"The ploughman's labour hath no end, and he a churl will prove;
The craftsman hath more work on hand than fitteth one to love;
The merchant trafficking abroad, suspects his wife at home;
A youth will play the wanton, and an old will play the mome:
Then choose a shepherd."
This is but the lumbering dodecasyllabic verse rendered more lumbering still by two fresh feet, it will be generally allowed. In fact, these lines of twelve and fourteen feet have only been used effectually as "Alexandrines," or single lines introduced to wind up, or heighten the force of passages, in the heroic or the octosyllabic measure. Pope ridicules this practice, though it was a favourite one with Dryden:—
"A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."
In Dryden's "Ode to music," the following instances of the two kinds of Alexandrines occur:—
"Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire."