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stanza.
2 2 LUCRECE
of our ancient proportions used by any rimer writing any-
thing historical or grave poem ', and he refers to Chaucer's
Troylus and Crisyde and Lydgate's Fall of Princes by way of
proof tliat ' the staffe of seven verses was most usual with
our ancient makers '. The rimes, he points out, were capable
of seven variations. Shakespeare followed the customary
scheme which Chaucer had employed (ababbcc). Putten-
ham found fault with those who close the stanza with an
independent couplet < concording with no other verse that
went before ', but he finally admits that the < double cadence
in the last two verses serves the ear well enough '. The
comment well applies to Shakespeare's prosody.
Spenser's 0( English poems in the metre which were written
shortly before Shakespeare penned his Lucrece^ the most
memorable is Spenser's l{uines of Time^ published in 1^90,
in which Shakespeare's cadences seem almost precisely anti-
cipated. The following is a good example of the stanza in
Spenser's hands : —
But Fame with golden wings aloft doth fiie,
Above the reach of ruinous decay,
And with brave plumes doth beate the azure skie,
Admir'd of base-borne men from far away :
Then, who so will with vertuous deeds assay
To mount to heaven, on Pegasus must ride,
And with sweete Poets verse be giorifide.'
Greene's
ji
Maidens Dreame^ An
elegy on Sir Christopher
Hatton^
' Spenser employed the seven-line stanza with a different scheme of
rhyming (ababcbc) in his Bapknaida^ iTpi? l^ut in his Hymttes^ ITP*^? ^^
returned to the Shakespearean plan. Among the Elizabethan poets who
used the seven-line stanza in long poems immediately after Lucrece were
(Sir) John Davis in his Orchestra^ ^TP+i Barnfield in Complaivt of Chastltle
and Shepherds Content^ 'T^+j Drayton in Mortimer'tados^ 'TS?^? ^ncl parts of
Uarmonie of the Churchy '^')^^' At a little later date Nicholas Breton
employed it constantly ; cf. his Fasqv'ils Passe and Vasseth not^ i()00 • 'Longing
of a Blessed Hearty \6o\ j Fasqvils Mad Cappe, i6z6.
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