less profligate James the Fourth, may afford us an example.

The wavlerand warl|dis: wretch|idnes,

The fail yand and fruit les bis|sines,
The mis pent tyme]: the service vaine],
For to consider is | ane panel.

:

The suglurit mouth is: with mynd is thairfra
The figurit speiche: with face is tua

The ples and toung|is: with harts | unplane

For to consider : is | ane panel, &c.

At later periods staves were often made up of couplets, which were (as regarded their metre) wholly unconnected with each other. The only property of a stave, these slovenly combinations could boast of, was the control they exercised over the punctuation, and even this was sometimes denied them. Waller closes his Panegyric " to my Lord Protector," with the following lines—I cannot call them staves.

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse

And ev'ry conqueror creates a muse.

Here in low strains your milder deeds we sing;
But there, my Lord, we'll bays and olives bring

To crown your head; while you in triumph ride
O'er vanquish'd nations, and the sea beside;
While all your neighbour-princes unto you,
Like Joseph's sheaves pay reverence and bow.

66

CHAPTER III.

THE PSALM-STAVES

are those combinations of verses, which resulted from the application of the mixed rhime to the Psalm-metres. Many of these staves are become familiar to us, from the use which has been made of them in our different versions of the Psalms, but their origin is not of modern date-in our own language they may be traced up to the thirteenth century, and in the Latin to a much higher antiquity.

The hymn on the Epiphany, said to have been written in the ninth century by the German monk Hartman, consists of staves, formed from the rhiming couplet of the imperfect Trochaic Tetrameter by introducing a sectional rhime into each verse.

Tribus signis

Deo dignis

Dies ista colitur ;

Tria signa

Laude digna

Cœtus hic persequitur.

Stella magos

Duxit vagos

Ad præsepe Domini;

Congaudentes

Omnes gentes

Ejus psallunt nomini, &c.

This, it will be seen, is only a particular kind of the ryme cowee, or tail-verse, of which we have already

It

spoken.* Another kind was obtained by applying the
sectional rhime to the imperfect Iambic tetrameter.
was used in the Romance song, made by one of Leicester's
partizans, after the battle of Evesham, A. D. 1265.

Chaunter mestoit mon cuer le voit eu un dure language
Tut en ploraunt fuet fet le chaunt: de nostre duz baronage
Qe pur la pees si' loin apres : se lesserent detrere-
Lor cors trencher et demenbrer: pur salver Engleterre
Ore est ocys la flur de pris : qe tant savoit de guere
Ly quens Mountfort sa dure mort: molt enplorra la terre.'

The tail-stave, fashioned on the imperfect Iambic Tetrameter,† has been adopted into almost all the languages of Europe. It must have been common in English poetry during the fifteenth century, and, it may be, even at an earlier period. The following stave was taken from one of Wyat's songs, written about the year 1520.

Consent, at last,

Since that thou hast

My heart in thie demayne,

For service trew,

On me to rue,

And reach me love agayne.

The stave here swelled out into six verses is nothing more than two rhiming Iambic Tetrameters, each of them furnished with a sectional rhime. By a similar device other combinations were formed from the stave of four, or even from that of six Tetrameters.

* See p. 288.

1 We have here one of the few instances afforded by our early literature, of an ill-constructed stanza. It will be seen there is no metrical connection between the first and the second couplets; the third couplet is repeated in every stave, and may, therefore, be independent of the others.

See p. 184. The lengthening syllable of the "rhythmus," is generally omitted in our slovenly imitations of this metre.

By keeping in mind this origin of the stave we see the reason why, in most cases, the tail-rhime remains unchanged. But, as in the original stave the last couplet sometimes takes its own peculiar rhime, so, in these staves, the last tail-rhime is sometimes given, and varies from the others. The celebrated drinking song, for example, in Gammer Gurton's needle, ends every stave with the word old.

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good,
But sure I think, that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care
I nothing am a-cold,

I stuffe my skin so full within
With joly goode ale and old.

CHORUS.

Backe and side, go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand, go colde!
But, belly, God send thee good ale inoughe,
Whether it be new or olde.

I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire;

A little bread shall do me stead,
Moche bread I noght desire;

No frost, no snowe, no winde I trow
Can hurte me if I wolde,

I am so wrapt, and throwly lapt

Of joly good ale and old.

CHORUS.

Backe and side, &c.

So, in the Not-browne Maid, both the expostulations of the Gentleman, and the answers of the Lady have their

peculiar endings, with which, of course, the last tail-rhime

must correspond.

HE.

Yet take good heed, for ever I drede
That ye could nat sustayne
The thornie wayes, the depe valeis,
The snows, the frost, the rayne,
The cold, the hete; for dry, or wet,
We must lodge on the playne,

And us abofe no other rofe

But a brake bush or twayne;

Which sone wolde greve you I believe,

And ye wolde gladly than,
That I had to the grene wode go

Alone a banyshed man.

SHE.

Syth I have here been partinere
With you of joy and blisse,
I must also part of your wo
Endure, as reson is ;

Yet am I sure of one plesure

And shortly it is this

That where ye be, me semeth, perde,
I coude not fare amysse-
Without more speche, I you beseche,

That ye were sone agone,
For in my mynde, of all mankynde
I love but you alone, &c.

In this poem, which probably dates about the close of the fifteenth century, the first section of the Tetrameter is written as one verse. Archbishop Parker, in his version of the Psalms, treats the first section in the same way; but