Alliteration is the general character of all the early Gothic metres. (See Rask's Anglo-Saxon Grammar, Rask, On the Icelandic Prosody, and Conybeare, On Anglo-Saxon Poetry.)
2. Assonant metres.—In assonant metres a certain number of words, within a certain period, must end with a similar articulation. All rhymes and all approaches to rhyme, form the assonant metres. The word assonant has a limited as well as a general sense.
[§ 632]. All metre goes by the name of poetry, although all poetry is not metrical. The Hebrew poetry (see Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum) is characterized by the recurrence of similar ideas.
[§ 633]. The metres of the classical languages consist essentially in the recurrence of similar quantities; accent also playing a part. The incompatibility of the classical metres with the English prosody lies in the fact (stated at p. [166]), that the classic writer measures quantity by the length of the syllable taken altogether, while the Englishman measures it by the length of the vowel alone.
[§ 634]. The English metres consist essentially of the recurrence of similar accents; the recurrence of similar articulations being sometimes (as in all rhyming poetry) superadded.
[§ 635]. In the specimen of alliteration lately quoted the only articulation that occurred was the letter c. It is very evident that the two, the three, or the four first letters, or even the whole syllable, might have coincided. Such is the case with the following lines from Lord Byron:
Already doubled is the cape, the bay
Receives the prow, that proudly spurns the spray.
Alliteration, as an ornament, must be distinguished from alliteration as the essential character of metre. Alliteration, as an ornament, is liable to many varieties.