" He retains
Milton's spelling of _hunderd_ without perceiving the metrical reason for
it, that _d, t, p, b,_ &c., followed by _l_ or _r_, might be either of
two or of three syllables. In Marlowe we find it both ways in two
consecutive verses:--
"A hundred [hundered] and fifty thousand horse,
Two hundred thousand foot, brave men at arms."[379]
Mr. Masson is especially puzzled by verses ending in one or more
unaccented syllables, and even argues in his Introduction that some of
them might be reckoned Alexandrines. He cites some lines of Spenser as
confirming his theory, forgetting that rhyme wholly changes the
conditions of the case by throwing the accent (appreciably even now, but
more emphatically in Spenser's day) on the last syllable.
"A spirit and judgment equal or superior,"
he calls "a remarkably anomalous line, consisting of twelve or even
thirteen syllables." Surely Milton's ear would never have tolerated a
dissyllabic "spirit" in such a position. The word was then more commonly
of one syllable, though it might be two, and was accordingly spelt
_spreet_ (still surviving in _sprite_), _sprit_, and even _spirt_, as
Milton himself spells it in one of Mr. Masson's facsimiles.[380]
Shakespeare, in the verse
"Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,"
uses the word admirably well in a position where it _cannot_ have a
metrical value of more than one syllable, while it gives a dancing
movement to the verse in keeping with the sense.
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