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heroic verse of twelve syllables is the same genuine offspring of the old alliterative metre of the ancient Gothic and Francic poets, stript like our Anapestic of its alliteration, and ornamented with rhyme; but with this difference, that whereas this kind of verse hath been applied by us only to light and trivial subjects, to which, by its quick and lively measure, it seemed best adapted, our poets have let it remain in a more lax unconfined state.' as a greater degree of severity and strictness would have been inconsistent with the light and airy subjects to which they have applied it. On the other hand, the French having retained this verse as the vehicle of their epic and tragic flights, in order to give it a stateliness and dignity, were obliged to confine it to more exact laws of scansion; they have therefore limited it to the number of twelve syllables, and by making the cæsura or pause as full and distinct as possible, and by other severe restrictions, have given it all the solemnity of which it was capable. The harmony of both, however, depends so much on the same flow of cadence and disposal of the pause, that they appear plainly to be of the same original; and every French heroic verse evidently consists of the ancient distich of their Francic ancestors: which, by the way, will account to us why this verse of the French so naturally resolves itself into two complete hemistichs. And, indeed, by making the casura or pause always to rest on the last syllable of a word, and by making a kind of pause in the sense, the French poets do in effect reduce their hemistichs to two distinct and independent verses; and some of their old poets have gone so far as to make the two hemistichs rhyme to each other.2

Or of thirteen syllables, in what they call a feminine verse. It is remarkable that the French alone have retained this old Gothic metre for their serious poems; while the English, Spaniards, &c., have adopted the Italic verse of ten syllables, although the Spaniards, as well as we, anciently used a short-lined metre. I believe the success with which Petrarch, and perhaps one or two others, first used the heroic verse of ten syllables in Italian poesy, recommended it to the Spanish writers; as it also did to our Chaucer, who first attempted it in English; and to his successors Lord Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, &c.; who afterwards improved it and brought it to perfection. To Lord Surrey we also owe the first introduction of blank verse in his versions of the second and fourth books of the Eneid, 1557, 4to.

1 Thus our poets use this verse indifferently with twelve, eleven, and even ten syllables. For though regularly it consists of four anapests (~~) or twelve syllables, yet they frequently retrench a syllable from the first or third anapest, and sometimes from both; as in these instances from Prior, and from the following song of Conscience;

"Who has eĕr been ǎt Pāris, must needs know thě Grēve,

Thě fătăl retreat of th' ŭnförtŭnăte bråve.

Hě stěpt to him straight, and did him require."

2 See instances in L'Hist. de la Poesie Franç ise, par Massieu, &c. la the same book are also specimens of alliterative French verses.

After all, the old alliterative and anapestic metre of the English poets, being chiefly used in a barbarous age and in a rude unpolished language, abounds with verses defective in length, proportion, and harmony, and therefre cannot enter into a comparison with the correct versification of the best modern French writers; but making allow. ances for these defects, that sort of metre runs with a cadence so exactly resembling the French heroic Alexandrine, that I believe no peculiarities of their versification can be produced which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative metre. I shall give, by way of example, a few lines from the modern French poets, accommodated with parallels from the ancient poem of Life and Death; in these I shall denote the cæsura or pause by a perpendicular line, and the cadence by the marks of the Latin quantity.

Le succes fut toujours
All shall drye with the dints
L'homme prūděnt võit trōp
Yonder damsel is death

un enfânt de l'ăudāce ;

| that I deal with mỹ hånds.
l'illusion le suit,

that dressĕth her to smite.
et le fantōme fuit,

L'intrépide võit mieux
When shě dolefully saw | how she dang downe hir fōlke.
Même aux yeux dě l'ĭnjūste | un înjūste ěst horriblě.“
Then she cast up a crỹe | to the high king of hẽavěn.

Du měnsōngě toŭjoūrs | lě vrāi děmēurē māitrē,

Thou shalt bittĕrlye bye | or else thě bōokě făilĕth.

Pour părōitre hōnněte hōmme | ẽn ăn mõt, îl făut l'être.3
Thus I fared throughe & frythe

where the flowers were

månye.

To conclude: the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions has no kind of affinity with what is commonly called blank verse; yet has it a sort of harmony of its own, proceeding not so much from its alliteration, as from the artful disposal of its cadence and the contrivance of its pause; so that when the ear is a little accustomed to it it is by ro means unpleasing, but claims all the merit of the French heroic numbers, only far less polished; being sweetened, instead of their final rhymes, with the internal recurrence of similar sounds.

This Essay will receive illustration from another specimen in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 309, being the fragment of a MS. poem on the subject of Alexander the Great, in the Bodleian Library which he supposes to be the same with number 44, in the Ashmol, MS., containing 27 passus, and beginning thus:

"When er folk fastid [feasted, qu.] and fed,

fayne wolde thei her [i. e. hear]

Some Firand thing," &c.

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It is well observed by Mr. Tyrwhitt, on Chaucer's sneer at this old alliterative metre (vol. iii. p. 305), viz.

66

I am a Sotherne [i. e. Southern] man,

I cannot geste, rom, am, raf, by my letter,"

that the fondness for this species of versification, &c., was retained longest in the Northern provinces; and that the author of Pierce Plowman's Visions is, in the best MSS., called William, without any surname. -See vol. iv. p. 74.

ADDITIONS TO THE ESSAY ON THE ALLITERATIVE METRE.

Since the foregoing Essay was first printed the Editor hath met with some additional examples of the old alliterative metre. The first is in MS.," which begins thus:

"Crist Crowned Kyng, that on Cros didest,"

And art Comfort of all Care, thow kind go out of Cours,
With thi Halwes in Heven Heried mote thu be,
And thy Worshipful Werkes Worshiped evre,

That suche Sondry Signes Shewest unto man,

In Dremyng, in Drecchyng, and in Derke swevenes."

The author, from this proemium, takes occasion to give an account of a dream that happened to himself; which he introduces with the following circumstances:

"Ones y me Ordayned, as y have Ofte doon,

With Frendes, and Felawes, Frendemen, and other;
And Caught me in a Company on Corpus Christi even,
Six, other Seven myle, oute of Southampton,
To take Melodye, and Mirthes, among my Makes;
With Redyng of ROMA UNCES, and Revelyng among,
The Dym of the Derknesse Drewe me into the west;
And be Gon for to spryng in the Grey day.

Than Lift y up my Lyddes, and Loked in the sky,
And Knewe by the Kende Cours, hit clered in the est:
Blyve y Busked me down, and to Bed went,
For to Comforte my Kynde, and Cacche a slepe."

He then describes his dream:

"Methought that y Hoved on High on an Hill,
And loked Doun on a Dale Depest of othre;
Ther y Sawe in my Sighte a Selcouthe peple;

• In a small 4to MS. conta ning 38 leaves, in private hands.

• Didst dye.

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• Though. 1i. e. either, or.

The Multitude was so Moche, it Mighte not be nombred.
Methoughte y herd a Crowned Kyng, of his Comunes axe
A Soleyne Subsidie, to Susteyne his werres.

2

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With that a Clerk Kneled adowne and Carped these wordes,
Liege Lord, yif it you Like to Listen a while,
Som Sawes of Salomon y shall you Shewe Sone."

The writer then gives a solemn lecture to kings on the art of governing. From the demand of subsidies "to susteyne his werres," I am inclined to believe this poem was composed in the reign of King Henry V., as the MS. appears from a subsequent entry to have been written before the 9th of Henry VI. The whole poem contains but 146 lines.

The Alliterative Metre was no less popular among the old Scottish poets, than with their brethren on this side the Tweed. In Maitland's Collection of ancient Scottish Poems, MS. in the Pepysian Library, is a very long poem in this species of versification, thus inscribed:

"HEIR begins the Tretis of the Twa Marriit Wemen and the Wedo, compylit be Maister William Dunbar.3

"Upon the Midsummer evven Mirriest of nichtis
I Muvit furth alane quhen as Midnight was past
Besyd ane Gudlie Grene Garth, full of Gay flouris
Hegeit of ane Huge Hicht with Hawthorne treeis

Quairon ane Bird on ane Bransche so Birst out hir notis

6

That nevir ane Blythfuller Bird was on the Beuche hard," &c.

The author pretends to overhear threo gossips sitting in an arbour and revealing all their secret methods of alluring and governing the other sex: it is a severe and humorous satire on bad women, and nothing inferior to Chaucer's Prologue to his Wife of Bath's Tale. As Dunbar lived till about the middle of the sixteenth century, this poem was probably composed after Scottish Field (described above in p. 6), which is the latest specimen I have met with written in England. This poem contains about 500 lines.

But the current use of the Alliterative Metre in Scotland appears more particularly from those popular vulgar prophecies which are still printed for the use of the lower people in Scotland, under the uames of Thomas the Rymer, Marvellous Merling, &c. This collection

2 Solemn.

Since the above was written, this poem hath been printed in "Ancient Scottish Poems, &c., from the MS. Collection of Sir R. Maitland, of Lethington, knight, of London, 1786," 2 vols. 12mo. The two first lines are here corrected by that edition. • Bough.

• Garden.

5 Hedged.

seems to have been put together after the accession of James I. to the crown of England, and most of the pieces in it are in the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions. The first of them begins thus:

"Merling sayes in his book, who will Read Right,

Although his Sayings be uncouth, they Shall be true found.
In the seventh chapter, read Whoso Will,

One thousand and more after Christ's birth," &c.

And the Prophesie of Beid:

"Betwixt the chief of Summer and the Sad winter;
Before the Heat of summer Happen shall a war
That Europ's lands Earnestly shall be wrought
And Earnest Envy shall last but a while," &c.

So again the Prophesie of Berlington:

"When the Ruby is Raised, Rest is there none,
But much Rancour shall Rise in River and plain,
Much Sorrow is Seen through a Suth-hound
That beares Hornes in his Head like a wyld Hart," &c.

In like metre is the Prophesie of Waldhave:

"Upon Lowdon Law alone as I Lay,

Looking to the Lennox, as ine Lief thought,
The first Morning of May, Medicine to seek

For Malice and Melody that Moved me sore," &c.

And lastly, that entitled the Prophesie of Gildas:

"When holy kirk is Wracked, and Will has no Wit,
And Pastors are Pluckt, and Pil'd without Pity,
When Idolatry Is In ENS and RE,

And spiritual pastours are vexed away," &c.

It will be observed in the foregoing specimens that the alliteration is extremely neglected, except in the third and fourth instances, although all the rest are written in imitation of the cadence used in this kind of metre. It may perhaps appear from an attentive perusal, that the poems ascribed to Berlington and Waldhave are more ancient than the others: indeed, the first and fifth appear evidently to have been new modelled, if not entirely composed, about the beginning of the last century, and are probably the latest attempts ever made in this species of verse.

In this and the foregoing Essay are mentioned all the specimens I have met with of the Alliterative Metre without rhyme; but instances occur sometimes in old manuscripts of poems written both with final rhymes and the internal cadence and alliterations of the metre of Pierce Plowman.

END OF THE ESSAY.

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