VERSE. Octosyllabic, Free. ORDER OF THE RHYMES. Spenser's February, May, and September. Bevis of Southampton. Sir Lambwell. Eger and Grime. Sir Degree. Earl of Carlisle. Octosyllabic, Free. Stanza of Six, Mixt and Free. Spenser, Proëme of March. Octosyllabic, Blank. Mixt with others of Six and Four Syllables. Spenser's Mourning Muse of Thestylis. Verses of Six Syllables. Several Songs of Sir Tho. Wyatt and Lord Surrey. Others in Stanzas of Eight, on Two Rhymes. The same. On Three Rhymes. Pentasyllabic and Tetrasyllabic. 1 The Life of St. Margaret in very old Saxon (cited hereafter), and written above one hundred and seventy years before Chaucer was born, is in a sort of free Alexandrine measure: as is the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, and Peter Langtoft's Chronicle, translated by Robert Manning of Brunn, both of them older than Chaucer. The Alexandrine verse took its name from a poem written in this measure, called La Vie d'Alexandre by Jean li Nevelois and Pierre de St. Cloit, who lived in the thirteenth century (Pasquier, 1. vii. c. 3). The Roman d'Alexandre was begun by Lambert li Cors and Alexandre de Paris; but some parts of it were executed by the two poets above mentioned. They all four (according to the President Fauchet) wrote between 1150 and 1193, in the reigns of Louis le Jeune and Philippe Auguste, and seem to have been of the Trouveures or Jongleurs, who then were in high esteem: their names appear in the work itself. "La verté de l'histoir, si com li Roy la fit, Un Clers de Chateaudun, Lambert li Cors, l'escrit, See Fauchet, de la Langue et Poesie Françoise, 1. ii. (A.D. 1581). The Latin, whence they translated, was (I imagine) the Alexandréis of Gualterus, (or Gautier de Châtillon, a native of Lisle in Flanders), a poet who lived about the same time, that is, in the middle of the twelfth century. It is observable, that none of these four Jongleurs was a Provençal, nor do they write in that dialect, yet they are contemporary with the most ancient Provençal poets, mentioned by Nôtredame. 1 tira. VERSE. ORDER OF THE RHYMES. Alexandrines, mixed with Verses of Fourteen Syllables,' alternately. Queen Elizabeth's Ditty on the Queen of Scots. Surrey's Description of Love. Complaint of a Lover. Dying Lover. The Warning. The careless Man, &c. 2 Wyatt's Complaint of Absence. Song of Iopas. Gascoyne's Gloze. Free Alexandrines, mixed in like manner. 3 Chaucer's Tale of Beryn and Pro logue. Free Verse, of Fourteen Syllables. Chaucer's Tale of Gamelin. Robin of Portingale; Ballade of Flodden Field; Adam Bell; Robin Hood; Nut-brown Maid; Childe Waters; Durham Field. } Successive. Successive: but with various feet. Successive. (Various.) There is also a verse of Sixteen, as Guy and Phillis, Thomas a Potts. 1 "Some Makers (says Puttenham) write in verses of fourteen syllables, giving the cesure at the first eight, which proportion is tedious, for the length of the verse keepeth the ear too long from its delight, which is, to hear the cadence or tuneable accent in the end of the verse.' 99 2 There is also a mixed stanza of four (as in Baldwin's Complaint of Henry the Sixth, in the Mirrour of Magistrates), three verses of twelve and one of fourteen syllables. Rhymes in Couplets. And thus is written Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, a work of Henry the Third's time, but without any regularity, the Alexandrine sometimes wanting a syllable or two, and the verse of fourteen coming in at random, as the writer thought fit. It is the very same measure with the Semi-Saxon moral poem Of all these measures, which we may reduce to six, viz. the verse of fourteen, the Alexandrine, the decasyllabic, the octosyllabic,' the heptasyllabic, and verse of six; none are now used but the third and fourth; except it be interspersedly to vary our composition, and especially in lyric poetry. Our variety too in the rhyme is much circumscribed, never going further than the use of a triplet, and that rarely. As to any license in the feet, it is only permitted in the beginning of a long verse, where we sometimes use a trochee, and the same foot more freely in shorter measures. The Provençal poets either invented or made use of all these measures, from verses of three syllables to those of eleven and thirteen; but of these last we find no example till about the year 1321, (cited hereafter) written almost two hundred years after Chaucer's time. There was also the regular verse of fourteen used in Queen Elizabeth's time, and in this measure is written Dr. Phaer's Translation of the Æneid; (see Lambarde's Kent and Weever's Funeral Monuments) Arthur Goldynge's Ovid's Metamorphoses, Chevy Chase, Gill Morrice, Glasgerion, Launcelot du Lake, &c. 1 We now use this as well on serious subjects as comic: the latter we call Doggerel, as Hudibras. 2 We now and then in subjects of humour use a free verse of eleven or twelve syllables, which may consist of four Amphibrachees, or four Anapæsts, or the first may be an Iambic, &c.; so Prior: "As Chlōě căme into the room t'other day”— "Tis enough thăt 'tis loaded with baubles ănd seals," &c. |