Chaucer, and of all his successors down to Surrey, are merely
rhythmical, to be read by cadence, and admitting of
considerable variety in the number of syllables, though ten may
be the more frequent. In the manuscripts of Chaucer, the line
is always broken by a caesura in the middle, which is pointed
out by a virgule; and this is preserved in the early editions
down to that of 1532. They come near, therefore, to the short
Saxon line, differing chiefly by the alternate rhyme, which
converts two verses into one. He maintains that a great many
lines of Chaucer cannot be read metrically, though harmonious
as verses of cadence. This rhythmical measure he proceeds to
show in Hoccleve, Lydgate, Hawes, Barclay, Skelton, and even
Wyatt; and thus concludes, that, it was first abandoned by
Surrey, in whom it very rarely occurs. This hypothesis, it
should be observed, derives some additional plausibility from a
passage in Gascoyne's 'Notes of instruction concerning the
making of verse or rhyme in English,' printed in 1575.
'Whosoever do peruse and well consider his (Chaucer's) works,
he shall find that, although his lines are not always of one
selfsame number of syllables, yet being read by one that hath
understanding, the longest verse, and that which hath most
syllables in it, will fall (to the ear) correspondent unto that
which hath fewest syllables; and likewise that which hath
fewest syllables shall be found yet to consist of words that
have such natural sound, as may seem equal in length to a verse
which hath many more syllables of lighter accents.'

"A theory so ingeniously maintained, and with so much induction
of examples, has naturally gained a good deal of credit. I
cannot, however, by any means concur in the extension given to
it. Pages may be read in Chaucer, and still more in Dunbar,
where every line is regularly and harmoniously decasyllabic;
and though the caesura may perhaps fall rather more uniformly
than it does in modern verse, it would be very easy to find
exceptions, which could not acquire a rhythmical cadence by any
artifice of the reader. The deviations from the normal type, or
decasyllable line, were they more numerous than, after
allowance for the license of pronunciation, as well as the
probable corruption of the text