6. The seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter bears the name of Rhyme Royal. In this the first four lines form an alternately rhyming quatrain, the fifth line rhymes with the fourth, and the last two form a couplet.

7. The eight-line stanza of iambic pentameter is the famous ottava rima. Here the first six lines rhyme alternately, and the last two rhyme together. Byron's Don Juan furnishes an example.

8. The Spenserian stanza consists of nine lines; the first eight are iambic pentameters, and the ninth an Alexandrine. The first and third lines rhyme together; also the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh, as well as the sixth, eighth, and ninth. The Faerie Queene, The Castle of Indolence, and Childe Harold are in this stanza. The Vision of Don Roderick affords an example of different rhyming.

EXERCISE XCVIII.

VERSIFICATION.

1. Explain the difference between metre and rhythm.

2. Explain why it is that there are only four kinds of basal feet in English.

3. Distinguish between quantity and accent.

4. Name and describe the various kinds of verse.

5. Name and illustrate the various kinds of rhyme.

6. Explain the term stanza, and quote an example of each of the different kinds of stanza.

7. Explain and illustrate each of the following terms: Verse, foot, accent, emphasis, scansion, blank verse, elision, substituted feet, incomplete feet.

8. Arrange the following in four iambic tetrameters: "The bitter-sweet, the haunting air creepeth, bloweth everywhere; it preys on all, all prey on it, blooms in beauty, thinks in evil." 9. Arrange in three iambic pentameters : "Seek him in rising vapors, and in clouds of crimson or dun, and of the gray morning and of tawny eve."

often on the edge

10. Arrange in five trochaic tetrameters: "Round about him spun the landscape, sky and forest reeled together, and his strong heart leaped within him, as the sturgeon leaps and struggles in a net to break its meshes."

11. Bring in four lines of each of the following metres, with the scansion marked: Iambic tetrameter, iambic hexameter; trochaic trimeter, trochaic pentameter; dactylic hexameter; anapastic tetrameter. Point out clearly any variations that occur.

12. Arrange in two trochaic lines: "Women, I am but a girl, but heroes' blood is in my veins, and I will shed it drop by drop, before I see my land in chains."

13. Scan 12 in another measure. 14. Illustrate the effect of pauses.

15. Explain what you understand by alliteration.

16. Quote lines that show various methods of alliteration. 17. Quote lines in which you consider the alliteration excessive. 18. State the requirements of common metre, short metre, long metre, elegiac stanza.

19. Describe rhyme royal and Spenserian stanza. Name poems in these measures.

20. What is blank verse?

21. Arrange in six iambic lines, making the third and sixth lines trimeters: 66 Faith overleaps the confines of our reason, and if by faith, as in old times was said, women received their dead raised up to life, then only for a season our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain until we meet again."

22. Explain and illustrate the terms, hypercatalectic, acatalectic, and catalectic.

23. Quote a line to illustrate what is meant by unemphatic

accent.

24. Arrange in iambic lines: "Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound. But the world's time is.time, in masquerade."

CORRECTING COMPOSITIONS.

THE labor of correcting compositions, especially in large classes, is very great; yet minute correction is the best way of showing the pupil how to avoid errors and attain excellence. General remarks are of little avail. The beauty and suitability of the various parts constitute the beauty of the whole. Hence it is necessary to call the learner's attention to the exact points in which he has failed, that he may know just what to avoid in future. The toil of criticising may be lightened by using a system of abbreviated marks, such as those given below. (These are taken chiefly from Huffcut's English in the Preparatory Schools.)

PROOF-READING AND MARKING.

BEFORE a manuscript is brought to the printer it ought to be as perfect as the author can make it. The compositor is bound to "follow the copy," in word and sentiment, unless, indeed, he meets with instances of wrong punctuation or false grammar (and such instances are not rare), which his intelligence enables him to amend. After the matter has been read and corrected in the office, a proof is sent to the author, and if it corresponds with the copy the compositor's responsibility is at an end. He has done all he is paid for; and should the author desire any changes made in his matter, of course he must pay for them.

Sentiments in print look marvellously different from the same ideas in manuscript; and we are not surprised that writers should wish to polish a little; nor do we object to their natural desire of amending or beautifying their mental products. But let them not forget that pay-time will come,-when the item for alterations will loom out with a startling distinctness in the bill. They found it easy in the proof to erase a word or two here and insert a word or two there, without dreaming, perhaps, that in consequence of these little erasures and insertions the compositor would be compelled to alter and reconstruct much of his work. We know of a volume on which the alterations alone have consumed time equal to one man's work for nearly two and a half years. How unreasonable nay, how transparently unjust the expectation that

1 This chapter is based on the chapter on Proof-reading in "The American Printer," published by The MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan Co., Philadelphia, and is used by their permission.

the printer should give gratuitously the time and trouble requisite for the radical changes in the type which an author's whim or taste may demand!

An authority on this subject says: "It may not be improper, in this place, just to take notice of the great danger to the correctness of a work which arises from the practice, too common with some authors, of keeping their proof-sheets too long in their hands before they are returned to the printer. The impatience of authors to see their works in a fit state for publication is almost proverbial. The pleasure arising from beholding, as it were, the form and texture' of one's thoughts is a sensation much easier felt than described. That authors, therefore, may partake of this pleasure in a speedy and regular succession, they should make a point of forwarding their proof-sheets to the printer as quickly as possible, not only that they may the sooner be got ready for the press, but that the work may proceed in a regular manner, without being interrupted by the forwarding of other works in lieu of theirs.

"Authors are very apt to make alterations, and to correct and amend the style or arguments of their works, when they first see them in print. This is certainly the worst time for this labor, as it is necessarily attended with an expense which, in large works, will imperceptibly swell to a serious sum; when, however, this method of alteration is adopted by an author, the reader must always be careful to read the whole sheet over once more with very great attention before it is finally put to press.

"A proof-sheet, having duly undergone this routine of purgation, may be supposed to be as free from errata as the nature of the thing will admit, and the word 'Press' may be written at the top of the first page if to be printed from type, and 'Cast' if to be electrotyped. These are important words to every proof-reader; if he have suffered his attention to be drawn aside from the nature of his proper business, and errors should be discovered when it is too late to have them corrected, these words are as the signature of the death-warrant of his reputation. A proof-reader, therefore, should be a man of one business, always upon the alert, all eye,