spight, betook themselves to writing verses, and made very bad ones, are we thence to decide that one of our greatest poets, who has occasionally exhibited the most harmonious flow, was equally ignorant of his art? As well might we contend that Shakspeare and Spenser were rugged and untuneful, because they were followed by Donne and Cleaveland. But there is one material objection to the probability of Dr. Nott's hypothesis, which remains to be noticed. Surrey lived in a learned and critical age: his rank, his character, and the melancholy close of his life, threw an interest around every thing connected with his name. Churchyard was brought up in his family; Golding was probably as old; Gascoigne could not have been born at a much later period; Surrey is spoken of in high terms by every writer on poetry in the time of Queen Elizabeth; yet not from any one of them have we the slightest intimation of his having introduced such a radical change into the whole structure of English versification. I cannot but think that their silence will prove, that he was no more the inventor of a new species of measure, than Waller, or Dryden, or Pope, though his good taste led him to select what was best in his predecessors, and to add some partial improvements of his own. Our obligations to him, as being the first to whom we owe an example of blank verse, will be afterwards considered.

If, then, our early poets are not to be excluded from a history of English metre, let us return to the point from which we set out, and inquire into the origin of the Alexandrine, and the causes of its introduction. Chaucer had, indeed, taught us what is now termed the heroick couplet of ten syllables; but it was long after his time before it assumed that rank in our versification which it now holds, without dispute, except among those who give blank verse the superiority. It was not for his Knight's Tale, or the story of Cambuscan bold, that he was chiefly admired at an early period. His Troilus was regarded as his

greatest work; and the measure in which it was composed was distinguished as "rhyme royal." The heroick couplet was thought merely adapted to a set of tales told by a company of pilgrims as they rode on their way to Canterbury, and thence was denominated "riding rhyme ;" and might be used, says Gascoigne, in delectable and light enterprizes, while rhyme royal was suited to a grave discourse. King James goes further, and says, " there is

ryme whilk servis only for lang historeis, and yit are nocht verse. As for example." He then goes on to quote some very smooth heroick couplets. Our old Scotch poet, Blind Harry, has written a" lang history" of Sir William Wallace in the heroick couplet; but when, in the sixth book, he describes his hero as "betaken with love," he seems to think the subject required a more polished measure, and deviates into the quatrain. In literature, as in every thing else, the habits of a people are not suddenly changed. The old measures which were in use before Chaucer, still retained their popularity, even in the reign of Elizabeth. Gascoigne observes, when pointing out a fault in writing, which was prevalent, as he tells us, in his time, "Yet do I see and read many new poems now adayes, whiche beginning with the measure of xii in the first line, and xiiii in the second (which is the common kind of verse) they will yet (by that time they have passed over a few verses) fall into xiiii and fourtene, and sic de similibus, the which is either forgetfulnes or carelesnes." If they used this licence in the measure to which they were accustomed, they would not readily submit to have their liberty altogether curtailed, when writing the ten syllable verse, but would sometimes break out into twelve syllables, or an Alexandrine. Chaucer himself could not invariably resist this temptation, at least if we ascribe to him The Remedie of Love, which Tyrwhitt, I acknowledge, has called in question:

"His patients sicknesse oweth first for to seche
"The which known, medicin he should applie
"And shortly as he can, then shape a remedie."

In the Temple of Glasse, ascribed to Hawes, but probably written by Lydgate, the following lines close one of the stanzas:

"Of all my payne! helas! the harde stounde,

"The hotter that I burne the colder is my wounde." In Barclay's Ship of Fools, we meet with Alexandrines. If we compare the following with the neighbouring lines, it would seem, from its superior smoothness, that he understood that measure better than the ten syllable verse:

"He that goeth right, stedfast sure and fast,

"May him well mocke that goeth halting and lame,
"And he that is whole, may well his scornes cast,
"Agaynst a man of Inde: but no man ought to blame
"Another's vice while he useth the same."

The reader will recollect Pope's lines:

"Tis education forms the common mind,

"Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

Barclay thus expresses the same image in verses better than he generally writes:

"A little twigge plyant is by kinde,

"A byger braunche is harde to bowe or wynde;
"But suffer the braunche to a byg tre to growe,

"And rather it shall brake than outher wynde or bowe." The fame of Sir Thomas More would have been less permanent, had it rested on his poetry alone. Yet there is something pathetick in his lamentation on the death of Elizabeth, Henry VII.'s Queen. I will cite one stanza. The Queen is supposed to be the speaker:

"Adew Lord Henry my lovyng sonne adew.
"Our Lorde encrease your honour and estate:
"Adew my doughter Mary bright of hew,
"God make you vertuous wyse and fortunate.
"Adew swete hart my little doughter Kate
"Thou shalt swete babe, such is thy desteny
"Thy mother never know, for lo now here I ly.”

In Lord Surrey's translation of Virgil, a few Alexandrines are mingled with his ten syllable blank verse; but Dr. Nott is inclined to attribute their introduction, not to the cause which I have assigned for their frequent occurrence in other writers, but to an alteration which had taken place in the Earl's plan. He supposes him to have originally intended that the whole translation should be in that measure, and that these Alexandrines were remnants of the poem in its first form, while the rest had been brought down to the ten syllable standard. Webbe, indeed, seems to say, that this version was composed in hexameters; but this is a term which even in modern times has been very laxly used. I cannot believe Surrey to have been the author of a performance so abounding in verbiage, that two syllables, without leaving a chasm, could be taken from every line.

When we proceed to the reign of Elizabeth, we find the Alexandrines among ten syllable lines in the writings of the most distinguished poets of that time. For example, Bishop Hall in his Satires:

"As tho the staring world hangd on his sleeve,
"When once he smiles to laugh: and when he sighs to grieve."
B. i. sat. 7.

"Great Solomon sings in the English quire
"And is become a new found Sonetist,
"Singing his love the holy spouse of Christ:
"Like as she were some light-skirts of the rest
"In mightiest Inkhornismes he can thither wrest."

Lib. i. sat. 8.

"For shame or better write or Labeo write none."

Lib. ii. sat. 2.

So also Marston:

"Pure madness cease, cease to be insolent,
"And be not outward sober, inlye impudent."

Sat. iv.

In modern authors the Alexandrine is always the second line of the couplet. Marston has made it the first:

"Euge! some gallant spirit, some resolved blood
"Will hazard all to worke his countrie's good."

Spenser has even introduced it into the middle of a stanza, unless we suppose the passages where it occurs to be corrupt:

"He bound that piteous lady prisoner, now relest."
B. iii. c. xii. s. 41.

"But Phlegeton is sonne of Herebus and Night."
B. ii. c. iv. s. 41.

The sonnet is, perhaps, of all compositions, that which is tied down by the strictest rules, and admits least of any deviation from strict metre. Yet B. Griffin, in his Fidessa, in which one of the poems attributed to Shakspeare is found, has this sonnet:

"Compare me to the child that plaies with fire,
"Or to the flye that dyeth in the flame,
"Or to the foolish boy that did aspire
"To touch the glorie of high heaven's frame,
"Compare me to Leander struggling in the waves,
"Not able to attain his safeties shore," &c.

He thus commences another:

"Compare me to Pygmalion with his image sotted." I will give one more extract from Griffin, which, I trust, its elegance will justify:

"Care-charmer sleepe sweet ease in restless miserie
"The captives libertie and his freedomes song:
"Balme of the brused heart, mans chiefe felicitie,

"Brother of quiet death, when life is too too long." Thomas Watson, whom Mr. Steevens has declared to be a better sonneteer than Shakspeare, is equally licentious with Griffin in this respect. As his name has been thus opposed to that of our great poet, I will give his sonnet entire:

"Phœbus delights to view his Lawrel tree;
"The Popplar pleaseth Hercules alone;
"Melissa mother is and fautrix to the bee;

"Pallas will weare the olive branche or none;

"Of Shepheardes and theire flocke Pales is quene; "And Ceres rypes the corne was lately greene;