In other places of the Towneley Mysteries similar stanzas are written in lines which have almost an alexandrine rhythm (cf. Metrik, i. 229), while, on the other hand, in the Coventry Mysteries we not unfrequently meet with stanzas of the same form written in lines which, in consequence of their concise structure, approach even-beat lines of four measures, or directly pass into this metre. The intermixture of different kinds of line is even carried here to such a length that to a frons of four-beat lines is joined a cauda of even-beat lines of four or three measures corresponding to King James VI’s rule quoted above (p. 108) for such stanzas; and on the other hand to a frons of even-beat lines of four measures is joined a cauda of two-beat short lines.
§ 67. The distinctly four-beat line, however, still forms the staple of the different kinds of verse occurring in these poems, and was also used in them for simple forms of stanza. In the further development of dramatic poetry it remained much in use. Skelton’s Moral Play Magnificence, and most of the Moralities and Interludes contained in Dodsley’s Old Plays (ed. Hazlitt), vols. i-iv, are written chiefly in this popular metre. As a rule it rhymes here in couplets, and under the influence of the even-beat measures used in the same dramatic pieces it gradually assumes a pretty regular iambic-anapaestic or trochaic-dactylic rhythm. This applies for the most part to the humorous and popular parts; allegorical and historical personages are made to converse in even-beat verses.
Verses of an ascending (iambic-anapaestic) rhythm were especially favoured, as might be expected from the fact that the Middle English alliterative line in the preceding centuries usually begins with one or two unaccented syllables before the first accented one.
Of the different types used in the Middle English alliterative line type C (C1), which does not harmonize well with the even-beat tendency of the rhythm, and which is only very seldom if at all to be met with even in the Coventry Plays, becomes very rare and tends to disappear altogether, type A (A1) and (although these are much less frequent) type B C (B C1) alone remaining in use.
§ 68. Of the more easily accessible pieces of Bishop John Bale (1495–1563) his Comedye Concernynge Thre Lawes, edited by A. Schröer (Anglia, v, pp. 137 ff., also separately, Halle, Niemeyer, 1882) is written in two-beat short lines and four-beat long lines, and his King Johan (c. 1548) (edited by Collier, Camden Society, 1838) entirely in this latter metre. The latter play has a peculiar interest of its own, containing as it does lines which, as in two Old English poems (cf. pp. 123, 124), consist either half or entirely of Latin words. Now, as the accentuation of the Latin lines or half-lines admits of no uncertainty, the four-beat scansion of the English verses of this play and of the long lines in The Three Lawes is put beyond doubt, though Schröer considers the latter as eight-beat long lines on the basis of the four-beat theory of the short line.
Some specimens may serve to illustrate the nature of these ‘macaronic’ verses, e.g.:
A péna et cúlpa | I desíre to be clére. p. 33.
In nómine pátris, | of all that éver I hárd.p. 28.
Iudicáte pupíllo, | deféndite víduam.p. 6.
Other verses of the same kind occur, pp. 5, 6, 53, 62, 78, 92.