Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-1859).—Best known prosodically by his spirited and well beaten-out ballad measure in the Lays of Ancient Rome. Sometimes, as in "The Last Buccaneer," tried less commonplace movements with strange success.
Maginn, William (1793-1842).—Deserves to be mentioned with Barham as a chief initiator of the earlier middle nineteenth century in the ringing and swinging comic measures which have done so much to supple English verse, and to accustom the general ear to its possibilities.
Marlowe, Christopher (1664-1693).—The greatest master, among præ-Shakespearian writers, of the blank-verse line for splendour and might, as Peele was for sweetness and brilliant colour. Seldom, though sometimes, got beyond the "single-moulded" form; but availed himself to the very utmost of the majesty to which that form rather specially lends itself. Very great also in couplet (which he freely "enjambed") and in miscellaneous measure when he tried it.
Milton, John (1608-1674).—The last of the four chief masters of English prosody. Began by various experiments in metre, both in and out of lyric stanza—reaching, in the "Nativity" hymn, almost the maximum of majesty in concerted measures. In L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and the Arcades passed to a variety of the octosyllabic couplet, which had been much practised by Shakespeare and others, but developed its variety and grace yet further, though he did not attempt the full Spenserian or Christabel variation. In Comus continued this, partly, with lyrical extensions, but wrote the major part in blank verse—not irreminiscent of the single-moulded form, but largely studied off Shakespeare and Fletcher, and with his own peculiar turns already given to it. In Lycidas employed irregularly rhymed paragraphs of mostly decasyllabic lines. Wrote some score of fine sonnets, adjusted more closely to the usual Italian models than those of most of his predecessors. After an interval, produced, in Paradise Lost, the first long poem in blank verse, and the greatest non-dramatic example of the measure ever seen—admitting the fullest variation and substitution of foot and syllable, and constructing verse-paragraphs of almost stanzaic effect by varied pause and contrasted stoppage and overrunning. Repeated this, with perhaps some slight modifications, in Paradise Regained. Finally, in Samson Agonistes, employed blank-verse dialogue with choric interludes rhymed elaborately—though in an afterthought note to Paradise Lost he had denounced rhyme—and arranged on metrical schemes sometimes unexampled in English.
Moore, Thomas (1779-1852).—A very voluminous poet in the most various metres, and a competent master of all. But especially noticeable as a trained and practising musician, who wrote a very large proportion of his lyrics directly to music, and composed or adapted settings for many of them. The double process has resulted in great variety and sweetness, but occasionally also in laxity which, from the prosodic point of view, is somewhat excessive.
Morris, William (1834-1896).—One of the best and most variously gifted of recent prosodists. In his early work, The Defence of Guenevere, achieved a great number of metres, on the most varied schemes, with surprising effect; in his longer productions, Jason and The Earthly Paradise, handled enjambed couplets, octosyllabic and decasyllabic, with an extraordinary compound of freedom and precision. In Love is Enough tried alliterative and irregular rhythm with unequal but sometimes beautiful results; and in Sigurd the Volsung fingered the old fourteener into a sweeping narrative verse of splendid quality and no small range.
Orm.—A monk of the twelfth to the thirteenth century, who composed a long versification of the Calendar Gospels in unrhymed, strictly syllabic, fifteen-syllabled verse, lending itself to regular division in eights and sevens. A very important evidence as to the experimenting tendency of the time and to the strivings for a new English prosody.
O'Shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. (1844-1881).—A lyrist of great originality, and with a fingering peculiar to himself, though most nearly resembling that of Edgar Poe.