A glance at these titles and those of Bacon's writings, as well as the known facts of Yelverton's career, verifies Nicholas Trotte's general dictum on himself and his seven friends:

"Unto Astreas name we honour beare, Whose sound perfections we doe more admire Then all the vanted store of Muses guifts.

Can winne Astreas seruants to remoue
Their seruice, once deuote to better things.
They with attentiue mindes and serious wits,
Reuolue records of deepe Iudiciall Acts,

They waigh with steaddy and indifferent hand
Each word of lawe, each circumstance of right.")

Respecting the remaining three

and Lancaster

have grown mute.

Penroodocke, Flower

the historic oracle seems long since to

1) Intr. to the Play, 11. 63-78.

IV. The Verse.

The scheme which an author of blank-verse may be supposed to keep before his mind's eye, is one of an alternate succession of unaccented and accented syllables in such order as to form ten syllables to a verse, or line, thus:

L

This scheme is more or less closely observed, according to the taste and skill of the poet. A servile adherence to the rule is, of course, out of the question with any author of merit and distinction. To be sure, a drama, or an epic poem, composed entirely of lines of just five accents, each accent preceded by one unaccented syllable, is quite conceivable. But, as such servility to form would render the work unbearably monotonous and stiff, it is not to be expected, I venture to say, to present itself in all the realm of English literature, much less in the text here under criticisim. Paradoxical as it may seem, it has nevertheless been found, and is now universally accepted as a matter of course, that, the wider the author's range of licenses, the broader and freer (caeteris paribus) his art and power. We find ourselves dealing, after all, not with a paradox, or the violation of a rule, but, rather, with the flexible use of an instrument of poetry and the author's superiority to his tools.

In order to come to a clear conception of such licenses, it is needful, first of all, to distinguish between word-accent, verse-accent and logical accent.

It is a well-known principle that all Germanic words show a prime characteristic of bearing their accent on the first syllable.1) This tendency will not infrequently conflict with the scheme of blank-verse accent, thus producing two results, viz., 1) fluctuating (also known as hovering) accent and 2) inverted accent.

Fluctuating accent, as the term implies, is associated with some uncertainty as to where the ictus should fall; that is to say, either of the two syllables in question may be pronounced with but slightly differing, if not equal, stress. Inverted accent, on the other hand, is a case of undoubted conflict with the verse-scheme.

An examination of our text, extending over the 387 lines of act I, brings to light about 56 cases of conflict with the proposed scheme. Of these, the very marked minority of 7 instances are due to the obtrusiveness of word-accent, as the following examples may serve to show:

A. 1. Those in which the conflict occurs at the be-
ginning of the line, resulting in inverted accent:
Glutte on reuenge: thy wrath abhorres delayes (I. i. 9).
Raues not inough: it likes me to be filde (I. ii. 41).
Feare of his want doth add a double griefe (I. ii. 67).
Who can appoint a stint to her offence? (I. ii. 75).
Both of your sex and future fame of life (I. ii. 95).
Death is decreed: what kinde of death, I doubt: (I. iii. 15).
Death is and end of paine, no paine itselfe (I. iii. 43).

Dye: but no common death: passe Natures boundes (I. iii. 54).
None can be deemed faultie for his Fate (I. iii. 63).

Loue is an error that may blinde the best (I. iii. 66).
Death to the worlde and to her slipperie ioyes (I. iii. 70).
Which to accomplish: pray my deerest friends (I. iii. 74).
There to professe and to renounce the world (I. iii. 77).
Trust to't: the angry Heauens contriue some spight (I. iv. 5).
Spare vs but whiles we may prepare our graues (I. iv. 14).
Thinke then, our love is not vnknowen to him (I. iv. 34).
Why dost thou still stirre vp my flames delayde? (I. iv. 37).

1) Schipper: „Englische Metrik“. I. p. 15 ff.

What, that I ought not to condemne my liedge (I. iv. 40).
His is the crime, whom crime stands most in steede (I. iv. 53).
They that conspire in faults offend a like,

Crime makes them equall whom it iointly staines.

Well should she seeme most guiltlesse vnto thee (I. iv. 58).
Since that your highnes knowes for certaine truth (I. iv. 68).
Trust to't, their faith will faint where Fortune failes (I. iv. 85).
Weake is the Scepters hold that seekes but right (I. iv. 98).
Toungs are vntamde: and Fame is Enuies Dogge (I. iv. 124).
A. 2. Those in which the conflict occurs in the middle
of the line, resulting, again, in inverted accent:
This Clymats ioy, plac'd in imperiall throne (I. i. 56).
How better tho wert to represse your yre? (I. ii. 56).
Alone you may not die, with me you may (I. iii. 27).

Which thou hast stainde? What for thy stocke thou shamst? (I. iii. 48).
Not death, nor life alone can giue a full

Revenge: ioyne both in one.

Die: and yet liue.

Where paine may not be oft, let it be long (I. iii. 49–51).

Whiles woundes be cur'd, griefe is a salue for griefe (I. iii. 58).
And shun no paine nor plague fit for thy fact (I. iv. 8).
Where both haue done amisse, both will relent (I. iv. 42).
A Iudge seuere to vs, milde to himselfe (I. iv. 48).
T'is hard to say which be his faithfull friends (I. iv. 88).

Euen then you feare
The worst. Feares follow hopes as fumes doe flames (I. iv. 92).
B. Those in which the conflict results in fluctuating accent:
Theft, exyle, flight? All these may Fortune sende (I. ii. 37).
Loue, anguish, wrath will soone afforde inough (I. ii. 81).
Well, shame is not so quite exilde, but that (I. ii. 98).
Whence, when h'is come, he neuer can returne? (I. iii. 38).

Where the fluctuating accent appears, it gives the line somewhat the effect of an Alexandrine verse. Every such line, however, can be easily scanned; the interference is not such as to offend the ear, but is to be reckoned with those licenses which make for flexibility of diction.

Another glance at the examples acquaints us with the authors' care to allow themselves the freedom of inverted and fluctuating accents only at those two places in the verse where a disturbance of the scheme works with pleasing effect:

1. At the beginning of the line, and

2. Immediately after the caesura.

It is natural to believe that the authors purposely, and purely from motives of good taste, avoided the employment of these irregularities elsewhere.

An author's method of dealing with the caesura of blank-verse, is another well-known test of his skill. If he never swerves from a hard-and-fast rule in regard to this, as well as to the above, characteristics of metre, his verse is bound to degenerate into mere singsong. The ubiquity of the caesura is one of the prime tests of meritorious blank-verse.

Our play exhibits no mean record of caesural ubiquity. Out of a total of 2245 lines, 1237 show the intro-versal pause immediately after the second accent; 625, after the third accent, 140, after the first accent, and 19 after the fourth accent. No less than 224 lines contain a double caesura. 1)

Such a preponderating frequency of the caesura immediately after the second accent points again to a scheme which the authors of "The Misfortunes of Arthur" more or less consciously obeyed:

L

The ubiquity of the caesura may be due to several causes; first of all, however, to a conflict of the logical pause with the verse-pause afte the second accent.

Let the opening lines from the mouth of Gorlois suffice to make this clear:

1) It is not for a moment held that any other reader would not come to different results. Individual taste might alter the figures in not a few cases, but, it is believed, not to such an extent as to change the line of argument.