The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew.
It is remarkable that in the degenerate periods of Latin literature, there was a return to the same old rhythmical principles which gave birth to the Saturnian verse: ictus was again substituted for quantity, and the Greek rules of prosody were neglected for a rhythm consisting of alternate beats, which pervades most modern poetry.
The empire had become so extensive, that the taste of the people, especially of the provincials, was no longer regulated by that of the capital, and emphasis and accent became, instead of metrical quantity, the general rule of pronunciation. This was the origin of rhythmical poetry. Traces of it may be found as early as the satirical verses of Suetonius on J. Cæsar.
It is the metre of the little jeu d’esprit addressed by the emperor Hadrian to Florus—[[85]]
Ego nolo Florus esse
Ambulare per tabernas
Latitare per popinas