We learn from Wormius[884], that the ancient Islandic poets used a great variety of measures: he mentions 136 different kinds, without including rhyme, or a correspondence of final syllables, yet this was occasionally used, as appears from the Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inserted in his book.

He hath analysed the structure of one of these kinds of verse, the harmony of which neither depended on the quantity of the syllables, like that of the ancient Greeks and Romans; nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry; but consisted altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the sounds in the middle of the verses. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their prosody, one of which was, that every distich should contain at least three words beginning with the same letter or sound. Two of these correspondent sounds might be placed either in the first or second line of the distich, and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line. This will be best understood by the following examples[885]:

There were many other little niceties observed by the Islandic poets, who, as they retained their original language and peculiarities longer than the other nations of Gothic race, had time to cultivate their native poetry more, and to carry it to a higher pitch of refinement, than any of the rest.

Their brethren, the Anglo-Saxon poets, occasionally used the same kind of alliteration, and it is common to meet, in their writings, with similar examples of the foregoing rules. Take an instance or two in modern characters[886]:

I know not, however, that there is anywhere extant an entire Saxon poem all in this measure. But distichs of this sort perpetually occur in all their poems of any length.

Now if we examine the versification of Pierce Plowman's Visions, we shall find it constructed exactly by these rules; and therefore each line, as printed, is in reality a distich of two verses, and will, I believe, be found distinguished as such, by some mark or other in all the ancient MSS. viz.:

So that the author of this poem will not be found to have invented any new mode of versification, as some have supposed, but only to have retained that of the old Saxon and Gothic poets; which was probably never wholly laid aside, but occasionally used at different intervals: though the ravages of time will not suffer us now to produce a regular series of poems entirely written in it.

There are some readers whom it may gratify to mention, that these Visions of Pierce (i.e. Peter) the Plowman, are attributed to Robert Langland, a secular priest, born at Mortimer's Cleobury in Shropshire, and fellow of Oriel College in Oxford, who flourished in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., and published his poem a few years after 1350. It consists of xx. passus or breaks[888], exhibiting a series of visions which, he pretends, happened to him on Malvern hills in Worcestershire. The author excells in strong allegoric painting, and has with great humour, spirit, and fancy, censured most of the vices incident to the several professions of life; but he particularly inveighs against the corruptions of the clergy, and the absurdities of superstition. Of this work I have now before me four different editions in black-letter quarto. Three of them are printed in 1550, "by Robert Crowley, dwelling in Elye Rentes in Holburne." It is remarkable that two of these are mentioned in the title-page as both of the second impression, though they contain evident variations in every page[889]. The other is said to be "newlye imprynted after the authors olde copy ... by Owen Rogers," Feb. 21, 1561.

As Langland was not the first, so neither was he the last that used this alliterative species of versification. To Rogers's edition of the Visions is subjoined a poem, which was probably writ in imitation of them, intitled Pierce the Ploughman's Crede. It begins thus:

The author feigns himself ignorant of his Creed, to be instructed in which he applies to the four religious orders, viz., the gray friers of St. Francis, the black friers of St. Dominic, the Carmelites or white friers, and the Augustines. This affords him occasion to describe in very lively colours the sloth, ignorance, and immorality of those reverend drones. At length he meets with Pierce, a poor ploughman, who resolves his doubts, and instructs him in the principles of true religion. The author was evidently a follower of Wiccliff, whom he mentions (with honour) as no longer living[890]. Now that reformer died in 1384. How long after his death this poem was written, does not appear.

In the Cotton library is a volume of ancient English poems[891], two of which are written in this alliterative metre, and have the division of the lines into distichs distinctly marked by a point, as is usual in old poetical MSS. That which stands first of the two (though perhaps the latest written) is entitled The Sege of I'erlam, (i.e. Jerusalem), being an old fabulous legend composed by some monk, and stuffed with marvellous figments concerning the destruction of the holy city and temple. It begins thus:

The other is intitled Chevalere Assigne (or De Cigne), that is, The Knight of the Swan, being an ancient Romance, beginning thus:

Among Mr. Garrick's collection of old plays[892] is a prose narrative of the adventures of this same Knight of the Swan, "newly translated out of Frenshe into Englyshe, at thinstigacion of the puyssaunt and illustryous prynce, lorde Edward duke of Buckynghame." This lord it seems had a peculiar interest in the book, for, in the preface, the translator tells us, that this "highe dygne and illustryous prynce my lorde Edwarde by the grace of god Duke of Buckyngham, erle of Hereforde, Stafforde, and Northampton, desyrynge cotydyally to encrease and augment the name and fame of such as were relucent in vertuous feates and triumphaunt actes of chyvalry, and to encourage and styre every lusty and gentell herte by the exemplyficacyon of the same, havyng a goodli booke of the highe and miraculous histori of a famous and puyssaunt kynge, named Oryant, sometime reynynge in the parties of beyonde the sea, havynge to his wife a noble lady; of whome she conceyved sixe sonnes and a daughter, and chylded of them at one only time; at whose byrthe echone of them had a chayne of sylver at their neckes, the whiche were all tourned by the provydence of god into whyte swannes, save one, of the whiche this present hystory is compyled, named Helyas, the knight of the swanne, of whome linially is dyscended my sayde lorde. The whiche ententifly to have the sayde hystory more amply and unyversally knowen in thys hys natif countrie, as it is in other, hath of hys hie bountie by some of his faithful and trusti servauntes cohorted mi mayster Wynkin de Worde[893] to put the said vertuous hystori in prynte ... at whose instigacion and stiring I (Roberte Copland) have me applied, moiening the helpe of god, to reduce and translate it into our maternal and vulgare english tonge after the capacitÈ and rudenesse of my weke entendement." A curious picture of the times! While in Italy literature and the fine arts were ready to burst forth with classical splendor under Leo X. the first peer of this realm was proud to derive his pedigree from a fabulous knight of the swan[894]!

To return to the metre of Pierce Plowman: In the folio MS. so often quoted in these volumes, are two poems written in that species of versification. One of these is an ancient allegorical poem intitled Death and Life, (in 2 fitts or parts, containing 458 distichs) which, for ought that appears, may have been written as early, if not before, the time of Langland. The first forty lines are broke as they should be into distichs, a distinction that is neglected in the remaining part of the transcript, in order, I suppose, to save room. It begins:

The subject of this piece is a vision, wherein the poet sees a contest for superiority between "our lady Dame Life," and the "ugly fiend Dame Death;" who with their several attributes and concomitants are personified in a fine vein of allegoric painting. Part of the description of Dame Life is:

Death is afterwards sketched out with a no less bold and original pencil.

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:

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:

In the conclusion of the poem he gives this account of himself:

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,

But although this kind of measure hath with us been thus degraded, it still retains among the French its ancient dignity; their grand heroic verse of twelve syllables[901] is the same genuine offspring of the old alliterative metre of the ancient Gothic and Francic poets, stript like our Anapestic of its alliteration, and ornamented with rhyme: but with this difference, that whereas this kind of verse hath been applied by us only to light and trivial subjects, to which by its quick and lively measure it seemed best adapted, our poets have let it remain in a more lax unconfined state[902], as a greater degree of severity and strictness would have been inconsistent with the light and airy subjects to which they have applied it. On the other hand, the French having retained this verse as the vehicle of their epic and tragic flights, in order to give it a stateliness and dignity were obliged to confine it to more exact laws of scansion: they have therefore limited it to the number of twelve syllables; and by making the cÆsura or pause as full and distinct as possible, and by other severe restrictions, have given it all the solemnity of which it was capable. The harmony of both however depends so much on the same flow of cadence and disposal of the pause, that they appear plainly to be of the same original; and every French heroic verse evidently consists of the ancient distich of their Francic ancestors: which, by the way, will account to us why this verse of the French so naturally resolves itself into two complete hemistics. And indeed by making the cÆsura or pause always to rest on the last syllable of a word, and by making a kind of pause in the sense, the French poets do in effect reduce their hemistics to two distinct and independent verses: and some of their old poets have gone so far as to make the two hemistics rhyme to each other.[903]

After all, the old alliterative and anapestic metre of the English poets being chiefly used in a barbarous age, and in a rude unpolished language, abounds with verses defective in length, proportion, and harmony; and therefore cannot enter into a comparison with the correct versification of the best modern French writers; but making allowances for these defects, that sort of metre runs with a cadence so exactly resembling the French heroic Alexandrine, that I believe no peculiarities of their versification can be produced, which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative metre. I shall give by way of example a few lines from the modern French poets accommodated with parallels from the ancient poem of Life and Death; in these I shall denote the cÆsura or pause by a perpendicular line, and the cadence by the marks of the Latin quantity.

To conclude: the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions has no kind of affinity with what is commonly called blank verse; yet has it a sort of harmony of its own, proceeding not so much from its alliteration, as from the artful disposal of its cadence, and the contrivance of its pause; so that when the ear is a little accustomed to it, it is by no means unpleasing; but claims all the merit of the French heroic numbers, only far less polished; being sweetened, instead of their final rhymes, with the internal recurrence of similar sounds.