exhibits the greatest possible diversity. Although the iambus1 was regarded by the early critics of verse as the only English foot," and continues to-day overwhelmingly the most usual, other movements are found very early. Thus Puttenham gives a (possibly manufactured) instance of trochaic measure in the verse : Craggy cliffs bring forth the fairest fountain.3 and Wyatt and Surrey exhibit an occasional verse of like effect although no entire poem in that measure. With Greene and Breton trochaics become not uncommon and—especially in the popular heptasyllabic or truncated verse of four are familiar to the versification of Barnfield, Shakespeare, the later song writers, Jonson, Fletcher, Browne, and Wither.* accents It seems reasonable to regard English trochaic measures, not so much as attempts to follow a foreign metrical system, as a continuance of the original freedom of English verse as to the distribution of syllables. Most English trochaics show a tendency to revert back to the more usual iambic system by the addition of an initial unaccented syllable. Thus in Greene's Ode on p. 54, of thirty-six verses, ten are 1 I use these terms (iambus, trochee, etc.) in their usual acceptation as to English verse, for the want of a better popular nomenclature. Few metrists now deny that English metres are founded primarily on accent; although some still continue to question the important function of quantity as a regulator of the time intervals in which the accented and unaccented syllables are arranged. On this subject see Schipper, Englische Metrik, I, 21 f., and Lanier's demonstration "that there can be no rhythm in sounds, except through their relative time or duration, quantity Science of English Verse, p. 65. 2 See Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction, ed. Arber, pp. 33, 34, and King James' Essays of a Prentice, chap. iii. 8 Art of English Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 144. 4 Cf. pp. 36, 47, 54, 88, 120, 128, 133, 162, 168, 174, 178. 2 iambic, the rest trochaic. On the other hand, trochaic license may appear in iambic verse, as in Raleigh's Pilgrimage, p. 130: And when the grand twelve-million jury Of our sins with direful fury, 'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death, and then we live. Here the form is four iambic feet, making eight syllables ; but these lines number respectively nine, eight, seven, and eight, and only the last follows the norm. A later, familiar, example of this freedom is to be found in Milton's L'Allegro. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the prevailing foot will impart its character to the whole poem, despite occasional departure from the type.1 An instance of admirably successful anapæsts will be found in Pilgrim to Pilgrim, p. 3, a poem the metrical parallel of which it would be difficult to find until far later. E.g.: His desire is a dureless content, And a trustless joy; He is won with a world of despair And is lost with a toy. 2 Jonson's anapæsts (see The Triumph of Charis, p. 183) are not very successful, though scarcely deserving of the scathing invective of Mr. Swinburne. Dactyls too are rare, and seem to have been confined chiefly to experiments in the classical hexameter. The dactyl, however, was defended in argument for measures other than the hexameter by critics like Puttenham, and used occasionally, like the anapæst in iambic measures, as a license in poems prevailingly trochaic. The employment of anapæstic and dactylic measures in this age for an entire poem is unusual; 3 1 See Mayor, Chapters on English Metre, p. 91. 2 A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 104, and see note, p. 287, below. but is, for a part of a stanza otherwise constructed, somewhat more frequent, especially in Shakespeare, who often employs a change to a light tripping measure for his refrain, as in the second and third examples which follow: I am slain by a fair cruel maid. Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that swings on the bough.1 The measures of the Elizabethan lyric exhibit great diversity, whether in verses of equal or unequal lengths. The range extends from verses of two stresses: Sing we and chant it While love doth grant it,3 2 to the long iambic fourteener or septenary, which, although usually split into alternate verses of four and three accents by a strong cæsura and so printed, occurs not infrequently undivided. E.g., from Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale: Wert thou the only world's admirèd thou canst love but one, And many have before been loved, thou art not loved alone; 1 or thus in trochaic measure : Thy well ordered locks ere long shall rudely hang neglected And thy lively pleasant cheer read grief on earth dejected.5 4 For an instance of the divided septenary see Southwell's Burning Babe, p. 69, sometimes, as in the first edition, printed undivided. The Alexandrine, another verse of early popularity consisting of six iambic feet, generally occurs, in 2 Cf, M. N. D. iii, 2, 448. 1 Cf. pp. 122, 95, and 154. 8 Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, p. 106. 5 Cf. p. 187. lyrical poetry, divided into two verses of three stresses each. E.g., these lines of Lodge : The gods that saw the good That mortals did approve, With kind and holy mood, Several examples of the undivided Alexandrine are to be found in trochaics as well as iambics, continuous or more frequently united with verses of other lengths: e.g., from the first sonnet of Astrophel and Stella, which is entirely in Alexandrines : Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite; Fool, said my Muse to me, look in thy heart, and write ; or thus in trochaics : When thy story, long time hence, shall be perusèd, 'None ever lived more just, none more abusèd.'1 The final Alexandrine of the Spenserian stanza was not without its effect on lyric measures, and several lyric stanzas display this "sweet lengthening" of the concluding verse. (See Jonson, p. 113; and Jones, p. 121.) The combination of the septenary and the Alexandrine, the well-known poulter's measure, was becoming rare in serious poetry by the beginning of this period; a specimen may be seen, however, in Oxford's poem, Fancy and Desire, p. 8 of this volume. If the sonnet be included in the count with the many other stanzas in which decasyllabic measure occurs alone or in combination with other measures, the iambic verse of five stresses will be found the most common English lyrical measure, as it is the measure most frequently employed in 1 Bullen's Campion, p. 49. the drama and in epic poetry. But, the sonnet apart, verses of four stresses form the favorite lyrical measure of the age, whether in the usual iambic form, e.g. : At last he set her both his eyes, She won, and Cupid blind did rise,1 or in the limpid trochaics (usually truncated and hence consisting of but seven syllables) of Breton, Barnfield, or Shakespeare, e.g.: On a day, alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, The lyrics of Shakespeare, Fletcher and the dramatists in general exhibit a great preponderance of octosyllabics and shorter measures; decasyllables being reserved for their dramatic writings almost altogether. This is scarcely less true of the song-writers, who display the greatest freedom of choice and combination, but prefer the lighter and shorter measures. As already intimated above, variety of feet, except as an occasional license, rarely extends, in any of these measures, beyond the usual iambic and trochaic movement; and the trochee is confined, for the most part, to heptasyllabics. Thus, whether slurred in pronunciation or not, a redundance results from the substitution of three syllables for two in the third foot of this line: Roses their sharp spines being gone ; or take, as an extreme case, the line : Thus faín would I have hád a prétty thing, which is uttered in the same time interval as : O Lady, what a luck is this.3 1 Cf. Lyly's Apelles' Song, p. 19; also Sidney's Wooing Stuff, p. 9. 2 LLL, iv, 3, 101; see also pp. 47, 50, 54, 67, etc. 8 P. 26. |