(3) "Cómrades, leave me hére a líttle, while as yét 'tis early morn : Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the búgle hórn." [Octom. Catal.] (Tennyson.)

(2) "I am mónarch of áll I survéy,

[Trim.]

(Cowper.)

My ríght there is nóne to dispute;
From the céntre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fówl and the brute."
(3) "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fóld,
And his cohorts were gleaming in púrple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stárs on the séa
When the blue wave rolls níghtly on deep Galilée."

[Tetram.]

(Byron.)

§ 344. DACTYLIC METRES.-These occur only in lyric poetry, where their occasional introduction-especially as a variation on the Trochaic rhythm-has an enlivening effect.

"Where the bée sucks, there suck I',

I'n a cówslip's béll I líe:

There I couch when ówls do crý.

Trochaic

Tetram.

O'n the bát's back I' do flý
A'fter summer mérrilý.

Catalectic

Merrily, merrily, shall I live nów,

the bough."}

Dactylic

Tetram. Catal. (Shaks. Tempest.)

Sir W. Scott's spirited lyric, Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, is written throughout in Dactylic metre:

"Píbroch of Dónuil Dhu, [Dim. Dactyl]

§ 345. Sometimes Dactyls are introduced with good effect at the beginning of Trochaic lines :

:

“Mérrily, mérrily, bounds the bárk,
Before the gále she boúnds."

[Troch. Tetram. Catal.] [lamb. Trim.] (Scott, Lord of the Isles.)

Obr. The so-called English Hezameter, formed in imitation of that of Homer and Virgil, is not discussed here, as not being naturalised.

SPECIAL METRES.

$346. Heroic Couplet.-This consists of Iambic Pentameter lines rhymed in couplets:

"Heaven from all créatures hídes the book of fate,

All but the page prescribed their présent státe.” (Pope.) Occasionally a Triplet (three lines rhyming) is introduced into this kind of verse:-

"Now night's dim shades agáin involve the ský,

Agáin the wanderers wánt a pláce to lie,

Agáin they search and find a lodging nigh." (Parnell's Hermit.) In this metre are written Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (greater part), the Absalom and Achitophel of Dryden, Pope's Homer, &c.

§ 347. Blank Verse.--The same [Heroic] measure unrhymed is called Blank Verse.

EXAMPLES.-Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained; Cowper's Task; Wordsworth's Excursion; Tennyson's Idylls, &c.

Blank Verse is best adapted to grand subjects. It requires elevation of thought and a sustained flow of sonorous and impressive language.

§ 348. Ballad Metre.--This consists of rhyming couplets of Iambic Heptameter. Each line divides naturally after the fourth foot; and the couplet is now commonly written as a stanza of four lines:

"God prósper lóng our noble kíng, our lives and safeties áll,

A wóful húnting once there did in Chevy Chase befál." (Ballad.) Macaulay's Armada and Battle of Ivry are in this metre:— "Now líst ye áll who love to hear our nóble E'ngland's praise,

I tell of the thrice fámous déeds she wrought in ancient days."

§ 349. Elegiac Stanza.-Consists of four lines of Iambic Pentameter, rhyming alternately.

EXAMPLES.Gray's Elegy; Sir John Davies's Nosce Teipsum [published 1599].

§ 350. Alexandrine Verse.-This is Iambic Hexameter. It is used in the final line of the Spenserian Stanza [§ 351]; and occasionally as the wind-up to a passage in Heroic verse. The last line of Pope's Messiah is an Alexandrine :

"The séas shall wáste, the skies in smoke decáy, Rocks fall to dúst, and mountains melt away; But fíxed His word, His sáving power remains, Thy réalm for ever lásts, thy ówn Messíah reigns." Drayton's Polyolbion, a poem in thirty books descriptive of England, is in this metre. [Mich. Drayton, ob. 1631.] “My nátive country then which só brave spírits* hast bréd, If there be vírtues yét remaining in thy earth, Or any good of míne thou bréd'st into my bírth, Accépt it as thine own, while nów I síng of thée, Of all thy láter broód unworthiest tho' I bé!”

§ 351. Spenserian Stanza (nine lines). This consists of eight Heroics, followed by one Alexandrine, rhymed. There are only three different rhymes in a single stanza, arranged in the following manner :—

§ 352. Ottava Rima (eight-line stanza).-Consists of six Heroics, rhyming three and three alternately, followed by

an Heroic Couplet.

* Formerly pronounced sprights: compare adj. sprightly.

Brien's Beppo and Don Jun are in this stanza; which, as the name implies, is borrowed from the Italian.

$353. Sonnet furteen lines.-The Sonnet also is of Italian origin. In its perfect im its myresystem is very elaborate. Only two different rhymes are allowed in the first eight lines which are arranged in two quartets ; and two, or sometimes three, in the remaining six lines:—

- When I consider how my light is

Ere half my days, in this dark world and And that one talent which is death to Lodg'd with me iseless, though my súal more

To serve therewith my Miker. and pre

My trúe accúnt, lest he returning
Doth. Gód exact day lábour, light de-

I fondly ask: but Patience, to pre

spent

wide,

huie,

bent

sent

chide,

nied?

rent

Milton followed his Italian models with great fidelity ; and he has in every case maintained the exact correspondence between the rhymes of the first and second quartet. In the arrangement of the rhymes of the concluding six lines, greater variety is allowed, but they must not run in couplets.

The most successful writers of the pure Sonnet in English Literature are Milton, Wordsworth, and E. B. Browning.

§ 354. Shakspearian Sonnet.-In its less proper form the Sonnet is simply a poem of fourteen Heroic lines, rhymed alternately and ending with a Couplet.

The Sonnets of Shakspeare belong to this class.

$355. Combinations of Verse.-Lyric poetry admits of the most varied combinations of verse, the transitions being adapted to the turns of thought and emotion. the L'Allegro of Milton presents the following ties:

אוי

4.

do. Pentam.

5. do.

"In Stygian cáve forlórn."

"Hence loathed Melancholy."

"But cóme, thou goddess fáir and frée,
In heaven yclépt Euphrósyné."

"Of Cerberus and blackest mídnight bórn, Where brooding darkness spreads his ráven wings."

do. Hyperm. "Midst hórrid shapes and shrieks, and sights unhóly."

6. Troch. Tetram.

7. do. do.

Anacrusis

"There to come in spíte of sorrow,

with And át my window bíd good mórrow.”

8. do. do. Catal.

"Cóme and tríp it as you gó

O'n the light fantástic toe."

For additional examples of such combinations, see Collins, Ode on the Passions; Gray's Progress of Poetry; Dryden's Alexander's Feast, &c.

§ 356. ALLITERATION.—This consists in the recurrence of words or syllables beginning with the same letter: as— "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free." (Coleridge, Anc. Mar.)

§ 357. Alliteration is now used only occasionally. It was once an important principle of English versification. Anglo-Saxon poetry, like Icelandic, is entirely alliterative; and it is not till about the beginning of the thirteenth century that alliteration begins to give place to rhyme.

§ 358. The often quoted lines—

"Merie [sweetly] sungen the muneches binnen Elý,
Tha Cnut ching rew there by :

Roweth, cnihtes, noer the lant,

And here we these muneches sæng

(Craik, i. p. 195.)

are proof that rhyme was not unknown previous to the Norman Conquest; and in the Brut [Brutus] of Layamon [1200 A.D.] rhyming couplets are of frequent occurrence. But it is not till about the year 1300 that our literature can boast of any extensive poetical work written throughout in rhyme. The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester is in fourteen-syllable rhyming verse.

§ 359. The change from alliteration to rhyme was no doubt due in great measure to the influence of French versification, which has always been based on rhyme. The