An analysis of the versification of some of our nineteenth century poets has produced certain very interesting results that may be graphically represented. The subject of versification still demands more exact treatment, and any contributions which embody the results of real analytical treatment are of value.

It is well known that the chief objection to our iambic measure, which is the normal English measure, is its tendency to produce a monotonous pendulum-like tick-tick. If, on the other hand, we employ anapæstic measure, the triple movement to every foot demands too much exertion of the tongue. English verse possessing the finest cadences lies between the two extremes of a pure iambic treatment and a pure anapæstic treatment.

It may be laid down as a safe dictum that, in lyric verse at least, one anapaest in a line otherwise iambic constitutes it an anapæstic line. The poet who writes in iambics is not then free to introduce anapæsts. The expedient to which he will resort is a free use of the catch. We shall see that Gordon, in his exquisite ballad The Sick Stock-Rider, uses the catch, where emotion is at a high pitch, 13 times in 16 lines. A poet writing in anapæsts is free to use iambs where he will, and even the monosyllabic foot at the beginning of a line or after the cæsura. Browning, in his Abt Vogler, has actually one hexameter line (Stanza III. 1. 7) with only 5 unaccented syllables, or one less than an iambic line can have. It is the shortest line in the poem and is placed next to an 11-syllabled line, the longest line he uses.