likewise too true a picture
of the lax hold which principles have on a woman's heart, when opposed to,
or even separated from, passion and inclination. For women are less
hypocrites to their own minds than men are, because in general they feel
less proportionate abhorrence of moral evil in and for itself, and more of
its outward consequences, as detection and loss of character, than
men,--their natures being almost wholly extroitive. Still, however just in
itself, the representation of this is not poetical; we shrink from it, and
cannot harmonise it with the ideal.

Act ii. sc. 1. Theobald's edition--

"_Through_ bush, _through_ briar--

_Through_ flood, _through fire_--"

What a noble pair of ears this worthy Theobald must have had! The eight
amphimacers or cretics,--

"Over hill, over dale,
Thoro' bush, thoro' briar,
Over park, over pale,
Throro' flood, thoro' fire"--

have a delightful effect on the ear in their sweet transition to the
trochaic,--

"I do wander ev'ry where
Swifter than the moones sphere," &c.

The last words, as sustaining the rhyme, must be considered, as in fact
they are, trochees in time.

It may be worth while to give some correct examples in English of the
principle metrical feet:--

Pyrrhic or Dibrach, u u = _body_, _spirit_.
Tribrach, u u u = _nobody_, hastily pronounced.
Iambus, u - = _delight_.
Trochee, - u = _lightly_.
Spondee, - - = _God spake_.

The paucity of spondees in single words in English, and indeed in the
modern languages in general, makes perhaps the greatest distinction,
metrically considered, between them and the Greek and Latin.

Dactyl, - u u = _merrily_.
Anapaest, u u - = _a propos_, or the first three syllables of _ceremony_.
Amphibrachys, u - u = _delightful_.
Amphimacer, - u - = _over hill_.
Antibacchius, u - = _the Lord God_.
Bacchius, - - u = _Helvellyn_.
Molossus, - - - = _John James Jones_.

These simple feet may suffice for understanding the metres of Shakespeare,
for the greater part at least;--but Milton cannot be made harmoniously
intelligible without the composite feet, the Ionics, Paeons, and Epitrites.

_Ib._ sc. 2. Titania's speech (Theobald, adopting Warburton's reading):--

"Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate
_Follying_ (her womb then rich with my young squire)
Would imitate," &c.

Oh! oh! Heaven have mercy on poor Shakespeare, and also on Mr. Warburton's
mind's eye!

Act v. sc. 1. Theseus' speech (Theobald):--