412 Transactions. 



will contain those eccentricities, once popular, where poems are \vritten 

 in the shape of diamonds, crosses, pyramids, and so on. A subclass will 

 contain Exotics, such^ as the Rondeau, Rondel, Ballade, Villanelle, &c. 



The following table shows the classification in a concise manner, the name 

 of a specimen poem being quoted with each by way of illustration : — 



Class I. — Ballad. 



A. Native. 



1. Eight-stressed lines (16-syllabled) = Romance Metre (Parent Ballad) — 



(a.) Continuous. (Gower's " Confessio Amantis.") 

 (6.) Stanzaic. (Burns's " Ye Banks and Braes.") 



2. Seven-stressed lines (14-sylIabled) = Popular English Ballad — 



(a.) Continuous. (All old ballads before printing.) 

 {h.) Stanzaic. (Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner.") 



3. Seven-stressed lines ( 1'3-syllabled) = German Ballad : Nibelungen — 



{a.) Continuous, (ffihlenschk'ger's " Hrolf Krake.") 

 (&.) Stanzaic. (Macaulay's " Horatius.") 



4. Six-stressed lines (12-syllabled) = French Ballad : Alexandrine — 



{a.) Continuous. (Drayton's " Polyolbion.") 

 [h.) Stanzaic. (Shelley's " Indian Serenade.") 



B. Exotic. 



1. Six-stressed lines (syllables indefinite) = Greek Ballad : Imitation of 

 Hexameter. (Longfellow's " Evangeline.") 



Class II. — Heroic. (All fines of five stresses.) 



1. Heroic Couplet — 



{a.) Continuous. (Pope's " Essay on Man.") 



(6.) Stanzaic. (Rime Royal, Spenserian Stanza, Sonnet, Ottava 

 Rima, &c.) 



2. Blank Verse— 



(«.) Epic, Narrative, Didactic, Descriptive. (Milton's " Paradise 

 Lost," Browning's " The Ring and the Book," Young's " Night 

 Thoughts," Thomson's " Seasons.") 



(&.) Drama. (Shakespeare, Marlowe, &c.) 



Class III. — Irregular. 



A. Native. 



1. The Ode— 



(a.) Ode, Song, Metrical Tale. (Dryden's " Alexander's Feast," 



C. Rossetti's " Echo," Southey's " Curse of Kehama.") 

 (&.) Prose Lyrics. (Whitman's " President Lincohi's Burial Hymn.") 



2. Artificials — 



Poems in shape of diamonds, crosses, &c. (Herrick's " Cross," 

 Withers's " Diamonds.") 



B. Exotic. 



Rondeau, Rondel, Triolet, Ballade, Villanelle, Virelai, Pantoum, &c. 



