(William Webbe: Sapphic Verse, in A Discourse of English Poetrie. 1586.)
Webbe was another of those who believed "that if the true kind of versifying in immitation of Greekes and Latines, had been practised in the English tongue, ... it would long ere this have aspyred to as full perfection, as in anie other tongue whatsoever." So he added to his Discourse (see Arber Reprint, pp. 67-84) a discussion of the principles of quantitative prosody, and some specimens of what might be done by way of experiment.[42] The Sapphics from which the present specimen is taken are a paraphrase of Spenser's praise of Elizabeth in the fourth eclogue of the Shepherd's Calendar. (For a specimen of Webbe's hexameters, see p. [334], below.)
Greatest in thy wars,
Greater in thy peace,
Dread Elizabeth;
Our muse only truth,
Figments cannot use,
Thy ritch name to deck
That itselfe adorns:
But should now this age
Let all poesye fayne,
Fayning poesy could
Nothing faine at all
Worthy halfe thy fame.
(Thomas Campion: Iambic Dimeter, "an example Lyrical," in Observations in the Art of English Poesie. 1602.)
Rose-cheekt Lawra come
Sing thou smoothly with thy beawtie's
Silent musick, either other
Sweetely gracing.
Lovely formes do flowe
From concent devinely framed,
Heav'n is musick, and thy beawtie's
Birth is heavenly.
(Thomas Campion: Trochaic Dimeter, ib.)
The full title of Campion's work was: "Observations in the Art of English Poesie; wherein it is demonstratively proved, and by example confirmed, that the English toong will receive eight severall kinds of numbers, proper to it selfe, which are all in this booke set forth, and were never before this time by any man attempted." Campion, like other classical versifiers, condemned rime as a barbarity; but in imitating the classical measures he does not violate the normal English accent, so that his verses read smoothly in English rhythm. Curiously enough, he includes among his innovations an iambic measure which proves to be ordinary decasyllabic verse:
"Goe numbers boldly passe, stay not for ayde
Of shifting rime, that easie flatterer,
Whose witchcraft can the ruder eares beguile".