[TN - note under Trochee]: (The trochee ("running foot") was sometimes also called "choree," χορειος, or χοριος ("dancing foot"), this form appears in "choriambic.")

[TN - note under Cretic]: (The Cretic was also called amphimacer, its arrangement being just the opposite to the amphibrach.)

Fourteener.—A line of seven iambic feet which emerges as almost the first equivalent of the old long A.S. line in English, as early as the Moral Ode, etc. At first it is oftenest a "fifteener," from the presence of the final e; but this drops off. Very largely used by Robert of Gloucester and others in the late thirteenth century; varied in Gamelyn; much mixed up with the doggerel of the fifteenth; frequent in the sixteenth, both alone and as "poulter's" measure; and splendidly used by Chapman in his translation of the Iliad. Sometimes employed to vary heroic couplet by Dryden. A favourite metre ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Splits into "ballad-measure."

Galliambic.—A classical metre of which the most famous, and only substantive, example is the magnificent Atys of Catullus, but which has been imitated in two fine English poems, Tennyson's great Boadicea and Mr. George Meredith's Phaethon. Both of these have given a rather trochaic-dactylic swing to the metre, which is probably unavoidable in English. The late Mr. Grant Allen endeavoured to make out, and attempted in his translation of the Atys, an iambic basis with anapæstic and tribrachic substitution, but unsuccessfully. Ionic a minore (v. inf.) is the ancient suggestion; and, with an accentual liberty not unsuitable to its half-barbaric associations, it fits Catullus pretty well. But Ionics, as has been said, do not suit English (v. inf. p. 285, note).

Gemell or Geminel ("twin").—Terms applied by Drayton to the heroic couplet.

Head-Rhyme.—A name sometimes applied—it may be thought unjustifiably, and beyond all question in a way likely to mislead—to alliteration. See Rhyme.

Hendecasyllable.—An eleven-syllabled line. There is a classical metre specially so called, executed with particular success by Catullus, and imitated by Tennyson in the piece describing it:

But the term is not infrequently used of the staple Italian line, of English heroic or decasyllabic lines with redundance, etc.

Heptameter.—It is rather doubtful whether the word is wanted in English, for if applied to the fourteener it would (see Metre and Dimeter) be a complete misnomer; and not less so, according to correct analogy, if applied to the seven-foot anapæst, where it would properly designate fourteen feet or forty-two possible syllables—a length which not even Mr. Swinburne has attempted. He himself, however, by oversight, used it of this line, which is properly a tetrameter brachycatalectic.

Heroic.—A word applied, with only indirect propriety, to the decasyllabic or five-foot couplet, and with hardly any propriety at all to the single line of the same construction; but occasionally convenient in each case. The origin of the employment is the use of this line and couplet in the "heroic" poem and "heroic" play of the seventeenth century. It has therefore the same sort of justification as "Alexandrine." There was also an earlier habit, as in Dante's De Vulg. Eloq., of calling it (in its Italian or hendecasyllabic form) the "noblest" or most dignified line; and this connects itself with the Greek practice of calling the hexameter—the Epic-verse—"heroic."

Hexameter.—The great staple metre of Greek and Latin epic, in which the line consists of six feet, dactyls or spondees at choice for the first four, but normally always a dactyl in the fifth and always a spondee in the sixth—the latter foot being by special licence sometimes allowed in the fifth also (in which case the line is called spondaic), but never a dactyl in the sixth. To this metre, and to the attempts to imitate it in English, the term should be strictly confined, and never applied to the Alexandrine or iambic trimeter.

Hiatus.—The juxtaposition of vowels either in the same word, or, more especially, at the end of one word and the beginning of the next. At different times, and in different languages, this has been regarded as a beauty and as a defect; but in English it entirely depends upon circumstances whether it is one, or the other, or neither. For a considerable period—roughly from 1650 to 1780, if not 1800—it was supposed—without a shadow of reason—that English poets ought to elide one of such concurrents and indicate it only by apostrophe, so that not merely did "the enormous" become "th' enormous," and "to affect" "t' affect," but "violet" was crushed into "vi'let," and "diamond" into "di'mond." But this has been almost entirely abandoned, though there are still "metrical fictions" on the subject.

Iambic.—A foot of two syllables—short, long ( ̆   ̄ )—the commonest in almost all prosodies,[157] and (though this is sometimes denied) the staple foot of English.

Inverted Stress.—A term used by accentual or stress prosodists to designate the substitution of a trochee for an iamb. Unnecessary, if not erroneous, from the point of view of this book.

Ionic.—A foot of four syllables, consisting of a spondee ( ̄   ̄ ) and a pyrrhic ( ̆   ̆ ). With the spondee first it is called "Ionic a majore"; with the pyrrhic first, a minore. Neither movement is common in English verse, and, if it were, it would hardly require any joint name. But when the music is uppermost, as in "Vilikins and his Dinah," it suggests itself, with the alternative of the third pæon:

Leonine Verse.—A term not strictly applicable to English, but sometimes found in prosody-books. It means the peculiar mediæval Latin hexameter with middle and end rhymed, as in

Browning comes nearest to it in such lines as

Line.—The larger integer of verse, as the foot is the smaller, and the stanza or paragraph the largest. It is usually indicated, in printing or writing, by independent beginning and ending on the page—whence the name,—but this is accidental and arranged for convenience of the eye. As a rule, however, it should not be encroached upon lightly, and, even when enjambment is practised, the individual line should have a thinkable self-sufficiency. Nor should two lines be separated when they clamour for union, as in the case of some modern rhymeless experimenters (Mr. Arnold, Mr. Henley, etc.) and in some of the early Elizabethans (Grimoald, Googe, and others).

Long and Short are words which, until comparatively recently, have been taken as the bases of all prosodic analysis. They represent two values which, though no doubt by no means always identical in themselves, are invariably, unmistakably, and at once, distinguished by the ear; and the combining of which, in ordinary mathematical permutation, constitutes the feet, or lowest integers, of metrical rhythm. This nomenclature—which presents no initial difficulties, is sufficient for all practical purposes, and commends itself at once to any unprejudiced intelligence—seems first to have excited question and suspicion towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is disagreeable to both accentual and syllabic prosodists (see chapters devoted to these), and it appears to disturb some who would not class themselves with either. It is indeed quite possible to work either system with "long" and "short," applied uncontentiously to the natural values of rhythmed speech in English poetry. But a punctilio arises as to the definition of the words. "Does length," some people ask, "really mean 'duration of time' in pronouncing?" This question, and others, seem to the present writer unnecessary. We need not decide what makes the difference between "long" and "short"; it is sufficient that this difference unmistakably exists, and is felt at once. Whether it is due to accent, length of pronunciation, sharpness, loudness, strength, or anything else, is a question in no way directly affecting verse. The important things are, once more, that it exists; that verse cannot exist without it; that it is partly, and in English rather largely, created by the poet, but that this creation is conditioned by certain conventions of the language, of which accent is one, but only one.

Long Measure ("L.M.").—The octosyllabic quatrain, alternately rhymed.

Lydgatian Line.—An arrangement of extraordinary hideousness, which occurs rather frequently in Lydgate; and which has been assigned by the merciful to incompetence or carelessness; by other critics, who defend it, to what must have been deliberate bad taste. It is a line of nine syllables only, the missing one being not, as in the Chaucerian acephala, at the first, but occurring somewhere in the middle, and at the cæsura. An uglier metrical entity probably nowhere exists than such a line as

Masculine Rhyme.—A rhyme where the rhyming syllable is single, and ends in a consonant, without any mute e following. Less correctly, a monosyllabic rhyme.

Metre.—In the wide sense, collections of rhythm which correspond, both within the collection, and, if there be such, with one or more other collections adjoining. In the narrow, collections dominated by a single foot-rhythm, as "iambic metre," "anapæstic metre," etc.

Molossus.—A foot of three long syllables ( ̄   ̄   ̄ ). Practically impossible in English verse, being too bulky for a rhythm-integer with us, but admissible as a musical arrangement.

Monometer.—A line consisting of one foot only, or one pair of feet. See Dimeter.

Monopressure.—A term invented to express a theory that the divisions of metre are associated with, and determined by, some physical throat-conditions. Unnecessary and unworkable.

Octave.—A stanza of eight lines.

Octometer.—A term properly applied to eight-foot dactylic metre, such as Tennyson's Kapiolani; improperly to Mr. Swinburne's eight-foot anapæsts.

Ode.—A name used in English with great laxity, and not perhaps to be tied down too much without loss. The word itself, in Greek, means simply a song. But the choric odes of the Greek dramatists, and the non-dramatic odes of Pindar, being couched in a peculiar form—irregular at first sight, but exactly correspondent when examined,—have created a certain tendency to restrict the term ode, sometimes with the epithet "regular," to things similar in English (see, in list of poets, Cowley, Congreve, Gray). On the other hand, the Latins—especially Horace, whose influence has been even wider—extend the term to pieces in short, obviously regular stanzas identically repeated, and the majority of English odes are of this kind.

Ottava Rima.—A special form of octave derived from the Italians, and composed of eight decasyllabic lines rhymed abababcc. There are other decasyllabic octaves, such as that used by Chaucer in the Monk's Tale, and by Spenser after him, with or without that adoption of the Alexandrine which turns it into the Spenserian.

Pæon.—A foot of four syllables—one long and three short—arranged in varying order. The commonest English foot in rhythmical prose, but unnecessary in English verse.

Pause.—A break in the line as metrically read or heard, which is almost always coincident with the end of a word, and which very frequently, but not always or so often as in the former case, coincides with a stop in punctuation. It is not necessary that every line should have a pause; and the place of the pause, when it exists, is practically ad libitum in most, if not all lines, while there may be more pauses than one. The attempt to curtail liberty in these three respects has been the cause of some of the worst mistakes about English prosody, especially when it takes the form of prescribing that the pause should always be as near the middle as possible. Variety of pause is, in fact, next to variety of feet, the great secret of success in our verse; and it is owing to this that Shakespeare and Milton more especially stand so high. On the other hand, this variety requires the most careful adjustment; and if such adjustment is neglected, the lines will be uglier than continuously middle-paused ones, though not so monotonous.

Pentameter.—See Dimeter. As properly used, a line of five feet—dactyls or spondees—divided into two batches of two and a half each. As improperly used, a five-foot iambic line in English.

Pindaric.—Strictly the regular ode (see Strophe) of Greek poetry; but extended by, and still more in imitation of, Cowley to any lyrical composition in irregularly rhymed stanzas of different line-lengths. According to Dryden, the Alexandrine line, frequent in Cowley's odes, was so-called, "but," he most properly adds, "improperly."

Position.—In the classical prosodies a short or common vowel before two consonants (but not every two) was said to be long "by position"; and efforts have been made to determine English quantity in the same way. No rule of the kind can be laid down; doubled or grouped consonants after a vowel usually shortening the pronunciation, and sometimes lengthening the value.

Poulter's Measure.—A term used by Gascoigne, and said to be derived from the practice of poulter[er]s in giving twelve to the dozen in one case and thirteen or fourteen in another. It is applied to the combination of Alexandrine and fourteener which was such a favourite with the earlier Tudor poets, and which broke up into the "Short Measure" of the hymn-books.

Proceleusmatic.—A double pyrrhic, or foot of four short syllables ( ̆   ̆   ̆   ̆ ). Not needed, if not also impossible, in English.

Pyrrhic.—Foot of two short syllables ( ̆   ̆ ). Very doubtfully found in English; but not impossible.

Quantity.—That which fits a syllable for its place as "long" or "short" in a verse.

Quartet or Quatrain.—A group of four lines usually, indeed with the rarest exceptions, united in themselves, and separated from others, by rhyme.

Quintet.—A similar group of five lines.

Redundance.—An extra syllable at the end of the line, not strictly part of its last foot.

Refrain.—A line recurring identically, or with very slight alteration, at the end of every stanza of a poem. Probably one of the oldest of all poetic features—certainly one of the oldest in English. The same as "burden." Refrains or burdens are not uncommonly meaningless collections of musical-sounding words.

Rhyme.—The arrangement of two word-endings—identical in vowel and following consonant or consonants, but not having the same consonant before the vowel—at the conclusion of two or more lines, or sometimes within the lines themselves.

Rhyme-Royal.—The stanza of seven decasyllabic lines, rhymed ababbcc, which occurs in Chaucer's Troilus, and which traditionally derives its name from its use in The King's Quair, though its extreme popularity for a long period is perhaps the real reason.

Rhythm.—An orderly arrangement, but not necessarily a correspondent succession, of sounds.

Riding Rhyme.—An old name for the decasyllabic couplet, obviously derived from its appearance in Chaucer's Tales of Pilgrims "riding" to Canterbury.

Rime Couée or Tailed Rhyme.—Translations in French and English of the Latin versus caudatus, and not very happy from the English point of view, though justified by origin (see Origin-List). The verse to which they refer is the sixain of two eights, a six, two more eights, and another six. Two tails are not common in English fauna; and one might prefer to call the verse "waisted and tailed." It is, however, in the old Romances (where it is common, and from its commonness in which it is better called the "Romance-six") often found in multiples of three other than six; and it is at the batch of three that the title looks—the couplet of eights constituting the body, and the odd six the tail.

Romance-Six.—See Rime Couée.

Rondeau—Rondel.—French (and English) forms in which lines are repeated at regular intervals. (See pp. 125-6.)

Sapphic.—A classical metre consisting of three longer lines and one shorter (called an Adonic) arranged in the following scheme:—

It has been frequently tried in English, both as burlesque and seriously. For the former use (as in Canning's immortal "Needy Knife-Grinder") it is, like most classical metres, well suited, though the true Greek and even Latin rhythm is generally (v. sup. p. 124) violated. In serious verse Mr. Swinburne has produced exquisite and others (as Watts and Cowper) respectable examples; but even the best is a tour de force only.

Section.—A term not useless in its general sense as denoting verse divisions larger than a foot; but now prejudicially preoccupied by Guest (v. sup. p. 254, note) and others.

Septenar.—A word applied (very undesirably) by most German and a few English writers to the fourteener or seven-foot iambic.

Septet.—A verse or stanza of seven lines.

Sestet, also Sixain.—A verse or stanza of six lines.

Sestine, Sestina.—A very elaborate measure invented by the Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel, imitated by Dante and other Italians, tried inexactly by Spenser, and sometimes recently attempted in English.

Short Measure ("S.M.").—The split-up poulter's measure or quartet of 6, 6, 8, 6.

Single-Moulded.—The term used in this book to describe the early blank-verse line, which appears to be constructed complete in itself, without any expectation of, or preparation for, continuance. See End-stopped.

Skeltonic.—-The peculiar kind of (generally short) line used by Skelton. Its commonest form is an anapæstic monometer (i.e. two feet), often much further cut down by dissyllabic and monosyllabic substitution or by catalexis, but sometimes extended. It is always rhymed; sometimes on the same rhyme for several lines together. Though usually called "doggerel," it does not quite deserve that name as defined above. See also note p. 297.

Slur.—See Elision.

Sonnet.—A word sometimes, in former days, loosely applied to any short poem, especially of an amatory nature; often nowadays almost as improperly limited to a special Italian form of the true sonnet. This latter is a poem of fourteen lines, of the same length generally and (except by exception) decasyllables (originally, of course, hendecasyllables) arranged in varying rhyme-schemes. Its exact origin is unknown; but it is first found in Italian-Sicilian poets of the thirteenth century, and it became enormously popular in Italy very soon. It did not spread northward for a considerable time, the first French sonnets occurring not very early in the sixteenth century; the first English, not till near its middle. A great sonnet outburst took place at the end of that century with us; but the form fell into disuse in the seventeenth, though championed by Milton; and it was not till the extreme end of the eighteenth century that it became, and has since remained, something of a staple. Partly the absence of the Italian plethora of similar endings, and partly something else, made the earliest English practitioners select an arrangement with final rhymed couplet, the twelve remaining lines being usually arranged in rhymed, but not rhyme-linked, quatrains: and this form, immortalised by Shakespeare, is probably the best suited to English. It is, at any rate, absolutely genuine and orthodox there. But Milton, Wordsworth, and especially Dante and Christina Rossetti, have given examples of the sonnets which, divided mostly into octave and sestet, have this latter arranged in intertwisted rhymes. This form is susceptible of great beauty, but has no prerogative, still less any primogeniture, in our poetry.

Spenserian.—See Origin-List.

Spondee.—A foot of two long syllables ( ̄   ̄ ). Its presence in English has been denied, but most strangely; its condition is, in fact, exactly opposite to that of the dactyl. In single and separate words its representatives are chiefly compounds like "moonshine," "humdrum," etc. But, as formed out of different words, it is frequent.

Stanza or Stave.—A collection of lines arranged in an ordered batch and generally on some definite rhyme-scheme. Also designated by one of the loose senses of "verse."

Stress.—Generally, though not universally, used as synonymous with accent, but somewhat differently applied, "accent" being regarded as something more or less permanent in the word, "stress" something added specially in the verse. By extension of this, numerous arbitrary and fanciful systems of prosody have been recently devised.

Stress-Unit.—A recent instance, and one of the worst, of the new terms invented to avoid the use of "foot." For, almost more than any other, it ignores the importance of non-stressed syllables.

Strophe.—The stanza-unit of Greek odic or choric arrangement. The system is triple—strophe, antistrophe, and epode—and will be found fully illustrated and scanned from Gray (v. sup. pp. 89-91).

Substitution.—See Equivalence.

Synalœpha.} Syncope. }—See Elision. Synizesis. }

Syzygy.—A term of classical prosody which has a perfectly strict meaning—the yoking of two feet into a metrical batch (see Dimeter). It has, in some recent cases, been rather unfortunately extended to other forms of combining syllables, sounds, etc. As thus used it is not needed, and is likely to cause confusion.

Tailed Sonnet.—An Italian lengthening of the sonnet to eighteen or twenty lines, sometimes practised in English, the best known example being Milton's; but not very admirable in our language, and not at all necessary. Even in Italian the use is largely burlesque.

Tercet.—A group of three lines like Triplet, but specially limited to that used in Terza Rima.

Terza Rima.—A verse-arrangement by which, in a group of three lines, the first and third rhyme together, while the middle is left to rhyme with the first and third of the next batch. This arrangement, very effective in Italian, and undoubtedly one of the chief elements of the magnificence of Dante's prosody, has never been really successful in English. Some of the best examples are Shelley's; the earliest, after some fragments in Chaucer, are Wyatt's; the largest continuous employment is in Canon Dixon's Mano.

Tetrameter.—A term improperly applied to the octosyllable; properly to divers long lines of eight iambs, anapæsts, or trochees.

Thesis.—See Arsis.

Time.—A "word of fear" in prosody, as it is almost always a "voice prophesying war." Used merely in the sense of "rhythm," it is quite innocuous; and construed generally, as when Southey says that "two short syllables take up only the time of one," there need be no harm in it. But when absolute "duration" is insisted on, and people discuss whether this can be given by that or the other means, great and unnecessary mischief is likely to be done.

Tribrach.—A foot of three short syllables ( ̆   ̆   ̆ ). Very frequent in later English, perhaps less so in earlier.

Triolet.—A short French form of the rondeau, in the most common variety of which the first of eight lines is repeated in the fourth and seventh, the second being also repeated in the eighth, so that there are only five lines of independent sense. (See example, p. 125.)

Triple.—See Duple.

Triplet.—A group of three lines; most commonly used of three which rhyme together. See Tercet.

Trochee.—A foot of two syllables—long, short ( ̄   ̆ ). The complement-contrast of the iamb; an invaluable variant upon it; the best introducer (by admitting it as a substitute) of the dactyl in English; and very effective by itself when properly managed.

Truncation.—The lopping off of a syllable at beginning or end of line. This in the latter case equals what is here called Catalexis (q.v.), and in the former is often better accounted for by a monosyllabic foot. But there are cases, as in Chaucer's "acephalous" lines, where it is not inapplicable.

Tumbling Verse.—A phrase of King James the Sixth (First) in his prosodic treatise, which has caused, or at least been connected with, difficulties (see Cadence). He seems to have meant by it nothing more than the loose half-doggerel anapæsts which were so common in the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century.

Turn of Words.—A phrase specially used in the seventeenth century for the repetition, identically or with little change, of the same words at the end of a line and the beginning of the next.

Verse.—A word used with unfortunate, though perhaps unavoidable, ambiguity. It is employed first (and best) of writing in general as opposed to prose; secondly, of a single line of poetry; thirdly, of a batch of lines; while there is even a fourth use, now obsolete, but common in the Elizabethans, by which it applied to classical unrhymed metres in English. This last, one may hope, will never be revived. Of the others, the first and third are indispensable and can cause no real confusion. But, though a fairly strong case can be made out for "verse" in the sense of "line," the inconvenience and confusion of this use should be held to prohibit it.

Verse Paragraph.—A very important development of blank verse, ensuring to it almost all the advantages of stanza in some ways, and more than all in others. First reached by Shakespeare in drama, and by Milton in non-dramatic verse, it consists in so knitting a batch of blank-verse lines together by variation of pause, alternate use of stop and enjambment, and close connection of sense, that neither eye nor voice is disposed to make serious halt till the close of the paragraph is reached. Thus an effect of concerted music is produced through the whole of it. No one has ever been a great master of blank verse without being a master of this device; but perhaps the most special and elaborate command of it has been Tennyson's.

Vowel-Music.—In a certain sense vowel-music may be said to be, and always to have been, a main, if not the main, source of the pleasure given to the ear by poetry. Nor, it may also be said, can any accomplished poet ever have been indifferent to it. Deliberate attention to it, however, has varied much at different times of English poetry, and was perhaps at its lowest in the eighteenth, at its highest in the nineteenth, century.

Weak Ending.—A technical term used by not a few prosodists, but not adopted in this book, for redundance. As a matter of fact a line is often much stronger for the extra syllable.

Wrenched Accent.—A term applied, by accentual prosodists, sometimes to signify removal of accent on a word from the usual place; sometimes to the presence of an unaccented syllable where they expect an accented, or the reverse. In the first sense it is unobjectionable; in the second, always unnecessary, and often suggestive of misdescription of the results of ordinary substitution.[161]

CHAPTER II
REASONED LIST OF POETS WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO THEIR PROSODIC QUALITY AND INFLUENCE

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888).—Made various attempts (outside of his classical drama Merope) at rhymeless metres in English. Countenanced the English hexameter. Also made, but abandoned, experiments in the enjambed couplet, which anticipated William Morris.

Barham, Richard H. ("Thomas Ingoldsby") (1788-1845).—Showed the greatest proficiency in light, loose metres of the anapæstic division, and exercised much influence by them, owing to the wide and long-sustained popularity of the Ingoldsby Legends (1840, but earlier in magazines).

Beaumont, Sir John (1583-1623).—One of the earliest (before 1625) practitioners, and perhaps the very earliest champion in verse itself, of the stopped couplet exactly arranged.

Blake, William (1757-1827).—Although Blake's immediate and direct influence must have been small, there is hardly any poet who exhibits the tendency of his time in metre more variously and vehemently. In his unhesitating and brilliantly successful use of substitution in octosyllabic couplet, ballad measure, and lyrical adjustments of various kinds, as well as in media varying from actual verse to the rhythmed prose of his "Prophetic" books, Blake struck definitely away from the monotonous and select metres of the eighteenth century, and anticipated the liberty, multiplicity, and variety of the nineteenth. And he differed, almost equally, from all but one or two of his older contemporaries, and from most of his younger for many years, in the colour and "fingering" of his verse.

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850).—A generally mediocre poet, who, however, deserves a place of honour here for the sonnets which he published in 1789, and which had an immense influence on Coleridge, Southey, and others of his juniors, not merely in restoring that great form to popularity, but by inculcating description and study of nature in connection with the thoughts and passions of men.

Browne, William (1591-1643).—A Jacobean poet of the loosely named Spenserian school—effective in various metres, but a special and early exponent of the enjambed couplet.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861).—Remarkable here for her adoption of the nineteenth-century principle of the widest possible metrical experiment and variety. In actual metre effective, though sometimes a little slipshod. In rhyme a portent and a warning. Perhaps the worst rhymester in the English language—perpetrating, and attempting to defend on a mistaken view of assonance, cacophonies so hideous that they need not sully this page.

Browning, Robert (1812-1889).—Often described as a loose and rugged metrist, and a licentious, if not criminal, rhymester. Nothing of the sort. Extraordinarily bold in both capacities, and sometimes, perhaps, as usually happens in these cases, a little too bold; but in metre practically never, in rhyme very seldom (and then only for purposes of designed contrast, like the farce in tragedy), overstepping actual bounds. A great master of broken metres, internal rhyme, heavily equivalenced lines, and all the tours de force of English prosody.

Burns, Robert (1759-1796).—Of the very greatest importance in historical prosody, because of the shock which his fresh dialect administered to the conventional poetic diction of the eighteenth century, and his unusual and broken measures (especially the famous Burns-metre) to its notions of metric. An admirable performer on the strings that he tried; a master of musical "fingering" of verse; and to some extent a pioneer of the revival of substitution.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824).—Usually much undervalued as a prosodist, even by those who admire him as a poet. Really of great importance in this respect, owing to the variety, and in some cases the novelty, of his accomplishment, and to its immense popularity. His Spenserians in Childe Harold not of the highest class, but the light octaves of Beppo and Don Juan the very best examples of the metre in English. Some fine but rhetorical blank verse, and a great deal of fluent octosyllabic couplet imitated from Scott. But his lyrics of most importance, combining popular appeal with great variety, and sometimes positive novelty, of adjustment and cadence. Diction is his weakest point.

Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844).—Not prosodically remarkable in his longer poems, but very much so in some of his shorter, especially "The Battle of the Baltic," where the bold shortening of the last line, effective in itself, has proved suggestive to others of even better things, such as the half-humorous, half-plaintive measure of Holmes's "The Last Leaf" and Locker's "Grandmamma."

Campion, Thomas (?-1619).—Equally remarkable for the sweetness and variety of his rhymed lyrics in various ordinary measures, and as the advocate and practitioner of a system of rhymeless verse, different from the usual hexametrical attempts of his contemporaries, but still adjusted to classical patterns.

Canning, George (1770-1827).—Influential, in the general breaking-up of the conventional metres and diction of the eighteenth century, by his parodies of Darwin and his light lyrical pieces in the Anti-Jacobin.

Chamberlayne, William (1619-1689).—Remarkable as, in Pharonnida, one of the chief exponents of the beauties, but still more of the dangers, of the enjambed heroic couplet; in his England's Jubile as a rather early, and by no means unaccomplished, practitioner of the rival form. To be carefully distinguished from his contemporary, Robert Chamberlain (fl. c. 1640), a very poor poetaster who wrote a few English hexameters.

Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770).—Of some interest here because his manufactured diction was a protest against the conventional language of eighteenth-century poetry. Of more, because he ventured upon equivalence in octosyllabic couplet, and wrote ballad and other lyrical stanzas, entirely different in form and cadence from those of most of his contemporaries, and less artificial even than those of Collins and Gray.

Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400).—The reducer of the first stage of English prosody to complete form and order; the greatest master of prosodic harmony in our language before the later sixteenth century, and one of the greatest (with value for capacity in language) of all time; the introducer of the decasyllabic couplet—if not absolutely, yet systematically and on a large scale—and of the seven-lined "rhyme-royal" stanza; and, finally, a poet whose command of the utmost prosodic possibilities of English, at the time of his writing, almost necessitated a temporary prosodic disorder, when those who followed attempted to imitate him with a changed pronunciation, orthography, and word-store.

Cleveland, John (1613-1658).—Of no great importance as a poet, but holding a certain position as a comparatively early experimenter with apparently anapæstic measures in his "Mark Antony" and other pieces.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834).—In the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, the great instaurator of equivalence and substitution; a master of many other kinds of metre; and an experimenter in classical versing.

Collins, William (1721-1759)—Famous in prosody for his attempt at odes less definitely "regular" than Gray's, but a vast improvement on the loose Pindaric which had preceded; and for a remarkable attempt at rhymeless verse in that "To Evening." In diction retained a good deal of artificiality.

Congreve, William (1670-1729).—Regularised Cowley's loose Pindaric.

Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667).—The most popular poet of the mid-seventeenth century; important to prosody for a wide, various, and easy, though never quite consummate command of lyric, as well as for a vigorous and effective couplet (with occasional Alexandrines) of a kind midway between that of the early seventeenth century and Dryden's; but chiefly for his introduction of the so-called Pindaric.

Cowper, William (1731-1800).—One of the first to protest, definitely and by name, against the "mechanic art" of Pope's couplet. He himself returned to Dryden for that metre; but practised very largely in blank verse, and wrote lyrics with great sweetness, a fairly varied command of metre, and, in "Boadicea," "The Castaway," and some of his hymns, no small intensity of tone and cry. His chief shortcoming, a preference of elision to substitution.

Donne, John (1573-1631).—Famous for the beauty of his lyrical poetry, the "metaphysical" strangeness of his sentiment and diction throughout, and the roughness of his couplets. This last made Jonson, who thought him "the first poet in the world for some things," declare that he nevertheless "deserved hanging for not keeping accent," and has induced others to suppose a (probably imaginary) revolt against Spenserian smoothness, and an attempt at a new prosody.

Drayton, Michael (1563-1631).—A very important poet prosodically, representing the later Elizabethan school as it passes into the Jacobean, and even the Caroline. Expresses and exemplifies the demand for the couplet (which he calls "gemell" or "geminel"), but is an adept in stanzas. In the Polyolbion produced the only long English poem in continuous Alexandrines before Browning's Fifine at the Fair (which is very much shorter). A very considerable sonneteer, and the deviser of varied and beautiful lyrical stanzas in short rhythms, the most famous being the "Ballad of Agincourt."

Dryden, John (1630-1700).—The establisher and master of the stopped heroic couplet with variations of triplets and Alexandrines; the last great writer of dramatic blank verse, after he had given up the couplet for that use; master also of any other metre—the stopped heroic quatrain, lyrics of various form, etc.—that he chose to try. A deliberate student of prosody, on which he had intended to leave a treatise, but did not.

Dixon, Richard Watson (1833-1900).—The only English poet who has attempted, and (as far perhaps as the thing is possible) successfully carried out, a long poem (Mano) in terza rima. Possessed also of great lyrical gift in various metres, especially in irregular or Pindaric arrangements.

Dunbar, William (1450?-1513? or -1530?).—The most accomplished and various master of metre in Middle Scots, including both alliterative and strictly metrical forms. If he wrote "The Friars of Berwick," the chief master of decasyllabic couplet between Chaucer and Spenser.

Dyer, John (1700?-1758?).—Derives his prosodic importance from Grongar Hill, a poem in octosyllabic couplet, studied, with independence, from Milton, and helping to keep alive in that couplet the variety of iambic and trochaic cadence derived from catalexis, or alternation of eight- and seven-syllabled lines.

Fairfax, Edward (d. 1635).—Very influential in the formation of the stopped antithetic couplet by his use of it at the close of the octaves of his translation of Tasso.

Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883).—Like Fairfax, famous for the prosodic feature of his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. This is written in decasyllabic quatrains, the first, second, and fourth lines rhymed together, the third left blank.

Fletcher, Giles (1588-1623), and Phineas (1582-1650).—Both attempted alterations of the Spenserian by leaving out first one and then two lines. Phineas also a great experimenter in other directions.

Fletcher, John (1579-1625).—The dramatist. Prosodically noticeable for his extreme leaning to redundance in dramatic blank verse. A master of lyric also.

Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846).—Reintroduced the octave for comic purposes in the Monks and the Giants (1817), and taught it to Byron. Showed himself a master of varied metre in his translations of Aristophanes. Also dabbled in English hexameters, holding that extra-metrical syllables were permissible there.

Gascoigne, George (1525?-1577).—Not unremarkable as a prosodist, from having tried various lyrical measures with distinct success, and as having given the first considerable piece of non-dramatic blank verse ("The Steel Glass") after Surrey. But chiefly to be mentioned for his remarkable Notes of Instruction on English verse, the first treatise on English prosody and a very shrewd one, despite some slips due to the time.

Glover, Richard (1712-1785).—A very dull poet, but noteworthy for two points connected with prosody—his exaggeration of the Thomsonian heavy stop in the middle of blank-verse lines, and the unrhymed choruses of his Medea.

Godric, Saint (?-1170).—The first named and known author of definitely English (that is Middle English) lyric, if not of definitely English (that is Middle English) verse altogether.

Gower, John (1325?-1408).—The most productive, and perhaps the best, older master of the fluent octosyllable, rarely though sometimes varied in syllabic length, and approximating most directly to the French model.

Hampole, Richard Rolle of, most commonly called by the place-name (1290?-1347).—Noteworthy for the occasional occurrence of complete decasyllabic couplets in the octosyllables of the Prick of Conscience. Possibly the author of poems in varied lyrical measures, some of great accomplishment.

Hawes, Stephen (d. 1523?).—Notable for the contrast between the occasional poetry of his Pastime of Pleasure and its sometimes extraordinarily bad rhyme-royal—which latter is shown without any relief in his other long poem, the Example of Virtue. The chief late example of fifteenth-century degradation in this respect.

Herrick, Robert (1591-1674).—The best known (though not in his own or immediately succeeding times) of the "Caroline" poets. A great master of variegated metre, and a still greater one of sweet and various grace in diction.

Hunt, J. H. Leigh (1784-1859).—Chiefly remarkable prosodically for his revival of the enjambed decasyllabic couplet; but a wide student, and a catholic appreciator and practitioner, of English metre generally. Probably influenced Keats much at first.

Jonson, Benjamin, always called Ben (1573?-1637).—A great practical prosodist, and apparently (like his successor, and in some respects analogue, Dryden) only by accident not a teacher of the study. Has left a few remarks, as it is, eulogising, but in rather equivocal terms, the decasyllabic couplet, objecting to Donne's "not keeping of accent," to Spenser's metre for what exact reason we know not, and to the English hexameter apparently. His practice much plainer sailing. A fine though rather hard master of blank verse; excellent at the couplet itself; but in lyric, as far as form goes, near perfection in the simpler and more classical adjustments, as well as in pure ballad measure.

Keats, John (1795-1821).—One of the chief examples, among the greater English poets, of sedulous and successful study of prosody; in this contrasting remarkably with his contemporary, and in some sort analogue, Shelley. Began by much reading of Spenser and of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century poets, in following whose enjambed couplet he was also, to some extent, a disciple of Leigh Hunt. Exemplified the dangers as well as the beauties of this in Endymion, and corrected it by stanza-practice in Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and his great Odes, as well as by a study of Dryden which produced the stricter but more splendid couplet of Lamia. Strongly Miltonic, but with much originality also, in the blank verse of Hyperion; and a great master of the freer sonnet, which he had studied in the Elizabethans. Modified the ballad measure in La Belle Dame sans Merci with astonishing effect, and in the Eve of St. Mark recovered (perhaps from Gower) a handling of the octosyllable which remained undeveloped till Mr. William Morris took it up.

Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875).—A poet very notable, in proportion to the quantity of his work, for variety and freshness of metrical command in lyric. But chiefly so for the verse of Andromeda, which, aiming at accentual dactylic hexameter, converts itself into a five-foot anapæstic line with anacrusis and hypercatalexis, and in so doing entirely shakes off the ungainly and slovenly shamble of the Evangeline type.

Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864).—A great master of form in all metres, but, in his longer poems and more regular measures, a little formal in the less favourable sense. In his smaller lyrics (epigrammatic in the Greek rather than the modern use) hardly second to Ben Jonson, whom he resembles not a little. His phrase of singular majesty and grace.

Langland, William (fourteenth century).—The probable name of the pretty certainly single author of the remarkable alliterative poem called The Vision of Piers Plowman. Develops the alliterative metre itself in a masterly fashion through the successive versions of his poem, but also exhibits most notably the tendency of the line to fall into definitely metrical shapes—decasyllabic, Alexandrine, and fourteener,—with not infrequent anapæstic correspondences.

Layamon (late twelfth and early thirteenth century).—Exhibits in the Brut, after a fashion hardly to be paralleled elsewhere, the passing of one metrical system into another. May have intended to write unrhymed alliteratives, but constantly passes into complete rhymed octosyllabic couplet, and generally provides something between the two. A later version, made most probably, if not certainly, after his death, accentuates the transfer.

Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818).—A very minor poet, and hardly a major man of letters in any other way than that of prosody. Here, however, in consequence partly of an early visit to Germany, he acquired love for, and command of, the anapæstic measures, which he taught to greater poets than himself from Scott downwards, and which had not a little to do with the progress of the Romantic Revival.

Locker (latterly Locker-Lampson) Frederick (1821-1895).—An author of "verse of society" who brought out the serio-comic power of much variegated and indented metre with remarkable skill.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882).—An extremely competent American practitioner of almost every metre that he tried, except perhaps the unrhymed terza rima, which is difficult and may be impossible in English. Established the popularity of the loose accentual hexameter in Evangeline, and did surprisingly well with unvaried trochaic dimeter in Hiawatha. His lyrical metres not of the first distinction, but always musical and craftsmanlike.

Lydgate, John (1370-1450?).—The most industrious and productive of the followers of Chaucer, writing indifferently rhyme-royal, "riding rhyme," and octosyllabic couplet, but especially the first and last, as well as ballades and probably other lyrical work. Lydgate seems to have made an effort to accommodate the breaking-down pronunciation of the time—especially as regarded final e's—to these measures; but as a rule he had very little success. One of his varieties of decasyllabic is elsewhere stigmatised. He is least abroad in the octosyllable, but not very effective even there.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-1859).—Best known prosodically by his spirited and well beaten-out ballad measure in the Lays of Ancient Rome. Sometimes, as in "The Last Buccaneer," tried less commonplace movements with strange success.

Maginn, William (1793-1842).—Deserves to be mentioned with Barham as a chief initiator of the earlier middle nineteenth century in the ringing and swinging comic measures which have done so much to supple English verse, and to accustom the general ear to its possibilities.

Marlowe, Christopher (1664-1693).—The greatest master, among præ-Shakespearian writers, of the blank-verse line for splendour and might, as Peele was for sweetness and brilliant colour. Seldom, though sometimes, got beyond the "single-moulded" form; but availed himself to the very utmost of the majesty to which that form rather specially lends itself. Very great also in couplet (which he freely "enjambed") and in miscellaneous measure when he tried it.

Milton, John (1608-1674).—The last of the four chief masters of English prosody. Began by various experiments in metre, both in and out of lyric stanza—reaching, in the "Nativity" hymn, almost the maximum of majesty in concerted measures. In L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and the Arcades passed to a variety of the octosyllabic couplet, which had been much practised by Shakespeare and others, but developed its variety and grace yet further, though he did not attempt the full Spenserian or Christabel variation. In Comus continued this, partly, with lyrical extensions, but wrote the major part in blank verse—not irreminiscent of the single-moulded form, but largely studied off Shakespeare and Fletcher, and with his own peculiar turns already given to it. In Lycidas employed irregularly rhymed paragraphs of mostly decasyllabic lines. Wrote some score of fine sonnets, adjusted more closely to the usual Italian models than those of most of his predecessors. After an interval, produced, in Paradise Lost, the first long poem in blank verse, and the greatest non-dramatic example of the measure ever seen—admitting the fullest variation and substitution of foot and syllable, and constructing verse-paragraphs of almost stanzaic effect by varied pause and contrasted stoppage and overrunning. Repeated this, with perhaps some slight modifications, in Paradise Regained. Finally, in Samson Agonistes, employed blank-verse dialogue with choric interludes rhymed elaborately—though in an afterthought note to Paradise Lost he had denounced rhyme—and arranged on metrical schemes sometimes unexampled in English.

Moore, Thomas (1779-1852).—A very voluminous poet in the most various metres, and a competent master of all. But especially noticeable as a trained and practising musician, who wrote a very large proportion of his lyrics directly to music, and composed or adapted settings for many of them. The double process has resulted in great variety and sweetness, but occasionally also in laxity which, from the prosodic point of view, is somewhat excessive.

Morris, William (1834-1896).—One of the best and most variously gifted of recent prosodists. In his early work, The Defence of Guenevere, achieved a great number of metres, on the most varied schemes, with surprising effect; in his longer productions, Jason and The Earthly Paradise, handled enjambed couplets, octosyllabic and decasyllabic, with an extraordinary compound of freedom and precision. In Love is Enough tried alliterative and irregular rhythm with unequal but sometimes beautiful results; and in Sigurd the Volsung fingered the old fourteener into a sweeping narrative verse of splendid quality and no small range.

Orm.—A monk of the twelfth to the thirteenth century, who composed a long versification of the Calendar Gospels in unrhymed, strictly syllabic, fifteen-syllabled verse, lending itself to regular division in eights and sevens. A very important evidence as to the experimenting tendency of the time and to the strivings for a new English prosody.

O'Shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. (1844-1881).—A lyrist of great originality, and with a fingering peculiar to himself, though most nearly resembling that of Edgar Poe.

Peele, George (1558?-1597?).—Remarkable for softening the early "decasyllabon" as Marlowe sublimed it.

Percy, Thomas (1729-1811).—As an original verse-maker, of very small value, and as a meddler with older verse to patch and piece it, somewhat mischievous; but as the editor of the Reliques, to be hallowed and canonised for that his deed, in every history of English prosody and poetry.