he Laureate's vanish upon the mere statement. For Dr Nott,
on whom he triumphantly builds, and whose proofs he seems to adopt--he
is the weakest and most wrongheaded of all possible prosers; and, what
is more, his opinions, if they deserve the name, differ _toto coelo_
from Southey's. For we have seen that Southey's ground of distinction is
the number of syllables unrestrained or varying, as in _Christabel_. But
Nott says repeatedly, that the number of syllables is fixed, namely, to
ten; and of the five beats he says not a word.

To extricate Nott's argument (in his edition of Surrey) from
entanglement would not repay a tithe of the trouble; suffice it to say
that he holds that as English verse, before Chaucer, was rhythmical, it
is not likely that Chaucer all at once made it metrical. We answer
first--the question is of a fact offering its own evidence, not of an
anterior likelihood. Secondly--Tyrwhitt's theory that Chaucer, from his
intimacy with the more advanced French and Italian poetry, adopted their
measure, and stamped art upon a poetry till then rude and helpless, has
high natural probability, and agrees to the vehement early extollings of
Chaucer as sovereign master of art. Thirdly--we desire a better proof
and explanation of the difference between rhythmical and metrical verse
than Dr Nott has given, who has placed some extracts from these anterior
poets at the side of some from Chaucer, which prove just nothing.
Fourthly, there _was_ metrical verse in England before Chaucer,
eight-syllabled and _fifteen_-syllabled--if no others. Mr Hallam
(_Introduction to the Literature of Europe_) writes with more
commendation of Dr Nott's accomplishments than they merit; but in the
following excellent passage he shows his usual knowledge of his subject,
and his usual judgment.

"It had been supposed to be proved by Tyrwhitt, that Chaucer's
lines are to be read metrically, in ten or eleven syllables,
like the Italian, and, as I apprehend, the French of his time.
For this purpose, it is necessary to presume that many
terminations, now mute, were syllabically pronounced; and where
verses prove refractory after all our endeavours, Tyrwhitt has
no scruple in declaring them corrupt. It may be added, that
Gray, before the appearance of Tyrwhitt's essay on the
versification of Chaucer, had adopted without hesitation the
same hypothesis. But, according to Dr Nott, the verses of