PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ENGLISH VERSIFICATION.

WITH A COMPENDIOUS DICTIONARY OF RHYMES
AN EXAMINATION OF CLASSICAL MEASURES AND COMMENTS UPON BURLESQUE AND COMIC VERSE, VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ, AND SONG-WRITING.

BY TOM HOOD.

A New and Enlarged Edition.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, BYSSHE'S "RULES FOR MAKING ENGLISH VERSE," &c.

LONDON:JOHN HOGG, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1877.

My favourite quote:

Although song-writing is one of the most difficult styles of versification, it is now held in but little repute, owing to the unfortunate condition of the musical world in England. "Any rubbish will do for music" is the maxim of the music-shopkeeper, who is practically the arbiter of the art now-a-days, and who has the interests, he is supposed to represent, so little at heart that he would not scruple to publish songs, consisting of "nonsense verses"—as schoolboys call them,—set to music, if he thought that the usual artifice of paying singers a royalty on the sale for singing a song would prevail on the public to buy them.

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