FOOTNOTES:
[19] One may easily find other instances of the sporadic appearance of the same measure in the midst of irregular "long lines" or rough alexandrines and septenaries. Compare, for example, the following, from early plays in Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama:
"To be alone, nor very convenyent."
"Ye shall not touche yt, for that I forbede."
"But ye shuld be as godes resydent."
"And many a chaumbyr thou xalt have therinne."
"In this flood spylt is many a mannys blood."
"Therfore be we now cast in ryght grett care."
The context of many of these lines shows that they were intended to be read as four-stress rather than five-stress; but such examples serve to make clear how easily English rhythm would fall into the decasyllabic line.
[20] See also an account of Zarncke's monograph (1865) Ueber den fünffussiger Iambus, in Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, Postscript.
[21] See the entire Preface in Chalmers's English Poets, vol. viii. p. 32, and in the Appendix to Gosse's From Shakespeare to Pope. For an analysis of Waller's verse with reference to this Preface, see "A Note upon Waller's Distich," by H. C. Beeching, in the Furnivall Miscellany (1901), p. 4.
[22] Beaumont's own verse is of no little interest, and Mr. Gosse, in a recent letter to the present editor, observes that he finds in Beaumont, "far more definitely than in George Sandys, the principal precursor of Waller."
[23] See also the verses of Oliver Wendell Holmes on The Strong Heroic Line (in Stedman's American Anthology, p. 161), where he says:
"Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride
The straight-backed measure with its stately stride:
It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope;
It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope;
In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain;
Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain;
I smile to listen while the critic's scorn
Flouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn."
[24] On the verse of Keats in general, see the remarks of Mr. Robert Bridges in his Introduction to the Muses' Library edition of Keats.