484 Transactions. 



(3) (a) In all feet :— 



(1.) A ryght | good a | rowe he | shall have | 

 (2.) He and | his men j have 6ft | assailed. I 



(b) In last foot : — ■ 



The head | and the fedjers of r.voh ' rede guide. | 



(4) Good morjrowe, good feljlowe, sayd Rob yn so fayre. | 



In the fourth license, it seems the accent must fall on the third 

 syllable ; if it appear to fall on the second, it will be found that 

 the phrase contains its basic iamb followed by an anapestic 

 foot ; if on the first, the first syllable of the iamb has been 

 dropped and again an anapestic foot follows. It will be seen 

 that these licenses are the variations upon which all the varieties 

 of metre have been built. 



It may, then, be ruled that the natural metre of English 

 verse is iambic, with its trisyllabic equivalent, anapestic ; and 

 that the length of lines may vary from five to eight feet, depend- 

 ing upon the nature of the subject — those of five, blank verse, 

 admitting of very frequent overflow, and those of eight, includ- 

 ing generally the silent foot for breath, admitting of no overflow. 

 It will be seen that this includes all the metres in which the 

 world's best poetry has been written ; and a question here 

 suggests itself : did not the hexameter arise in a similar manner 

 to the ballad-metre ? for in English the ballad is its equivalent. 

 I cannot speak with authority on classical metres, which are 

 modelled on length of syllables rather than on stressed syllables 

 — on quantity rather than accent ; biit it would appear from 

 analogy that both have sprung from and both were regulated 

 by a common source and principle, the breath ; and whilst 

 quantity may therefore have ruled the classic metres, their 

 effect on the ear need not necessarily differ materially from 

 our accented verse. Our own verse is sometimes quantitative, 

 but rhythmical accent is always superior to the accent of in- 

 dividual words, and I believe the same to be true of classical 

 metres. 



To conclude, it is suggested that the norma] measure, the 

 iambic, has sprung from the heart-beat, as being the rhythmic 

 source nearest to man, and most constant in its actions upon 

 him. (It has been shown how the iambic measure varies in time 

 in proportion as the heart-beat varies, influenced by changing 

 motions.) The suggestion may at first seem fantastic; but I 

 am convinced that, whilst proof may be difficult, proof will 

 come. Next — and this is more than a suggestion — the length 

 of line that the two primary metres, ballad and blank verse, 

 'nave adopted has been fixed by the breath. (Here, again, it 

 has been shown how the ballad, a bare recital of an event, is 



