610 Transactions. 



independently of the dance. In rhythmic poetry the sentences were of 

 varying lengths ; in metrical verse they tended to assume a uniform length 

 —an average of the length of rhythmic or emotional sentences : in other 

 words, the average length of a breath. 



8. This average had been established when the metre of the " Metrical 

 Romances " was introduced into England ; but that the evolution of the 

 verse-form was still in progress is evident from the fact that the eight- 

 stressed verse showed a tendency, already referred to, in the direction of 

 discarding a unit at the end of the verse. Can any reason be seen for this 

 tendency ? During the early days of the metre in England the Church 

 wrote " Lives of the Saints " in the same popular measure as the " Metrical 

 Romances." This measure still pervades Church hymns, and these hymns 

 have in a most important particular faithfully preserved the old metie. 

 On examining the Church hymns, ancient and modern, it will be noted 

 that they are distinguished chiefly as being in three " measures " or metres 

 — L.M., long measure ; CM., common measure ; and S.M., short measure 

 — these measures being respectively eight-, seven-, and six-stressed verses, 

 or verses of sixteen, fourteen, and twelve syllables. If the music of the 

 hymns be examined it will be found that almost every verse of two lines, 

 whether L.M., CM., or S.M. — more, that verse of even five stresses — is 

 sung to sixteen crotchets or sixteen syllables^ — the Romance verse : the 

 Church has, in its music, preserved the old form. Is not this a most signi- 

 ficant fact ; and is it not a revelation of the extraordinary power of the 

 unobstrusive law, in obedience to which poets have moulded their ever- 

 varying, yet ever typically constant. Lyric measures ? Now, I can vouch 

 for it that at least one not too highly trained Church choir was taught to 

 sing the sixteen crotchets, usually written as eight minims, in one breath ; 

 a hurried breath or gasp was taken, and the next sixteen crotchets were 

 sung, and so on. We have here a perpetuation of the old methods of modi- 

 fication^ — a remnant of the processes of evolution — the only vital modern 

 addition being the harmony of the music — the elaboration of melody. The 

 gasp would be more noticeable in the voice of the poet, unaccompanied by 

 musical instrument as often as not ; and the dropping of the final unit in 

 the eight-stressed verse was prompted by the necessity for drawing a more 

 leisured breath after the delivery of each metrical sentence. The breath 

 was taken easily and silently, so that whilst the eighth unit had no articu- 

 late existence, it was still present temporally — ^that is, so far as its time was 

 concerned, the verse was unaltered, the resulting seven-stressed verse being 

 temporally equal to the eight-stressed. This equality is quite apparent 

 when the two verses occur together, as in the old ballad of " King Cophetua 

 and the Beggar-maid " : — • 



(13.) The blinded boy, that shootes so trim, 



From heaven downs did hie ; 

 He drew a dart and shot at him, 



In place where he did lye : 

 Which soone did pierse him to the quicke, 

 And when he felt the arrow pricke, 

 Which in his tender heart did sticke, 



He looked as he would dye. 

 " What sudden chance is this," quoth he, 

 " That 1 to love nuist subject be, 

 Which never thereto would agree. 



But still did it defie ? " 



(Stanza 2.) 



