OF THE

IVERSITY

F

Nik

PREFACE

THIS little book is designed chiefly for "general readers." To such persons as enjoy poetry, but think they might enjoy it more if they found its metrical structure less bewildering, I think I may safely promise material assistance and satisfaction. English metres are very complicated in detail, but their fundamental principles are simple; and a knowledge of the fundamental principles is sufficient for sympathetic appreciation.

My statement of these principles will also, I trust, be of interest to scholars and professional metrists. They will readily detect my indebtedness to many former students of versification, but they will also find some things that are new both in theory and in method. My obligations are so obvious, and at the same time so general in character, that it is both unnecessary and impracticable to specify them all; but it is proper

154964