Wittie, Familiar Letters, by Gabriel Harvey, in the following passage:

" Nowe for your Heauen, Seauen, Eleauen, or the like, I am likewise of the same opinion: as generally in all words else: we are not to goe a little farther, either for the Prosody, or the Orthography (and therefore your Imaginarie Diastole nothing worthe) then we are licenced and authorized by the ordinarie vse, & custome, and proprietie, and Idiome, and, as it were, Maiestie of our speach: whiche I accounte the only infallible, and soueraigne Rule of all Rules. And therefore hauing respecte therevnto, and reputing it Petty Treason to reuolt therefro: dare hardly eyther in the Prosodie, or in the Orthography either, allowe them two sillables in steade of one, but woulde as well in Writing, as in Speaking, haue them vsed, as Monosyllaba, thus: heavn, seavn, a learn, as Maister Ascham in his Toxophilus doth Yrne, commonly written Yron:

Vp to the pap his string did he pull, his shafte to the harde yrne.'

"Especially the difference so manifestly appearing by the Pronunciation, betwéene these two, a learn a clocke and a leaven of Dowe, whyche lea-ven admitteth the Diastole, you speake of. But see, what absurdities thys yl fauoured Orthographye, or rather Pseudography, hathe ingendred: and howe one errour still bréedeth and begetteth an other. Haue wée not, Mooneth, for Moonthe: sithence, for since: whilest, for whilste: phantasie, for phansie: euen, for evn : Diuel, for Divl: God hys wrath, for Goddes wrath : and a thousande of the same stampe: wherein the corrupte Orthography in the moste, hathe béene the sole, or principall cause of corrupte Prosodye in ouer many?

" Marry, I confesse some wordes we haue indeede, as for example, fayer, either for beautifull, or for a

1

Marte: ayer, both pro aere, and pro hærede, for we say not Heire, but plaine Aire for him to (or else Scoggins Aier were a poore iest) whiche are commonly, and maye indifferently be vsed eyther wayes. For you shal as well, and as ordinarily heare fayer, as faire, and Aier, as Aire, and bothe alike: not onely of diuers and sundrye persons, but often of the very same: otherwhiles vsing the one, otherwhiles the other: and so died, or dyde; spied, or spide: tryed, or tride: fyer, or fyre: myer, or myre: wyth an infinite companye of the same sorte: sometime Monasyllaba, some time Polysyllaba."

Many words in Shakspeare's time were occasionally written with a vowel, which they have now lost, which, according to Wallis, might be considered as a remnant of the e feminine in our ancient language. He has specified commandment, which, even when he wrote, was considered as a word of four syllables. We certainly find it so used by Jonson :

"But when to good men thou art sent
" By Joves supreme commandement."

Love Restored, folio 1616, vol. i. p. 994.

Cavallery is used for cavalry, by Massinger :
I in mine own person

"With part of the cavallery, will bid
" These hunters welcome to a bloody breakfast."
The Maid of Honour, Act II. Sc. III.

Nor was this confined to poetry. Thus, in Grimeston's translation of Polybius, 1634, p. 80: "At first the Gaules had the better, for that the Roman horsemen were surprized by theirs. But being afterwards environed by the Roman Cavallery, they were broken and defeated."

Spenser makes safety a word of three syllables :
"O goodly golden chayne wherewith y fere
"The vertues linked are in lovely wise
" And noble minds of you allyed were
" In brave poursuitt of chivalrous emprize
"That none did others safety despize."

Fairy Queen, b. i. canto ix. st. 1.

In Hamlet, see vol. vii. p. 216, Mr. Malone states, that the quarto, 1604, reads,

" The safety and health of this whole state;"

where he supposes that the before health was inadvertently omitted. We may doubt, upon Spenser's authority, whether there was any omission. One class of verses have hitherto been considered as defective, but erroneously in my opinion. In the first scene of Macbeth this passage occurs. See vol. xi. p. 12:

"1 Witch. Where the place?

"2 Witch.

Upon the heath.
"3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth."

The second of these having been considered imperfect, the reader will see, at the page referred to, the remedies which have been proposed. In Love's Labour's Lost, vol. iv. p. 371, I have mistakingly printed

"She for whom even Jove would swear
"Juno but an Ethiop were."

In the old copies even is omitted, and thus we find it also in the Passionate Pilgrim, see vol. x; and in England's Helicon. I am satisfied that our ancestors had a measure consisting of only six syllables, and that both the lines quoted were perfectly correct as they originally stood. I have come to this conclusion, not only because other instances are to be found in Shakspeare's plays, but in many of his contemporaries. Thus, in A Midsummer Night's Dream :

Again:

"Puck. Over hill, over dale,
"Thorough bush, thorough briar;
"Over park, over pale,
"Thorough flood, thorough fire,
" I do wander every where

"Swifter than the moon's sphere."

Vol. v. p. 199.

" Up and down, up and down,
" I will lead them up and down."

Ibid. p. 283.

So also in the Epilogue to the Tempest:

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
" And what strength I have's my own;
"Which is most faint: now 'tis true
" I must be here confined by you.

It is true that there are seven syllables in the lines
which I have here marked by italicks; but a syllable
may be either added or not at the beginning of such
verses, as the common measure may consist of seven syl-
lables or eight. If we had merely these several instances
to produce from Shakspeare, we could scarcely consider
them all as accidental corruptions; yet it might still
be considered as a practice peculiar to himself. I
have now to show that the same may be found in his
contemporaries. The following, among others, occur
in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess :

"By that heavenly form of thine,
"Brightest fair, thou art divine,
"Sprung from great immortal race

Of the gods, for in thy face

" Shines more awful majesty

" Than dull weak mortality

" Dare with misty eyes behold

"And live! Therefore on this mould

" Lowly do I bend my knee."

Act I. Sc. I.

" Here be berries for a queen,
" Some be red, some be green."

Ibid.

Ibid.

" I must go, I must run."

"There I stop: fly away-
"Truth that hath but one face-
"Hecate with shapes three."

Act III. Sc. I.

"Let her fly, let her scape.
" Give again her own shape."

Let us now turn to Ben Jonson:

"Look, see!-beshrew this tree-
"She can start our Franklins daughters
" In her sleep with shrieks and laughters,
" And on sweet St. Anne's night
"Feed them with a promised sight-
"Mab. Fairies, pinch him black and blue,

"Now you have him, make him rue.
Satyr. O hold, Mab 1 sue.-

"But see, the hobby-horse is forgot,
"Fool, it must be your lot

"To supply his want with faces
"And some other buffoon graces

" You know how: piper play."

Ibid.

Entertainment at Althorpe.

As the seven or eight syllable measure was divided

into two short ones,

"With ravished ears

"The Monarch hears;

so, also, out of this were formed two still shorter:

"Here we may
"Think and pray,

"Until death

" Stops our breath.
" Other joys
"Are but toys."

Various lines in Shakspeare, and the poets of his time, which sound harshly to a mere modern ear, are brought back to regularity by resorting to a different accentutation, such as, détestable for detéstable; aspéct for áspect; and many other instances which are adverted to in the notes. Yet still the number is not