[901] Or of thirteen syllables, in what they call a feminine verse. It is remarkable that the French alone have retained this old Gothic metre for their serious poems; while the English, Spaniards, &c. have adopted the Italic verse of ten syllables, although the Spaniards, as well as we, anciently used a short-lined metre. I believe the success with which Petrarch, and perhaps one or two others, first used the heroic verse of ten syllables in Italian poesy, recommended it to the Spanish writers; as it also did to our Chaucer, who first attempted it in English; and to his successors Lord Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, &c.; who afterwards improved it and brought it to perfection. To Lord Surrey we also owe the first introduction of blank verse in his versions of the second and fourth Books of the Æneid, 1557, 4to.
[902] Thus our poets use this verse indifferently with twelve, eleven, and even ten syllables. For though regularly it consists of four Anapests (˘ ˘ ¯) or twelve syllables, yet they frequently retrench a syllable from the first or third Anapest; and sometimes from both; as in these instances from Prior, and from the Song of Conscience:
"Whŏ hăs eēr beĕn ăt Pārĭs, mŭst nēeds knŏw thĕ Grēve,
Thĕ fātăl rĕtrēat ŏf th' ŭnfōrtŭnăte brāve.
Hĕ stēpt tŏ hĭm strāight, ănd dīd hĭm rĕquīre."
[903] See instances in L'Hist. de la Poesie Françoise, par Massieu, &c. In the same book are also specimens of alliterative French verses.
[904] Catalina, A. 3.
[905] Boileau Sat.
[906] Boil. Sat. ii.
[907] In a small 4to. MS. containing thirty-eight leaves in private hands.
[908] Didst dye.
[909] though.