Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 251 



d) The caesura was uniformly placed after the second stress, ex- 

 ceptionally after the first and third. ^ 



e) Caesuras and verses were masculine. 



f) Alliteration was structural, i. e. confined to three stressed syl- 

 lables in the verse. 



3. This stanza suffered direct change in three ways — 

 a) By continual increase of alliteration. 



h) Through the inordinate multiplication of unstressed syllables, 

 especially in the first half-verses. 



c) Through innovations in the riming of the cauda. 



4. These changes were so pronounced in type and limited in time, 

 that the stanza affords important evidence in dating poems relatively 

 to each other. '^ 



5. A stanza riming ababababcdddc was cultivate(^ in 

 East Ano^lia at a date somewhat later than that of the Northern 

 stanza of pure type. 



6. The Northern stanza, under the influence of the contiguous 

 East Anglian stanza, formed a second distinct type. 



7. This derived stanza developed as follows — 



a) By the loosening of the bonds of stanzaic structure, the pedes 

 were indefinitely extended, and the composition approached the 

 bounds of rhythmical prose ; or, 



h) The voice failed to carry the excessive number of unstressed 

 syllables, surreptitious stresses created a 5 -stress line, or the verse 

 broke into two lines with the development of new stresses. 



8. A stanza aabaabccbccb was formed for rhythmical 

 narrative, and became the vehicle of the metrical romance. 



9. Other stanzas appear as directly dependent upon church sources 

 and French influences. 



10. A stanza ababbcbc closes the mediaeval period. This 

 statement applies more directly to the district immediately north of 

 the Thames. 



The cycles of Mystery plays present certain metrical characteris- 

 tics as individual cycles — 



1. The York cycle, with the exception of a few plays,^ retains one 

 stanzaic structure through a play, or, in some cases, through a scene. 



2. The Woodkirk plays show an attempt to adapt the stanza to the 

 character, or at least to limit the use of a given stanza to one char- 

 acter in a given play. 



1 Cp. Ex. 19. 2Cp. Ex.24. 



3 Cp. York XII, XIII, XVI, XXIX, XXXI, XXXII, XL. 



