nature, are freely admitted into familiar verse, but rarely tolerated when the poet assumes a more elevated tone, except sometimes in dramatic verse. Here are a few examples.

One moment! I'll be with you straight.

This gallant which thou seest

Was in the wreck; and, but he's something stained

With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him

A goodly person.

Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills.

SHAKESPEARE.

The adverbs even, ever, never, and the preposition over are rendered monosyllabic by suppressing the consonant between the two vowels, as e'en, e'er (1), ne'er (2),

(1) Pronounce air. - (2) Pronounce nare.

o'er (1). The participle taken is sometimes contracted. in the same manner into ta'en (2).

In arguing too the parson owned his skill,
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still.
GOLDSMITH.

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.

Ne'er for his lip the purpling cup they fill,
That goblet passes him untasted still.

GRAY.

BYRON.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along.

WORDSWORTH.

Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my Lord.

SHAKESPEARF.

Sometimes the first syllable of a word is suppressed, and above, against, alarum, among, begin, beneath, escape, unless, are curtailed into 'bove, 'gainst, 'larum, 'mong, 'gin, 'neath, 'scape, 'less.

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.

SHAKESPEARE.

While some on earnest business bent

Their murmuring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty.

A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell.

(1) Pronounce ore. — (2) Pronounce tain.

GRAY.

SHAKESPEARE.

Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

The noon was shady, and soft airs

Swept Ouse's silent tide,

When, 'scaped from literary cares,

MILTON.

I wandered on his side.

COWPER.

And the mute silence hist along,

'Less Philomel will deign a song.

MILTON.

Sometimes the final syllable of a word is suppressed, as in oft for often, ope for open.

Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore.

BYRON.

Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear.

РОРЕ.

Of the, in the are sometimes contracted into o'the, i'the, or even o'th', by Shakespeare and by some of the older poets.

There was a time when all the body's members

Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it :

That only like a gulf it did remain

I'the midst o'the body, idle and unactive.

I'm made

A shade,

And laid

I'th' grave.

SHAKESPEARE.

HERRICK.

The vowel of the termination of the second person singular of verbs is often suppressed, as in com'st for comest, gav'st for gavest, shunn'st for shunnest, etc., etc.

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.

SHAKESPEARE.

Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy.

MILTON.

The elision of the vowel e in the and that of o in to, a frequent practice in the last century, are not at all necessary. Such elisions render the verse harsh, and are therefore to be avoided. It is far better to read, in this line of Pope,

than

He watched the ideas rising in her mind,

He watched th'ideas rising in her mind.

These lines, by the same author,

The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide
To inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide,

are disfigured when the second begins thus :

T'inclose the lock.

It is far better to read, in Milton's verse,

Before all temples the upright heart and tur

than

Before all temples th'upright heart and pure,

which is harsh and disagreeable; and in general the melody of the verse is improved in such cases by retaining the two vowels which thus come together. In the verse last quoted, by retaining the vowel in the we have an anapæst for the third foot, which is better than the clumsy and harsh iambus produced by the elision.

It was the fashion among the poets of the last century to suppress an unaccented vowel forming a syllable by itse.f in the middle of a word when that syllable was not required by the metre, thus turning every into ev'ry, amorous into am❜rous, murmuring into murm'ring, etc. These suppressions are not at all necessary; they render the verse rough and unpleasing to the ear. It is better to let the syllables remain; they may make an anapæst of an iambus, or a tribrach of a pyrrhic, or a dactyl of a trochee; and an anapæst or a tribrach occurring occasionally in iambic verse, or a dactyl in trochaic verse, does not destroy the harmony, but in many cases, on the contrary, improves it.

What dire offence from amorous causes springs.

is certainly better than

POPE.

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs.

A vowel between two consonants ought never, or very rarely, to be elidea. In the following verse of Shelley,

Thus evil triumphed and the spirit of evil,

there is a redundant syllable in spirit, but it would render the verse insupportably harsh to contract the word by making sp'rit of it, or what would be still more