[§ 645]. Such are the names of certain lines or verses taken by themselves. Combined or divided they form—
1. Heroic couplets.—Heroics, in rhyming couplets, successive.—
'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill.
Essay on Criticism.
The heroic couplet is called also riding rhyme; it being the metre wherein Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (told by a party riding to Canterbury) are chiefly written.
2. Heroic triplets.—Same as the preceding, except that three rhymes come in succession.
3. Blank verse.—Heroics without rhyme.
4. Elegiacs.—The metre of Gray's Elegy. Heroics in four-line stanzas with alternate rhymes.