Another kind of wheel was formed by introducing a peculiar rhythm into some well-known combination-the sectional pause, for instance, into the common interwoven verse of four accents. Of this wheel we gave an example in a preceding chapter.' Another variety originated in the use of the rhiming section 2 1, the wheel consisting of two rhiming verses, one or both of which began with this section. 2 The simplest, though probably not the most ancient combination into which this wheel enters, is found in one of the songs written by Suckling, early in the seventeenth century. That none beguiled be by Time's quick flowing, And thicker Where Love hath his notions. Hope is the mainspring on which moves desire, Clicking And striking, And ne'er giving o'er, &c. A more complicated stave is found in the Miscellany called "The Handful of Pleasant Delites," published A.D. 1584. The sportsman, we are told, chases the hare to see her wiliness, More than to win or get the game To beare away, He is not greadie of the same (Thus hunters saie) So some men hunt by hote desire To Venus' dames, and do require With favor to have her or else they will die : For sooth to see her subtilnesse, &c. 1 See p. 274. 2 See vol. i. p. 127. 3 These three lines would be more correctly written as one verse. 66 But the most important of these staves is that which was used in the "Cherry and the Slae," and which was so popular in the north, towards the close of the sixteenth century. The reader is instructed to sing it to the air of the bankis of Helicon." An old song, with this title, is still extant. It seems to have been written about the year 1550, and was probably the earliest specimen of this singular stanza. Declair ye bankis of Helicon, Parnassus hills, and daills ilkone, And fontaine Caballein, Gif ony of your musis all Or nymphis may be peregal Unto my ladye schein ? Or if the ladyis, that did lave Their bodyis by your brim, So seemlie war, or yit sa suave (sweet), So bewtiful or trim ? Contempill, exempill Tak be hir proper port, Amang you did resort, &c. We need hardly remind the reader of "The Jolly Beggars," or the poems, on Despondency, on Ruin, &c., by which Burns has given to this stanza an enduring place in our poetry. Whatever rhythmical form his genius has consecrated must now be considered classical. CHAPTER V. BALLET-STAVES. Under this head I would arrange all the staves borrowed from the Romance languages, which admit only verses of equal length. I shall, however, whenever it may be expedient, follow them through their various changes, though, in the result, they may possibly get beyond reach of the definition just given. The term ballet, which is preferred, as being less likely to mislead than ballad,* has been used in our language with great vagueness of meaning. Generally, however, the poems, to which I would apply the term, have a very distinctive character, as well in the nature of their poetry, as in the structure of their rhythm. The genius of the people, among whom they originated, was long and deeply impressed upon them. Subtlety, but little depth of thought, cold conceits, and an absence of all genuine feeling, long distinguished the English ballet, no less than the foreign models, from which it was imitated. By degrees it worked itself clear of affectation, but almost in the same proportion its original structure was altered. * Both these terms were used by our poets, though the former prevailed chiefly in the north. The necessity for the distinction here taken will appear from the fact, that Ritson actually waded through an Oxford MS. entitled "The Abstract Breviare, compyled of divers balades, roundels, virelays, tragedies, &c." in search of some counterpart to Chevy Chase or Johnny Armstrong ! In its most characteristic-perhaps I might have said its most perfect-form, the ballet consisted of certain staves, each of them ending with the same verse, and the whole shut in with a short stave, called by the French an envoi, and by the Spaniards a tornada. But neither the burthen at the end of each stave, nor the envoi seems ever to have been an essential characteristic of the ballet. We have many (and some very ancient) specimens, both in French and English, which have neither of these peculiarities; and several metrical forms, which will here be classed as ballet-staves, certainly never tolerated either the one or the other. As regards our own literature, I would say the envoi prevailed most in the fourteenth, and the burthen in the fifteenth century. In the latter century, too, the verse of five accents was, I think, more commonly used, than it had been in the century preceding. There are three staves, which, from their prevalence in our literature, might well be called the common balletstaves. They consist respectively of 8, 7, and 6 verses ; and the disposition of their rhimes will at once appear from the following scheme: Ballet-stave of 8. Ballet-stave of 7. Ballet-stave of 6. The ballet-stave of eight, like so many others of our metrical forms, seems to have originated with the Latinist. The German monk Ernfrid wrote a poem in the ninth century, from which is taken the following extract. Felicitatis regula| Hac fi ne sem per constitit, This is really our ballet-stave of eight, with two rhimes Alle that beoth of huer te trewe A stoun de herk neth to my song| Of duel that deth | hath diht | us new e That maketh me sykle ant sorlewe among Of wham God hath don | ys wille Me thun cheth that deth | hath don | us wrong Al Eng|lond ah te for | te knowle Of wham that song | is, that | y synge Of Edward kyng, that lith | so low e zent al this world | is nom e con spring e Ant in wer re war ant wys For him we ah te oure hon den to wrynge Of Christendome | he ber | the prys, &c. There are some staves, consisting of verses of equal length, the origin of which is involved in doubt.* But I think no one will hesitate to class this English stave with the Latin stave, used by Ernfrid; and when we have once fair hold on a Latin rhythmus, many difficulties vanish. There can be little doubt, that Ernfrid's stanza was formed from two of the common staves, consisting of four Iambic dimiters; and that the artificial disposition of the rhiming syllables must be traced to the same spirit of invention, that gave birth to the close * See |