. Similarly where
the dactyl is incided after the second syllable, the third syllable
beginning a new word, the utmost care is taken that that word shall
begin not only with a syllable essentially short, but, when the second
syllable ends in a consonant, with a vowel: _[o]f th(i)s (e)pistle_,
but not _[o]f th(i)s d(i)saster_, still less _[o]f th(i)s d(i)rection._
The other element of quantity is less rigidly defined; for (1) syllables
strictly long, as _I_, _thy_, _so_, are allowed to be short; (2)
syllables made long by the accent falling upon them are in some cases
shortened, as _r(u)[i]ne_, _p(e)r(i)sh[e]d_, _cr(u)[e]l_; (3) syllables
which the absence of the accent only allows to be long _in thesi_, are,
in virtue of the classical laws of position, permitted to rank as long
elsewhere--_mom[e]nt of his_, _[o]f this epistle_. It needs little
reflection to see that it is to one or other of these three
peculiarities that the failure of the Elizabethan writers of classical
metres must be ascribed. Pentameters like

_Gratefulness, sweetness, holy love, hearty regard,
That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous,
And even in that love shall I reserve him a spite;_

sapphics like

_Are then humane mindes privileg'd so meanly
As that hateful death can abridg them of power
With the vow of truth to record to all worlds
That we bee her spoils?_

hexameters like

_F[i]re n(o) l(i)quor can cool: Nept[u]ne's re[a]lm would not avail us.
Nurs inw[a]rd m(a)l(a)di[e]s, which have not scope to bee breath'd out.
Oh n(o) n(o), worthie sheph[e]rd, worth c[a]n never enter a title;_

are too alien from ordinary pronunciation to please either an average
reader or a classically trained student. The same may be said of the
translation into English hexameters of the two first Eclogues of Virgil,
appended by William Webbe to his _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586,
recently reprinted by Mr. Arber). Here is his version of Ecl. I., 1-10.

MELIBAEUS.

_Tityrus, happilie then lyste tumbling under a beech tree,
All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting:
We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remoued,
And fro our pastures sweete: thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott
Makst thicke groues to resound with songes of brave Amarillis._

TITYRUS.

_O Melibaeus, he was no man, but a God who relee