Truly the English, before
any other vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts: for, for the
ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbered
with elisions. The Dutch, [Footnote: Sidney probably means what we
should call German.] so of the other side with consonants, that they
cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his
whole language, hath not one word, that hath his accent in the last
syllable saving two, called _Antepenultima_, and little more hath the
Spanish: and therefore, very gracelessly may they use _Dactyls_. The
English is subject to none of these defects.
Now, for the rhyme, though we do not observe quantity, yet we observe
the accent very precisely: which other languages either cannot do, or
will not do so absolutely. That _Caesura_, or breathing place in the
midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have; the French, and
we, never almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself, the
Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the
masculine rhyme, but still in the next to the last, which the French
call the female, or the next before that, which the Italians termed
_Sdrucciola_.
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