No, I will not, for it boots thee not. I. 1. 28.
Fire thats closest kept burns most of all. I. 2. 30.
Ist near dinner-time? I would it were. I. 2. 67.
These lines are all corrected by editors; and it is evident that there would be little trouble in altering all such lines wherever they occur: or they may be explained away, as for instance in the second cited, fire doubtless is sometimes pronounced as a dissyllable. Yet to attempt correction or explanation wherever such lines occur would be ill-spent labour. A very impressive line in the Tempest is similarly scanned:
Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since. I. 2. 53.
Where we are rightly told that year may be a dissyllable. Yet that one word should bear two pronunciations in one line is far more improbable than that the unaccented syllable before twelve is purposely omitted by the poet; and few readers will not acknowledge the solemn effect of such a verse. As another example with a contrary effect, of impulsive abruptness, we may take a line in Measure for Measure:
Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo. IV. 3. 88.
This last example is also an instance of another practice, by modern judgement a license, viz. making a line end with two unaccented extrametrical syllables.