, they appear to be, would not,
I conceive, justify us in concluding that it was disregarded.
These aberrant lines are much more common in the dramatic blank
verse of the seventeenth century. They are, doubtless, vestiges
of the old rhythmical forms; and we may readily allow that
English versification had not, in the fifteenth or even
sixteenth centuries, the numerical regularity of classical or
Italian metre. In the ancient ballads, Scots and English, the
substitution of the anapaest for the iambic foot, is of
perpetual recurrence, and gives them a remarkable elasticity
and animation; but we never fail to recognize a uniformity of
measure, which the use of nearly equipollent feet cannot, on
the strictest metrical principles, be thought to impair."

Mr. Guest, in his work, of which we hope erelong to give an account,
brings to the story of English verse far more extensive research than
had hitherto been bestowed upon it; and that special scholarship which
was needed--the Anglo-Saxon language, learned in the new continental
school of Rask and Grimm. His examination of our subject merges in a
general history of the Language, viewed as a metrical element or
material; and hence his exposition, which we rapidly collect _seriatim_,
is plainly different in respect of both order and fulness from what it
would have been, had the illustration of Chaucer been his main purpose.
He follows down the gradual Extinction of Syllables; and in this
respect, our anciently syllabled, now mute E, takes high place, and
falls first under his consideration.

This now silent or vanished Vowel occurred heretofore, with metrical
power, in adopted FRENCH Substantives, as--eloquenc-E, maladi-E; and in
their plurals, as--maladi-ES. And in Adjectives of the same origin,
as--larg-E.

It remained from several parts of the ANGLO-SAXON grammar.--From A, E,
U, endings of Anglo-Saxon substantives--as nam-A, nam-E; tim-A, tim-E;
mon-A, (the moon,) mon-E; sunn-E, (the sun,) sonn-E; heort-E, (the
heart,) hert-E; ear-E, (the ear,) er-E; scol-U, (school,) scol-E; luf-U,
lov-E; sceam-U, sham-E; lag-A, law-E; sun-U, (a son,) son-E; wud-U, (a
wood,) wod-E.--(To Mr Guest's three vowels, add O:--as braed-O (breadth)
bred-E.)--From the termination THE; as--streng-THE; yow-THE.--From a
few adjectives ending in E; as--getrew-E, trew-E; new-E, new-E.--From
adverbs, formed by the same vowel from adjectives; as