the length of the sentence. But it does, or at least should, determine the length of the phrases; because, as we have found, the reader naturally pauses at the end of the line. If this be long, he also pauses at some other place, usually in the middle of the line. This latter pause is called the cæsura, from a Latin word meaning a division. Here are lines with the cæsura indicated by a bar: Brought from the woods | the honeysuckle twines -Excursion, 6: Wordsworth. The cæsura pause need not necessarily come in the middle of the line, e. g.: -Death his dart Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked. -Par. Lost, II: Milton. Have found him guilty of high treason. | Much He spoke and learnedly. -Henry VIII., 2; 1: Shakespear. For reasons to be given hereafter, the pause at the end of the line is much more apparent where rhymes are used, e. g.: In arguing, too, the pastor owned his skill, For e'en though vanquished he could argue still, Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, And still they gazed and still the wonder grew, -Deserted Village: Goldsmith. In the same way as the pause is developed into verse, accent is developed into rhythm and the tunes of verse, -two characteristics of poetic form which necessarily go together, just as do their analogues in the arts appealing to the eye, proportion and color. Some may doubt that accent is the basis of rhythm and tune, but it is really about all that the majority of men know of either. With exceptions, the fewness of which confirms the rule, all of our English words of more than one syllable must necessarily be accented in one way; and all of our articles, prepositions, and conjunctions of one syllable are unaccented, unless the sense very plainly demands a different treatment. These two facts enable us to arrange any number of our words so that the accents shall fall on syllables separated by like intervals. The tendency to compare things, and to put like with like, which is in constant |