[131] In his Troy Book he says that, "as tho" [at that time] he "set aside truth of metre," "had no guide in that art," and "took no heed of short and long."
[132] House of Fame, Book III., where he disclaims intention to "shew art poetical," speaks of his "rhyme" as "light and lewed" [unlearned], admits that "some verses" may "fail in a syllable," and precedes (possibly patterning) Gower in distinguishing "rhyme" and "cadence."
[133] He says that the substitution of "Procurator" for "Emperor" "had mair grievèd the cadence Than had relievèd the sentence [meaning]."
[134] For editions, etc., of this and other books named and discussed in this survey, see [Bibliography].
[135] The passage referred to above (p. [166]) as illustrating this, in the Mirror for Magistrates (ed. Haslewood, ii. 394, and see Hist. Pros. ii. 188), is anterior to Gascoigne.
[136] Observe that this might be scanned
No wight | in this | world that | wealth can | attain.
But then it would not be "another kind of metre." The remark is not without bearing on the suggested possibility of Spenser's "February" being mistaken heroic.
[137] At this time the technical phrase for classical-quantitative versification without rhyme.
[138] Which, let it be remembered, had dominated English poetry, in rhyme-royal, for nearly two centuries from Chaucer to Sackville, and then in the Spenserian, the octave, and others, for three-quarters of a century more. These surfeits always recur, though the octosyllabic couplet has suffered least from them.