7. Heroic Triplets.-Five measures, x a.

Three rhymes in succession. Arranged in stanzas. This metre is sometimes interposed among heroic couplets.

8. Elegiacs.-Five measures, x a, with regularly-alternate rhymes, and arranged in stanzas.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.-GRAY.

9. Rhymes Royal.-Seven lines of heroics, with the last two rhymes in succession, and the first five recurring at intervals.

This Troilus, in gift of curtesie,

With hauk on hond, and with a huge rout
Of knightes, rode, and did her company,
Passing all through the valley far about;
And further would have ridden out of doubt.
Full faine and woe was him to gone so sone;

But turn he must, and it was eke to doen.-CHAUCER.

This metre was common with the writers of the earlier part of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It admits of varieties according to the distribution of the first five rhymes.

10. Ottava Rima.-A metre with an Italian name, and borrowed from Italy, where it is used generally for narrative poetry. The "Morgante Maggiore" of Pulci, the "Orlando Innamorato" of Bojardo, the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto, the "Gierusalemme Liberata" of Tasso, are all written in this metre. Besides this, the two chief epics of Spain and Portugal respectively (the "Araucana" and the "Os Lusiados") are thus composed. Hence it is a form of poetry which is Continental rather than English, and naturalized rather than indigenous. The stanza consists of eight lines of heroics, the six first rhyming alternately, the last two in succession.

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears,
Which suddenly along the forest spread;
Whereat from out his quiver he prepares
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head;

And, lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears,
And onward rushes with tempestuous tread,
And to the fountain's brink precisely pours,

So that the giant 's join'd by all the boars.

Morgante Maggiore (LORD BYRON's Translation).

11. Terza Rima.-Like the last, borrowed both in name and nature from the Italian, and scarcely yet naturalized in England.

The Spirit of the fervent days of old,

When words were things that came to pass, and Thought
Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold

Their children's children's doom already brought

Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,
The Chaos of events where lie half-wrought
Shapes that must undergo mortality:

What the great seers of Israel wore within,
That Spirit was on them and is on me;
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din

Of conflicts, none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.

12. Alexandrines.-Six measures, a a, generally (perhaps always) with rhyme. The name is said to be taken from the fact that early romances upon the deeds of Alexander of Macedon, of great popularity, were written in this metre. One of the longest poems in the English language is in Alexandrines, viz. Drayton's "Poly-olbion."

13. Spenserian Stanza.-A stanza consisting of nine lines, the eight first heroics, the last an Alexandrine.

It hath been through all ages ever seen,
That with the prize of arms and chivalrie
The prize of beauty still hath joined been,
And that for reason's special privitie;
For either doth on other much rely.
For he meseems most fit the fair to serve
That can her best defend from villanie ;
And she most fit his service doth deserve,

That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve.

SPENSER.

"Childe Harold" and other important poems are composed in the Spenserian stanza.

14. Service Metre.-Couplets of seven measures, x a. This is the common metre of the Psalm versions. It is also called Common Measure, or Long Measure.

15. Ballad Stanza.-Service metre broken up in the way suggested in p. 452. Goldsmith's "Edwin and Angelina," &c.

16. Poulterer's Measure.-Alexandrines and service metre alternately. Found in the poetry of Henry the Eighth's time.

No other amongst the numerous English metres have hitherto received names.

CHAPTER VII.

SYMMETRICAL, UNSYMMETRICAL, AND CONVERTIBLE METRES.

-RHYTHM.

§ 578. Latitude in respect to the periodicity of the recurrence of similarly-accented syllables in English.-Metre is the recurrence, within certain intervals, of syllables similarly affected.

The particular way in which syllables are affected in English metres is that of accent.

The more regular the period at which similar accents recur the more typical the metre.

Nevertheless absolute regularity is not requisite.

This leads to the difference between symmetrical and unsymmetrical metres.

Symmetric Metres.-Allowing for indifference of the number of syllables in the last measure, it is evident that in all lines where the measures are dissyllabic the syllables will be a multiple of the accents, i. e. they will be twice as numerous. Hence, with three accents there are six syllables; with four accents, eight syllables, &c.

Similarly, in all lines where the measures are trisyllabic the syllable will also be multiples of the accents, i. e. they will be thrice as numerous. Hence, with three accents there will be nine syllables, with four accents, twelve syllables, and with seven accents, twenty-one syllables.

Lines of this sort may be called symmetrical.

Unsymmetric Metres.-Lines, where the syllables are not a multiple of the accents, may be called unsymmetric. Occasional specimens of such lines occur interspersed amongst others of symmetrical character. Where this occurs the

general character of the versification may be considered as symmetrical also.

The case, however, is different where the whole character of the versification is unsymmetrical, as it is in the greater part of Coleridge's "Christabel," and Byron's "Siege of Corinth."

In the year since Jésus diéd for mén,
Eighteen hundred years and tén,
We were a gallant company',

Ríding o'er land and sailing o'er séa.
O'h! but wé went mérrily'!

We fórded the river, and clómb the high hill,

Néver our steeds for a dáy stood still.
Whether we lay in the cáve or the shéd,
Our sleep fell sóft on the hardest béd;
Whether we cóuch'd on our rough capóte,
Or the rougher plánk of our glíding boat;
Or stretch'd on the beach or our saddles spread
As a pillow beneath the résting héad,
Frésh we woke upon the morrow.
A'll our thoughts and wórds had scópe,
Wé had health and we had hope,
Tôil and trável, bút no sorrow.