þenne was Cónscience icléþet | to cómen and apéeren
tofore the kýng and his cóunsel, | clérkes and óþure.
knéolynge Cónscience | to the kýng lóutede.
ib. iii. 109–11;
or, finally, by allowing the somewhat more strongly accented syllables of the theses to participate in the alliteration:
and was a bíg bold bárn | and bréme of his áge. W. 18.
By the increasing use of this kind of alliteration it ultimately degenerated so much that the real nature of it was completely forgotten. This is evident from the general advice which King James VI gives in his Revlis and Cavtelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie (Arber’s Reprint, p. 63):
Let all your verse be Literall, sa far as may be, quhatsumeuer kynde they be of, but speciallie Tumbling verse [evidently the alliterative line] for flyting. Be Literall I meane, that the maist pairt of your lyne sall rynne vpon a letter, as this tumbling lyne rynnis vpon F.
Fetching fade for to feid it fast furth of the Farie.[108]
He then gives a description of this kind of verse which makes it evident that he looked upon ‘tumbling verse’ as a rhythm of two beats in each hemistich or four beats in the full line, for he says: