Page images
PDF
EPUB

or less generally pronounced it, we may readily understand how soon the rhythm of any poet (Chaucer for example) must have become matter of doubt and speculation; and how easily the most careful versification might be degraded into a loose and slovenly specimen of the tumbling-metre. When once this kind of rhythm was looked upon as sanctioned, its facility would be quite sufficient to account for its popularity.

Lidgate has left us one of the earliest specimens of this metre in the adventures of his "London Lickpenny," * -a gentleman who indulges the hope of extracting law from an unfeed lawyer! After a vain attempt on the King's Bench, he tries the Common Pleas and the Rolls.

Un to the Common Place: I | yode tho,

Where sat one wyth: a syllken hoode,

I did him reverence for | I ought to do so,

:

I told my case there as well as I coudel,

Howe my goodes | were defrauded me: by | falshod;

I gat not a moue: of his mouthe❘ for my medel,

And for lacke | of monly I myght | not spede.

Un to the Rolls: I gat | me from thence
Before the clarkes of the Chancerye,
Where manly I found earning of pense,
But none at all: once regarded me;
I gave them my playnt: uppon | my knee];
They liked it well!: when they had it read,
But lacking of monly I could not spede.

:

Within the Halle ney ther ryche | nor yet pore
Would do for me oughte]: altho | I shoulde die,
Which seling I gat me: onte | of the dore,

Where Flemynge began on me | for to crye,
"Master what will you coplen or by ?

:

"Fine | felt hattes] : or spectacles | to rede],

[ocr errors]

Lay down your sylver and here | you may spede].

* Harl. 367. It is also found in Strutt's Manners and Customs, &c., vol. iii.

Then to West mynster gate]: I presently went,
When the soun] : it was at hygh pryme],
And cokes | to me they tooke | good entent
And proffered me bread]: with ale | and wynne],
Rybbs of befe : both fat | and ful fyne] ;
A fayre cloth they gan | for to sprede,

But wanting monly : I myght | not be spede &c.

This was the favourite metre of the contributors to the Mirrour for Magistrates. Their rhythm, however, varies greatly. In some places it approaches the common, in others the triple measure; and generally inclines to the latter, when the subject (as in the passage just quoted) relates to ordinary life, or admits of familiar application.

There is another kind of tumbling verse, which is founded on the metre of four accents. At what time the tumbling and the regular metres were first distinguished, is by no means easy to say, as the origin of the latter is involved in much obscurity; but, in the fifteenth century, the two were certainly looked upon as distinct and separate metres. The tumbling verses have generally four accents, and a very loose rhythm; but they sometimes take three or five accents, and the rhythm shifts, accordingly, to the triple or to the common measure.

The use which Spenser made of this metre, in some of his Eclogues, seems to me a happy one; and to impart a feeling of country freshness and of yeomanly sincerity, which is singularly pleasing. I would instance the beautiful fable in the February-eclogue.

There grew an aged : Trée | on the gréene],
A goodly Oake sometime | had it béene],
With armes ful strong and lerge|lie displayde],
But of their leaues]: they were dis araide].
The bodie bigge] and might|ilie pight,

:

:

Through lie rooted and ❘ of won|derous hight|;
Whilome had bene]: the king of the field,

And moch el mast] to the husband did yield]

And with his nuts lar ded: manlie swine;
But now the graie | mosse : mar|red his rine],

His bared boughes

His top was bald]:

were beaten with stormes,

and was ted with wormes],

His hon or decailed his braunches sere].

Hard by his side] : grew a bragging brere, &c.

Again, when the "proud weed" had worked upon the passions of his too credulous master, how happily flow the verses, which describe the " waste oak's" overthrow !

The Axles edge did oft | turne againe],
As half unwilling to cut the graine ;
Séemed the sense lesse : yr on did feare,
Or to wrong holly: eld | did forbeare];
For it had bene] : an aun cient trée,
Sacred with manly a misterée],

And often crost]: with the priests crewe,
And of ten hallowed with holly-water dew!

:

But sike | fancies werlen: fool|eriel,

And brough ten this Oake] to this miserie, &c.

The distinction between this metre and that of Christabel is slight indeed. Yet, in his preface, Coleridge will not have his metre to be "properly speaking irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four." No one will suppose that Coleridge claimed any thing but what he believed to be his due. He merely laboured under a delusion, of which all of us must, at some time or other, have been conscious, and mistook the gradual awakenings of memory for the slow and tedious process of invention.

Perhaps the same excuse may be made for Byron. He has somewhere stated, that he wrote the Siege of Corinth before he knew anything of the Christabel. Yet so many are

the analogies between the two poems, so similar are the ends proposed, and the means taken to effect them, so nearly identical are the metres, and even some of the images, that no critic but must feel doubts as to the correctness of this statement. The difficulty, however, may admit of another solution. Byron may have had his genius turned in this particular channel by the perusal of the Christabel; and, afterwards, when his mind had been diverted to other subjects, and his memory distracted by his multifarious and desultory reading, he may have confounded a second perusal with the first. Those who have often had occasion to test the accuracy of memory, will remember cases, in which it has proved equally treach

erous.

The origin of such English metres as belong to the triple measure, is no less a subject of difficulty than of interest. King James,* it appears, considered them as mere varieties of the tumbling verse; and there are early specimens of these tumbling metres, which approach the triple measure so nearly, as to render the transition from the one to the other at least probable. I have seen no English poem written throughout in the triple measure which could date earlier than the fifteenth century. The following song is mentioned by Gawin Douglas, in the year 1512, as then popular among the vulgar. It was probably written in the latter half of the fifteenth century, but has been referred to an earlier period.

1.

Hay! now the day daw is,

The jolie cok crawlis,

Now shroud is the shaulis

Throw nature anone];

* See p. 246.

The thriss el cok cry is

On lovers wha ly is,
Now skail is the sky is,
The night is near gone].

2.

The fields ourflow is '
With gouans that groulis,
Quhair lilies lyk louis
Als rid as the rone

The tur till that treu | is
With nots that reneu❘is

His hair tie perseulis,

The night | is neir gone]. &c. &c.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the triple measure must have been familiar to the ears of the people, or Tusser, who wrote for the yeomanry, would not have selected it, as the chief medium for conveying to them his husbandly lessons. He uses it in various combinations; sometimes in a short stanza, with alternate rhyme,

Ill husbandry brag|geth
To go with the best,
Good husbandry bag geth
Up gold in his chest.

Ill husbandry los eth

For lacke of good fence,

Good husbandry closeth

And gain eth the pence. &c.

sometimes in a longer stanza, each line containing three accents,

What lookest thou herein to have?

Fine verses thy fancy to please?

1 This word was probably pronounced with four syllables owerflow is, though here spelt with three.

« PreviousContinue »