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The vines and the o siers: cut and go set,
If grape be unpleasant, a better go get.

Tusser. February Husbandry.

Himself goes patch'd like some | bare cottyer,
Lest he might aught the future stock appeire.

He vaunts his voice upon a hired stage,

Hall. Sat. 2.

With high-set steps and princely carriage.

Hall. Sat. 1. 3.

When the words end in ence, ent, or an, the additional

syllable now sounds very uncouthly.

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Whose words were short, and darksome was their sense.

Hall. Sat. 3 book. Prol.

Whose scepter guides]: the flowing ocean.

B. Jon. Cynthia's Rev. 55.

No airy fowl can take so high a flight-
Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea-
Nor fearful beast can dig his cave so low-
As that the air: the earth | or ocean,

Should shield them from the gorge of greedy man.

Hall, Sat. 3. 1.

But by far the most common instance of this resolution of syllables occurs in our substantival ending ion. From

the 14th to the 17th century this termination expanded into two syllables whenever the verse required it.

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Of those that claim their offices this day
By custom of the coronation.

My muse would follow those that are foregone,
But can not with|: an Eng|lish pin|ion|.

H 8, 4. 1.

Hall. Sat 3. Prol.

This diphthong, though its place in our orthography, In our provinces, however,

Before we close this section I would add a word or two respecting the diphthong ea. representative still keeps its has long since been obsolete. where it still lingers, we often hear it resolved into a dissyllable, e-at, gre-at, me-at, &c. I have watched with some care, to see if it ever held the place of a dissyllable in our poetry, as in such case our Anglo-Saxon and early English rhythms might be seriously affected. My search has not been successful, and the result has been a strong conviction, that the ea, which so freqently occurs in our Anglo-Saxon poems, was strictly diphthongal.

I think, however, that in one or two instances this resolution of the diphthong has actually taken place, as in the following stave,

Now shall the wanton devils dance in rings,

In every mead and every heath bore,

The elvish fairies and the gobelins,

The hoofed satyrs silent heretofore.

Hall. Elegy on Dr. Whitaker.

This English diphthong will, of course, not be confounded with the ea that occurs in certain French words, and which was not unfrequently resolved into two syllables.

That ther n' is erthe, water, fire, ne aire,

Ne creature that of | hem malked is

:

That may me hele or don comfort in this.

Chau. The Knightes Tale.

NASALS AND LIQUIDS.

The subjects of the present section are the nasals m, n, ng, and the liquids / and r. Of these letters two, namely, n and, occasionally form consonantal syllables; the remaining three cannot form a syllable without a vowel. The following are instances of the vowel having been dropt and the syllable lost.

But always wept, and wailed night and day

As blasted blosm | thro heat: doth lan guish and | decay].

Amongst them all grows not a fairer flower

:

Than is the bloosm of comelly courtesy,
|
Which, though it on a lowly stalk do bower,
Yet brancheth forth in brave nobility.

F. Q. 4. 8. 2.

F. Q. 6. 4.

The short vowel was sometimes elided before the m, even when the consonant was found in another syllable.

Hewn out of adamant rock]: with engines keen.

F. Q. 1. 7. 33.

As if in adamant rock | it had been pight.

F. Q. 1. 11. 25.

Legitimate Edgar: I must have | your land].

L. 1. 2.

Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,
To make a shambles of the parliament house.
3 H 6, 1. 1.

:

They were a feare un to the en myes* eye.]

Churchyard. Siege of Leith.

I profess

Myself an enemy: to | all other joy|.

Lear, 4. 4.

* This author always makes enemy a dissyllable, and spells it as in the

text.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclos'd]

In serpent.

And next to him malicious Envy rode

Upon a rav'nous wolf, and still did chaw

Between his cank red teeth a venomous toad]

These things did sting

His mind so venomously

Detains him.

P. L. 9.

F. Q. 1. 4. 30.

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And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony save general ceremony,
And what art thou]: thou idol ceremony-

Henry 5, 4. 1.

On the other hand we now always drop the penultimate e of French words in ment, which once formed an independent syllable.

Thus by on assent

We ben | accorded to | his jugement|. Chau. Prol.

Chau. Prol.

And who that wol: my jugement | withsay,
Shall pay for all we spenden by the way.
For of his hands he had no government,
Ne car'd for blood in his | aveng\ement.

Then many a Lollard would in forfeitment,
Bear paper faggots: o'er the pavement.
He came at his commandement | on hile,
Tho' sente Theseus for Emilie.

F. Q. 1. 4. 34.

Hall. Sat.

Chau. The Knightes Tale.

The wretched woman whom unhappy hour

Hath now made thrall to your command ement.

F. Q. 1. 2. 22.

The word regiment is now also

generally made a dissyllable, though we occasionally hear it pronounced with

three syllables, as in the verses,

The regiment

was willing and advanc'd].

Fletcher.oadicea, 2. 4.

lies half a mile | at least

The regiment
South from the mighty power of the King.

R 3, 5.3.

M, we have said, cannot form a syllable without a vowel. This rule holds both as regards our spelling and our pronunciation; but one or two centuries ago the termination sm was often pronounced som, as it is among the vulgar to this day.

Great Solomon sings in the English quire,
And is become a new-found sonnetist,

Singing his love, the holy spouse of Christ,

Like as she were some light-skirts of the East,

In mightiest ink hornis ms: he | can thither wrest.

All this by syllogism true
In mood and figure he would do.
Enthusiasm's past | redemption
Gone in a galloping consumption.

Hall. Sat. 1. 8.

Butler's Hudibras.

Burns' Letter to John Goudie.

These words should have been written as pronounced, inkhornisom, syllogisom, &c.

N is one of the two letters, which form consonantal syllables. It is difficult to say when it first obtained this privilege, but it could hardly have been so early as the reign of Elizabeth. In that reign, Gabriel Harvey objected to Spenser's use of heaven, seven, &c. as dissyllables, the same not being "authorized by the ordinarie use and custom." He would have them written and spoken "as monosyllaba, thus, heavn, seavn, &c." I think therefore that heaven, seven, &c. were commonly pronounced then, as now, with only one vowel; and that when Spenser and his contemporaries made them dissyllables, they imitated an obsolete, or rather a provincial dialect, and pronounced them with two vowels. This latter mode of pronunciation has left traces behind it; even yet we may occasionally hear heav-en, sev-en, &c. among the vulgar.

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