know.

Prosody is divided into three parts. Tone, Breathing, and Time. As to
tone-- boys are usually required to repeat it in a loud one, without
stammering or drawling; and with as little breathing and time, or
breathing-time, as possible.

We shall leave tone to the consideration of pianoforte and
fiddle-makers; and breathing to doctors and chemists, who can _analyze_
it a great deal better than we can. In this place we think proper to
treat only of Time.

Now of Time a very great deal may be said, taking the word in all the
senses in which it is capable of being used.

In the first place, Time flies-- but this we have had occasion to
observe before; as also that Time is a very great eater.

In the second, Time is a very ill-used personage; he is spent, wasted,
lost, kicked down, and killed-- the last as often as an Irishman is--
but for all that he never complains.

It is a question whether keeping Time, or losing Time, is the essential
characteristic of dancing.

Then we might expatiate largely about the value of Time, and of the
propriety of taking him by the forelock-- but for two reasons.

One of them is, that all this has been said long ago; the other, that it
is nothing at all to the purpose.

We might also quote extensively from Dr. Culpeper's Herbal, and from
Linnaeus and Jussieu; but the _time_ we speak of, (although we hope it
will be _twigged_ by the reader,) is no _plant_; nevertheless it is a
necessary ingredient in grammatical _stuffing_.

Time in prosody is the measure of the pronouncing of a syllable.

Like whist, it is divided into Long and Short. A long time is marked
thus, as sUmEns, taking: a short time thus; as p{i}l{u}l{a}, a pill.

A foot is the placing together of two or more syllables, according to
the certain observation of their _time_, the organ of which should be
well developed for that purpose.

Ordinary feet are long feet, short feet, broad feet, splay feet, club
feet, and bumble feet, to which may be added cloven feet in the case of
certain animals, and an "old gentleman."

There are several kinds of Latin feet; here, however, we shall only
notice spondees and dactyls.

A spondee is a foot of two syllables, as InfAns, an infant.

A dactyl is a foot of three syllables, as Ang{e}l{u}s, an angel,
pOrc{u}l{u}s, a little pig.

Scanning is measuring a verse as you are measured by your tailor-- by
the _foot_, according to _rule_. To scanning there belong the figures
ca