the true classification: as in the system of Linnæus, the true organs have been taken, but classification has been by their number instead of by their development.

Under the breath-law, the various poetic forms in use group themselves into certain evident classes. This law indicated the first great characteristic —the length of line; and this gives two distinct classes—lines of five stresses and lines of eight stresses, each of which two classes I have named after their predominant types, Heroic and Ballad respectively. Setting aside the internal syllabic variation of verse, the places of greatest variation are at the beginning and end of lines. Variation at the end being the more pronounced, this has been taken as the distinguishing feature of the various ballad forms into which the Ballad class has been divided, and the variation at the beginning as the feature of the subvariations of the different forms. Thus in Romance Metre, or Parent Ballad, the line-end may lose a stress-unit, or foot, and become Popular Ballad, of seven instead of eight stresses. In the Popular Ballad, again, there are two variations—in one the stressed syllable at the end of every half-line is dropped, in the other the whole unit at the end of every half-line. These two forms would have been kept as subvariations of the Popular Ballad were it not for the fact that the former constitutes the normal ballad-metre of Denmark and Germany—and from the epic of the Nibelungen North being written in it I have called it the Nibelungen Metre—and the latter constitutes the ballad-metre of France, and has already been called the Alexandrine, from its forming the metre of a French epic on the deeds of Alexander.

The stress-unit at the beginning of the line can be varied only in two ways. In its normal form it consists of two syllables, the first unstressed, the second stressed. The unstressed syllable may be dropped, or it may be preceded by an extra unstressed syllable: from these variations are produced the subvariations in each of the Ballad forms.

Minor variations are formed by adding or dropping syllables at the line-ends. Thus, in Romance Metre an unstressed syllable may be added, when what is called a feminine or weak ending is produced. If it drop a syllable, it produces feminine Popular Ballad; if it drop two syllables, it produces ordinary Popular Ballad. If Popular Ballad, drop a syllable at the half-line end, it produces Nibelungen. If Nibelungen drop a syllable at the half-line end, it produces Alexandrine; if it add a syllable at the line - end, it produces either feminine Nibelungen or feminine Alexandrine.

Though these comprise the whole of the variations, except the internal syllabic variations which are rather to be considered as scent and colour, it will be seen that they include all regular formations outside lines of five stresses. These latter form the second great class, the Heroic. This does not show nearly the amount of variation of line-end shown by the former; its lines contain within themselves other and more subtle means of variation, such as pause, overflow, &c.—features practically denied to Ballad. Its subdivisions will be more readily seen. Firstly, the Common Heroic includes-all poems in riming couplets, with a subvariation including riming stanzas, such as Spenserian, Sonnet, Rime Royal, &c. Secondly, Blank Verse includes two divisions—Epic, Narrative, and Didactic poems; and the Drama, rimed or unrimed. A third class, which I have called Irregular, includes the Ode, poems in which the length of line follows no one of the preceding classes exclusively, Metrical Tales, and Songs; a subdivision I have called Prose Lyrics, to include much of Walt Whitman's poetry; another division

In the above table the units, of which there are eight in the Romance Metre, are divided off by the /, the syllable preceding the bar bearing the stress in every case: each represents a syllable.

Example (1) is then ordinary duple, or iambic metre; (2) is ordinary triple, or anapestic metre, with iambic opening; (3) is ordinary quadruple with iambic opening; (4) is pure triple; (5) is quadruple with triple opening; (6) is ordinary duple, the second half-line beginning abruptly, or with a stressed syllable; (9) is ordinary duple with a feminine first half-line, producing a triple unit in the middle of the verse.

Class B, (12) to (22), is exactly the same as Class A, (1) to (11), except that all the varieties in the former have feminine verse-ends.

Class C (23) may be extended in a similar way of Classes A and B; it differs from them in the verse ending with a double feminine, but this is of such rare occurrence that, unless specimens are actually found or made, it is unnecessary to cite the various varieties, all of which are, however, possible, and occur often enough in isolated couplets in eccentrics such as the “Ingoldsby Legends.”

Group II, again, is similar to Group I, except that throughout the former the beginning of the verse is abrupt—that is, it begins with a stressed syllable; so that, whilst Group I contains the so-called iambic and anapestic metres, Group II contains the trochaic and dactylic.

Those above tabled are the main variations. There are intermediate forms: for example, between (1) and (2) the following form often occurs:—

../…/…/…/…/…/…/…/…/..

where both half-lines of the triple metre begin with a duple unit. The extremes of variation only are given in the table, intermediate forms readily falling into their places.

It must be noted, however, that it is as much the exception as the rule to find verses entirely in any one of the above varieties. They may change from one to another, or hover around several of the forms in each of the Divisions A, B, and C, but they can always be readily assigned their place in the scheme. For instance, Shelley's “Sensitive Plant” is a mixture of duple and triple metre:—

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

This, divided into units, reads,—

A Sen/sitive Plant/ in a gar/den grew/, and the young/
winds fed/ it with sil/ver dew/,
And it o/pened its fan-/like leaves/ to the light/, and
closed/ them beneath/ the kis/ses of night./

or

../…/…/…/…/…/…/…/…/..

../…/…/…/…/…/…/…/…/..

It will be seen that it hovers between (a) and (d)—(1) and (4)—of Group I, Class A, Division 1.

The various divisions of the table have been made, as there is a vast number of poems that can be wholly placed in one or other of them. In the quotations following, the numbers correspond with the numbers of the variations in the table:—