right of true numbers, as also the consent of many nations, against all which it may seem a thing almost impossible and vain to contend. All this and more cannot yet deter me from a lawful defence of perfection, or make me any whit the sooner adhere to that which is lame and unbeseeming. For custom I allege that ill uses are to be abolished, and that things naturally imperfect cannot be perfected by use. Old customs, if they be better, why should they not be recalled, as the yet flourishing custom of numerous poesy used among the Romans and Grecians ? But the unaptness of our tongues and the difficulty of imitation disheartens us again, the facility and popularity of Rhyme creates as many poets as a hot summer flies.

But let me now examine the nature of that which we call Rhyme. By Rhyme is understood that which ends in the like sound, so that verses in such manner composed yield but a continual repetition of that rhetorical figure which we term similiter desinentia, and that, being but figura verbi, ought (as Tully and all other rhetoricians have judicially observed) sparingly to be used, lest it should offend the ear with tedious, affectation. Such was that absurd following of the letter amongst our English so much of late affected, but now hissed out of Paul's Churchyard : which foolish figurative repetition crept also into the Latin tongue, as it is manifest in the book of P's called praelia porcorum, and another pamphlet all of F's which I have seen imprinted. But I will leave these follies to their own ruin, and return to the matter intended. The ear is a rational sense and a chief judge of proportion; but in our kind

of rhyming what proportion is there kept where there remains such a confused inequality of syllables? Iambic and trochaic feet, which are opposed by nature, are by all rhymers confounded; nay, oftentimes they place instead of an iambic the foot Pyrrhichius, consisting of two short syllables, curtailing their verse, which they supply in reading with a ridiculous and unapt drawing of their speech. As for example:

L

Was it my destiny, or dismal chance ?

In this verse the two last syllables of the word 'destiny', being both short, and standing for a whole foot in the verse, cause the line to fall out shorter than it ought by nature. The like impure errors

have in time of rudeness been used in the Latin tongue, as the Carmina proverbialia can witness, and many other such reverend baubles. But the noble Grecians and Romans, whose skilful monuments outlive barbarism, tied themselves to the strict observation of poetical numbers, so abandoning the childish titillation of rhyming that it was imputed a great error to Ovid for setting forth this one rhyming verse,

Quot caelum stellas tot habet tua Roma puellas.

For the establishing of this argument, what better confirmation can be had than that of Sir Thomas More in his book of Epigrams, where he makes two sundry epitaphs upon the death of a singing man at Westminster, the one in learned numbers and disliked, the other in rude rhyme and highly extolled so that he concludes, tales lactucas talia labra petunt, like lips like lettuce.

But there is yet another fault in Rhyme altogether intolerable, which is, that it enforceth a man often

times to abjure his matter and extend a short conceit beyond all bounds of art; for in quatorzains, methinks, the poet handles his subject as tyrannically as Procrustes the thief his prisoners, whom, when he had taken, he used to cast upon a bed which if they were too short to fill, he would stretch them longer, if too long, he would cut them shorter. Bring before me now any the most selfloved rhymer, and let me see if without blushing he be able to read his lame halting rhymes. Is there not a curse of nature laid upon such rude Poesy, when the writer is himself ashamed of it, and the hearers in contempt call it rhyming and ballading? What divine in his sermon, or grave counsellor in his oration, will allege the testimony of a rhyme? But the divinity of the Romans and Grecians was all written in verse; and Aristotle, Galen, and the books of all the excellent philosophers are full of the testimonies of the old poets. By them was laid the foundation of all human wisdom, and from them the knowledge of all antiquity is derived. I will propound but one question, and so conclude this point. If the Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards, that with commendation have written in rhyme, were demanded whether they had rather the books they have published (if their tongue would bear it) should remain as they are in rhyme or be translated into the ancient numbers of the Greeks and Romans, would they not answer, Into numbers? What

honour were it then for our English language to be the first that after so many years of barbarism could second the perfection of the industrious Greeks and Romans? Which how it may be effected I will now proceed to demonstrate.

THE THIRD CHAPTER OF OUR ENGLISH NUMBERS

IN GENERAL

There are but three feet which generally distinguish the Greek and Latin verses, the Dactyl, consisting of one long syllable and two short, as vīvěrě; the Trochee, of one long and one short, as vītă; and the Iambic, of one short and one long, as amor. The Spondee of two long, the Tribrach of three short, the Anapaestic of two short and a long, are but as servants to the first. Divers other feet I know are by the Grammarians cited, but to little purpose. The Heroical Verse that is distinguished by the dactyl hath been oftentimes attempted in our English tongue, but with passing pitiful success; and no wonder, seeing it is an attempt altogether against the nature of our language. For both the concourse of our monosyllables make our verses unapt to slide, and also, if we examine our polysyllables, we shall find few of them, by reason of their heaviness, willing to serve in place of a dactyl. Thence it is that the writers of English heroics do so often repeat Amyntas, Olympus, Avernus, Erinnis, and suchlike borrowed words, to supply the defect of our hardly entreated dactyl. I could in this place set down many ridiculous kinds of dactyls which they use, but that it is not my purpose here to incite men to laughter. If we therefore reject the dactyl as unfit for our use (which of necessity we are enforced to do), there remain only the iambic foot, of which the iambic verse is framed, and the trochee, from which the trochaic numbers have their original. Let us now then examine the property of these two feet, and try if they consent

with the nature of our English syllables. And first for the iambics, they fall out so naturally in our tongue, that, if we examine our own writers, we shall find they unawares hit oftentimes upon the true iambic numbers, but always aim at them as far as their ear without the guidance of art can attain unto, as it shall hereafter more evidently appear. The trochaic foot, which is but an iambic turned over and over, must of force in like manner accord in proportion with our British syllables, and so produce an English trochaical verse. Then having these two principal kinds of verses, we may easily out of them derive other forms, as the Latins and Greeks before us have done.