§ =58.= In spite of the great popularity which the regular alliterative line enjoyed down to the beginning of the Modern English period, numerous and important rivals had arisen in the meantime, viz. the many even-beat rhymed kinds of verse formed on foreign models; and these soon began to influence the alliterative line. The first mark of this influence was that end-rhyme and strophic formation was forced upon many alliterative poems. In a further stage the alliterative line was compelled to accommodate its free rhythm of four accents bit by bit to that of the even-beat metres, especially to the closely-related four-foot iambic line, and thus to transform itself into a more or less regular iambic-anapaestic metre. The alliterative line, on the other hand, exercised a counter influence on the newer forms of verse, inasmuch as alliteration, which was formerly peculiar to native versification, took possession in course of time to a considerable extent of the even-beat metres, especially of the four-foot iambic verse. But by this reciprocal influence of the two forms of verse the blending of the four-beat alliterative line with that of four equal measures and the ultimate predominance of the even-beat metres was brought about more easily and naturally. Alliterative-rhymed lines, the connexion of which into stanzas or staves will be treated of in the second part of this work under the heading of the 'Bob-wheel-stanza', were used during the Middle English period alike in lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry. § =59. Lyrical stanzas.= The earliest stanzas written in alliterative rhyming lines were lyrical. We must distinguish between isometric and anisometric stanza forms. In the former the whole stanza consists of four-beat alliterative lines, commonly rhyming according to a very simple scheme (either _a a a a_ or _a b a b_). In the latter four-beat long lines as a rule are combined with isolated lines of one measure only and with several of two measures to form the stanza. The two-beat verses frequently have a somewhat lengthened structure (to be discussed further on sections on the epic stanzas), in consequence of which many of them having theses with secondary accents can be read either as even-beat verses of three measures or as three-beat verses on the model of those in _King Horn_. The four-beat alliterative lines, on the other hand, are mostly of more regular structure, the distances between the first and second arsis not being so unequal and the theses as a rule being disyllabic. The anacrusis too in these verses admits of a somewhat free treatment. The difference, however, between the first and second hemistich is less conspicuous than it was in those forms of the Middle English alliterative line before mentioned. Alliteration, on the other hand, is abundantly used.