The other poem is that which is quoted in the 32nd page of this volume, and which was probably the last that was ever written in this kind of metre in its original simplicity unaccompanied with rhyme. It should have been observed above in page [32], that in this poem the lines are throughout divided into distichs, thus:
"Grant Gracious God,
Grant me this time," &c.
It is intitled Scottish Feilde (in 2 fitts, 420 distichs,) containing a very circumstantial narrative of the battle of Flodden, fought Sept. 9, 1513: at which the author seems to have been present from his speaking in the first person plural:
"Then we Tild downe our Tents,
that Told were a thousand."
In the conclusion of the poem he gives this account of himself:
"He was a Gentleman by Jesu,
that this Gest[895] made:
Which Say but as he Sayd[896]
for Sooth and noe other.
At Bagily that Bearne
his Biding place had;
And his ancestors of old time
have yearded[897] theire longe,
Before William Conquerour
this Cuntry did inhabitt.
Jesus Bring 'them'[898] to Blisse,
that Brought us forth of Bale,
That hath Hearkned me Heare
or Heard my tale."
The village of Bagily or Baguleigh is in Cheshire, and had belonged to the ancient family of Legh for two centuries before the battle of Flodden. Indeed that the author was of that county appears from other passages in the body of the poem, particularly from the pains he takes to wipe off a stain from the Cheshiremen, who it seems ran away in that battle, and from his encomiums on the Stanleys, earls of Derby, who usually headed that county. He laments the death of James Stanley, bishop of Ely, as what had recently happened when this poem was written; which serves to ascertain its date, for that prelate died March 22, 1514-5.
Thus have we traced the alliterative measure so low as the sixteenth century. It is remarkable that all such poets as used this kind of metre, retained along with it many peculiar Saxon idioms, particularly such as were appropriated to poetry: this deserves the attention of those who are desirous to recover the laws of the ancient Saxon poesy, usually given up as inexplicable: I am of opinion that they will find what they seek in the metre of Pierce Plowman[899].
About the beginning of the sixteenth century this kind of versification began to change its form: the author of Scottish Field, we see, concludes his poem with a couplet in rhyme: this was an innovation that did but prepare the way for the general admission of that more modish ornament; till at length the old uncouth verse of the ancient writers would no longer go down without it. Yet when rhyme began to be superadded, all the niceties of alliteration were at first retained along with it; and the song of Little John Nobody exhibits this union very clearly. By degrees the correspondence of final sounds engrossing the whole attention of the poet, and fully satisfying the reader, the internal imbellishment of alliteration was no longer studied, and thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost in our common burlesque Alexandrine, or Anapestic verse[900], now never used but in ballads and pieces of light humour, as in the song of Conscience, and in that well-known doggerel,
"A cobler there was, and he lived in a stall."