NOTE 2. Most English metrists discuss tone-colour; cp. e.g. Parsons, Engl. Versification pp. 61-67; Lewis, Principles of English Verse, pp. 130-139; Alden, English Verse, pp. 135-147, especially p. 136 note, where further works are quoted. But the views on this subject are not clear enough to make it worth while to discuss the subject in detail.

§ 211. The Septenary.

The septenary rimed couplet was still used in the sixteenth century, both in original poems, e.g., in Warner's Albion's England (1586) and in some dramas, and in translations of Latin and Greek hexameters, with which the septenary, or long alexandrine as it was also called, closely agrees in the number of syllables (14). In this metre are Golding's translation of Ovid and Chapman's translation of the Iliad. The latter begins:

Achilles' baneful wrath resound,
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks

o Goddess that impos'd and many brave souls

los'd

From breasts heroic; sent them far to that invisible cave That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave:

To all which Jove's will gave effect; from which first strife begun Betwix Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike sun. Chap. XIV of Albion's England begins:

Now, of the conquerour, this isle had Brutaine vnto

name,

And with his Troians Brute began manurage of the same.

For rased Troy to reare a Troy fit place hee searched

then,

And viewes the mounting northerne partes: "These fit” (quoth he) "for men

That trust asmuch to flight as fight; our bulwarks are our brests,

The next arriuals heere, perchaunce, will gladlier build their nests:

A Troian's courage is to him a fortres of defence."
And leauing so wheare Scottes be now he south-ward

maketh thence;

Whereas the earth more plentie gaue,

And nothing wanted that by wealth

and ayre more temprature,

or pleasure might allure;

And more, the lady flood of floods, the ryuer Thamis, it Did seem to brute against the foe, and with himselfe

to fit.

Vpon whose fruitful bancks therefore, whose bounds are chiefly said,

The want-les counties Essex, Kent, Surrie, and wealthie

glayde

Of Hartfordshire, for cities store participating ayde,
Did Brute build vp his Troy-nouant,

inclosing it with wall;

Which Lud did after beautifie, and Luds-towne it did

call

That now is London: euermore to rightfull princes trewe, Yea prince and people still to it as to their storehouse drewe,

For plentie and for populous the like we no wheare

vewe.

The unaccented initial syllable may no longer be omitted, the verse-ending is generally masculine; thus there are generally 14 syllables, and the

rhythm is iambic. In spite of occasional enjambement the structure is monotonous. Sometimes

triplets are used.

After 1600 the septenary rimed couplet is rare (it is used by Macaulay), but the resolution of it, common metre (§ 229), is often found in ballads and hymns. Coleridge used it for his Ancient Mariner (1798).

On the combination of the alexandrine and the septenary, poulter's measure, see § 228.

§ 212. The Alexandrine.

In the NE. alexandrine the initial unstressed syllable may not be omitted and the verse ending is generally masculine; thus the verse nearly always has twelve syllables, and is divided into two exactly similar parts by a fixed caesura after the sixth syllable. In each half-line the second, fourth, and sixth syllables are regularly stressed, the first, third, and fifth syllables unstressed, whilst in the French alexandrine only the sixth and twelfth syllables are stressed, and the verse ending is (i.e. the rimes are) alternately masculine and feminine. Thus the English alexandrine is very monotonous, and inverted accent and hovering accent do little to relieve the monotony, since the half-verses are so short. Only two longer NE. poems are written in continous rimed alexandrines, Drayton's Polyolbion (1613, c. 15000 verses) and Browning's

Fifine at the Fair (1872). Drayton's verse is ex-
ceedingly monotonous, cp. the beginning of Canto 13:
Upon the midlands now th'industrious Muse doth fall;
That shire which we the heart of England well may call,
As she herself extends (the midst which is decreed)
Betwixt Saint Michael's mount, and Barwick-bord'ring
Tweed,

Brave Warwick; that abroad so long advanc'd her bear,
By her illustrious earls renowned every where;
Above her neighbouring shires which always bore her head.
My native country then, which so brave spirits hast bred.
If there be virtue yet remaining in thy earth,
Or any good of thine
Accept it as thine own,

thou bred'st into my birth, whilst now I sing of thee; Of all thy later brood th'unworthiest though I bee.

Browning uses the caesura more freely than Drayton, but he has had little success in his attempt to make the verse less monotonous; cp. extract quoted by Alden, Engl. Verse, p. 257.

The alexandrine is more tolerable when used in combination with a septenary, poulter's measure (§ 228), and as the last verse of the Spenserian stanza (§ 239). Dryden and some other poets occasionally used alexandrines in the heroic couplet to enliven the rhythm (§ 213).

Surrey used unrimed alexandrines in a translation of the psalms; cp. Alden, p. 225.

§ 213. Heroic Verse.

The iambic verse of five feet, which Chaucer introduced into English poetry, has remained the

most frequently used verse in NE. poetry, either in the form of the heroic couplet or of blank verse (§ 216 ff.). In the epic and lyric verse of the sixteenth century the heroic verse is mostly used in stanzas (seven-line Chaucerian stanza § 237, six-line Venus and Adonis stanza § 236, Spenserian stanza § 239, ottava rima, terza rima, sonnet § 246 ff.); but we also find the heroic couplet in short poems and for some time in drama, where it is used together with quatrains (a b a b) and other stanzas. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, especially after Marlowe's Tamburlaine (1587), the heroic couplet was gradually banished from the drama, and was used only at the end of scenes or acts. In the Restoration period Dryden and others used the heroic couplet in drama; but Dryden himself in All for Love (1678) returned again to blank verse.

In the narrative, didactic, and descriptive verse of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the heroic couplet is the most usual metre, whilst stanzas almost disappear. The sonnet, too, is little used. In the seventeenth century new forms arise, the elegiac stanza (§ 230) and the so-called Pindaric Ode (§ 242). The Spenserian stanza is again occasionally used in the eighteenth century.

In the nineteenth century the heroic couplet, the Spenserian stanza and the ottava rima are much used in narrative verse, and in lyrics various stanzas, especially the sonnet. William Morris has used the seven-line Chaucerian stanza.