28 chapter 1
rulers, its folk communities, and vernacular poetic forms. But the trend to ver-
sify England’s history appealed to authors who were cannily aware of the way
that the idea of “meter” would speak differently to differently educated readers
and relied, therefore, on a common “history” to unify them. The popularity of
the “Chapter of Kings” inspired Thomas Dibdin to “attempt versifying . . . the
leading points of our history” in 1813.^23 Though Dibdin wanted his verses to
be entertaining, he also wanted them to be historically and poetically accurate.
That is, rather than provide a history connected by the sameness of meter, he
varies the form of the verse, or “the style of the narrative” as he calls it, “as the
colour of circumstances to be depicted in each Reign might seem to require”
(vi). He tries to make his account more historically accurate—and more enter-
taining—by matching different poetic genres such as “a Comic Song, a Tragic
Tale, or an irregular Poem” to different eras of English history. The very variety
of poetic genres within the already versified narrative might provide “relief ”
from the imagined rigor of so much history but, more importantly, might “im-
press on some juvenile memories a species of Index to the voluminous labours
of genuine Historians” (vi–vii). In Dibdin’s index, then, the shifting style of
meter signals a historical shift—the changing meters providing yet another
level of organization.^24 In Dibdin’s index, among other instances, a “history of
meter” and a “metrical history” are one and the same.
Dibdin sought to appeal to two audiences with his versified histories: first,
the readers trained at “Cam and Isis” (Cambridge and Oxford) who might
still find his “insignificant” poem entertaining, and second, the younger gen-
eration of scholars who needed to get their history right. Dibdin plays on a
theme that continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:
meter was both a way to convey information to a specialized class of people
and a way to help people learn and organize information, and thus help them
advance through life.
Though the author confesses that he himself was not privileged to attend
Oxford or Cambridge, he appeals to the first audience by admiring their col-
lections of comic verse, the Oxford Sausage and the Cambridge Butter, and
therefore signals that his verses are humorous and should not be judged by
regular critical standards:
Yet deem not CAM, that ig’rance quite pervades
My brain, tho’never in thy halls refined;
Nor Isis, think thine academic shades,
Tho’out of sight, were always out of mind;
Thoughts of ye both, to neither tho’consigned, 5
Wou’d put my infant bosom in a flutter;
For oft my taste was seriously inclined,
With how much goût I’m half ashamed to utter,
To Oxford sausage rich; and curious Cambridge butter. (xiv)