as largely adopted in Italian
dramatic poetry, and the comedies of Ariosto, the _Aminta_ of Tasso and
the _Pastor Fido_ of Guarini are composed in it. The iambic blank verse
of Italy was, however, mainly hendecasyllabic, not decasyllabic, and
under French influences the habit of rhyme soon returned.

Before the close of Trissino's life, however, his invention had been
introduced into another literature, where it was destined to enjoy a
longer and more glorious existence. Towards the close of the reign of
Henry VIII., Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, translated two books of the
_Aeneid_ into English rhymeless verse, "drawing" them "into a strange
metre." Surrey's blank verse is stiff and timid, permitting itself no
divergence from the exact iambic movement:--

"Who can express the slaughter of that night,
Or tell the number of the corpses slain,
Or can in tears bewail them worthily?
The ancient famous city falleth down,
That many years did hold such seignory."

Surrey soon found an imitator in Nicholas Grimoald, and in 1562 blank
verse was first applied to English dramatic poetry in the _Gorboduc_ of
Sackville and Norton. In 1576, in the _Steel Glass_ of Gascoigne, it was
first used for satire, and by the year 1585 it had come into almost
universal use for theatrical purposes. In Lyly's _The Woman in the Moon_
and Peek's _Arraignment of Paris_ (both of 1584) we find blank verse
struggling with rhymed verse and successfully holding its own. The
earliest play written entirely in blank verse is supposed to be _The
Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587) of Thomas Hughes. Marlowe now immediately
followed, with the magnificent movement of his _Tamburlaine_ (1589),
which was mocked by satirical critics as "the swelling bombast of
bragging blank verse" (Nash) and "the spacious volubility of a drumming
decasyllable" (Greene), but which introduced a great new music into
English poetry, in such "mighty lines" as

"Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,"

or:--

"See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!"

Except, however, when he is stirred by a particularly vivid emotion, the
blank verse of Marlowe continues to be monotonous and uniform. It still
depends too exclusively on a counting of syllables. But Shakespeare,
after having returned to rhyme in his earliest dramas, particularly in
_The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, adopted blank verse conclusively about
the ti