Browning has made of the alexandrine in this poem an almost new measure, hardly more like the alexandrine couplet of earlier days than the measure of Sordello is like the "heroic couplet" proper. In general, the modern use of the alexandrine is characterized by increased freedom in the placing of the cesura. It is also distinguished from the early French and Middle English forms by the fact that the cesura and the ending are commonly masculine.
By far the most frequent use of the alexandrine in English poetry is as a variant from the five-stress line. For instances of this, see the section on the Spenserian stanza, pp. [102]-[108], above, and Corson's chapters on the Spenserian stanza and its influence, in his Primer of English Verse. In connection with Dryden's use of the alexandrine as a variant from the heroic couplet, Mr. Saintsbury makes some interesting observations on the measure: "The metre, though a well-known English critic has maltreated it of late, is a very fine one; and some of Dryden's own lines are unmatched examples of that 'energy divine' which has been attributed to him. In an essay on the alexandrine in English poetry, which yet remains to be written, and which would be not the least valuable of contributions to poetical criticism, this use of the verse would have to be considered, as well as its regular recurrent employment at the close of the Spenserian stanza, and its continuous use.... An examination of the Polyolbion and of Fifine at the Fair, side by side, would, I think, reveal capacities, somewhat unexpected even in this form of arrangement. But so far as the occasional alexandrine is concerned, it is not a hyperbole to say that a number, out of all proportion, of the best lines in English poetry may be found in the closing verses of the Spenserian stave as used by Spenser himself, by Shelley, and by the present Laureate, and in the occasional alexandrines of Dryden. The only thing to be said against this latter use is, that it demands a very skilful ear and hand to adjust the cadence." (Life of Dryden, in Men of Letters Series, pp. 172, 173.)
B.—THE SEPTENARY
The septenary, or seven-stress verse (sometimes called the septenarius, from the Latin form of the word) was a familiar measure of mediæval Latin poetry. There it was more commonly trochaic than iambic, as in the famous drinking song of the Goliards:
"Meum est propositum in taberna mori:
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori,
'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'"
(See the "Confessio Goliae," in Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, ed. Wright, p. 71.)
Another form of the measure is illustrated by some verses quoted by Schipper:
"Fortunae rota volvitur, descendo minoratus,
Alter in altum tollitur, nimis exaltatus."
In English, naturally enough, the measure always tended to be iambic. In both Latin and English there was considerable freedom as to the number of light syllables. It will be noticed that in the specimens just quoted from the Latin there is rime not only between the ends of the verses but between the syllables just preceding the cesura. Where this was the case there was a tendency toward the breaking up of the verse into a quatrain of verses in four and three stresses, riming abab; such septenaries, indeed, were written at pleasure either in couplets or quatrains. We shall see the same phenomena in the English forms of the measure. But the seven-stress rhythm is not easily lost or mistaken, in whatever form it appears, and has a certain charm which at one time appealed very widely to metrical taste.
The earliest appearance of the septenary in English is in the Poema Morale, dated about 1170 by Zupitza, by others somewhat later. For a specimen of this, see p. [127], above. Here there is only end-rime, and the individuality of the long line is well preserved. There is some freedom, however, as to the number of light syllables, and some variation between the iambic and trochaic rhythm.