So again the prophesie of Berlington:
"When the Ruby is Raised, Rest is there none,
But much Rancour shall Rise in River and plain
Much Sorrow is Seen through a Suth-hound
That beares Hornes in his Head like a wyld Hart, &c."
In like metre is the prophesie of Waldhave:
"Upon Lowdon Law alone as I Lay,
Looking to the Lennox, as me Lief thought,
The first Morning of May, Medicine to seek
For Malice and Melody that Moved me sore, &c."
And lastly, that intitled the prophesie of Gildas:
"When holy kirk is Wracked and Will has no Wit
And Pastors are Pluckt, and Pil'd without Pity
When Idolatry Is In ens and re
And spiritual pastours are vexed away, &c."
It will be observed in the foregoing specimens, that the alliteration is extremely neglected, except in the third and fourth instances; although all the rest are written in imitation of the cadence used in this kind of metre. It may perhaps appear from an attentive perusal, that the poems ascribed to Berlington and Waldhave are more ancient than the others: indeed the first and fifth appear evidently to have been new modelled, if not intirely composed about the beginning of the last century, and are probably the latest attempts ever made in this species of verse.
In this and the foregoing essay are mentioned all the specimens I have met with of the alliterative metre without rhyme: but instances occur sometimes in old manuscripts, of poems written both with final rhymes and the internal cadence and alliterations of the metre of Pierce Plowman.
This Essay will receive illustration from another specimen in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 309, being the fragment of a MS. poem on the subject of Alexander the Great, in the Bodleian Library, which he supposes to be the same with No. 44 in the Ashmol. MSS. containing twenty-seven passus, and beginning thus: