After all, the old alliterative and anapestic metre of the English poets, being
chiefly used in a barbarous age and in a rude unpolished language, abounds with
verses defective in length, proportion, and harmony, and therefore cannot enter into a
comparison with the correct versification of the best modern French writers; but
making allowances for these defects, that sort of metre runs with a cadence so exactly
resembling the French heroic Alexandrine, that I believe no peculiarities of their
versification can be produced which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative
metre. I shall give, by way of example, a few lines from the modern French poets,
accommodated with parallels from the ancient poem of Life and Death; in these I
shall denote the cæsura or pause by a perpendicular line, and the cadence by the
marks of the Latin quantity.
Lĕ sŭccēs fŭt toŭjoūrs | ŭn ĕnfānt dĕ l'ăudāce;
All shăll drŷe wĭth thĕ dīnts | thăt I dēal wĭth mў hānds.
L'hŏmmĕ prūdĕnt vŏit trōp | L'ĭllūsĭŏn lē sūit,
Yōndĕr dāmsĕl ĭs dēath | thăt drēssĕth hĕr tŏ smīte.
L'ĭntrĕpīde vŏit mīeux | ĕt lĕ fantōme fūit,[18]
Whĕn shĕ dōlefŭllў sāw | hŏw shĕ dāng dōwne hĭr fōlke.
Mĕme aŭx yeūx dĕ l'ĭnjūste | ŭn ĭnjūste ĕst hŏrrīblĕ.[19]
Thĕn shĕ cāst ūp ă crŷe | tŏ thĕ hīgh kĭng ŏf hēavĕn.
Dŭ mĕnsōngĕ toŭjoūrs | lĕ vrāi dĕmēurĕ māitrĕ,
Thŏu shălt bīttĕrlўe bŷe | ŏr ēlsĕ the bōokĕ fāilĕth,
Poŭr părōitrĕ hōnnĕte | ĕn ŭn mōt, ĭl făut l'ētre.[20]
Thŭs I fāred thrōughe ă frŷthe | whĕre thĕ flōwĕrs wĕre mānўe.
To conclude: the metre ofPierce Plowman's Visionshas no kind of affinity
with what is commonly called blank verse; yet has it a sort of harmony of its own,
proceeding not so much from its alliteration, as from the artful disposal of its cadence,
and the contrivance of its pause; so that when the ear is a little accustomed to it, it is
by no means unpleasing; but claims all the merit of the French heroic numbers, only
far less polished; being sweetened, instead of their final rhymes, with the internal
recurrence of similar sounds.
This Essay will receive illustration from another specimen in Warton'sHistory
of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 309, being the fragment of a manuscript poem on the
subject of Alexander the Great, in the Bodleian Library, which he supposes to be the
same with Number 44, in the Ashmol. manuscripts, containing 27 passus, and
beginning thus:
"Whener folk fastid [feasted,qu.] and fed,
Fayne wolde thei her [i.e.hear]
Some farand thing, &c."
It is well observed by Mr. Tyrwhitt, on Chaucer's sneer at this old alliterative metre
(vol. iii. p. 305): viz.
"--- I am a Sotherne [i.e.Southern] man,
I cannot geste, rom, ram, raf, by my letter,"
that the fondness for this species of versification, &c. was retained longest in the
northern provinces: and that the author of Plowman's Visions is in the best MSS.,
called William, without any surname. -- See vol. iv. p. 74.
ADDITIONS TO THE ESSAY ON THE ALLITERATIVE METRE