In Skelton's metre the strict form of the alliterative four-beat line has arrived at the same stage of development which the freer form had reached about three hundred years earlier in Layamon's _Brut_, and afterwards in _King Horn_. That is to say, in Skelton's metre the long line is broken up by sectional rhyme into two short ones. The first specimens of this verse which occur in the _Towneley Mysteries_, in the _Chester Plays_, and in some of the Moralities, e.g. in _The World and the Child_ (Dodsl. i), resemble Layamon's verse in so far as long lines (without sectional rhymes) and short rhyming half-lines occur in one and the same passage. On the other hand, they differ from it and approach nearer to the strophic form of the alliterative line (as occurring in the Miracle Plays) in that the short lines do not rhyme in couplets, but in a different and varied order of rhyme, mostly _a b a b_; cf. the following passage (l. c., p. 247): _Ha, há, now Lúst and Líking is my náme. Í am =f=résh as =f=lówers in Máy, Í am =s=émly-=s=hápen ín =s=áme, And =p=róudly a=pp=áreled in =g=árments =g=áy: My =l=óoks been full =l=óvely to a =l=ády's eye, And in =l=óve-=l=ónging my héart is sore sét. Might I =f=índ a =f=óode that were =f=áir and =f=rée To lie in héll till dómsday for =l=óve I would not =l=ét, My =l=óve for to wín, All =g=áme and =g=lée, All =m=írth and =m=élody, All rével and ríot, And of =b=óast will I never =b=lín_, &c. In Skelton's _Magnificence_ the short lines rhyme in couplets like those of _King Horn_, in a passage taken from p. 257 (part of which may be quoted here): _Nowe lét me se abóut, In áll this rówte, Yf I cán fynde óut So sémely a snówte Amónge this prése: Éven a hole mése-- Péase, man, péase! I réde, we séase. So farly fáyre as it lókys, And her bécke so comely crókys, Her naylys shárpe as tenter hókys! I haue not képt her yet thre wókys And howe stýll she dothe sýt!_ &c., &c. In other poems Skelton uses short lines of two beats, but rhyming in a varied order under the influence, it would seem, of the strophic system of the virelay, which rhymes in the order _a a a b b b b c c c c d_. But the succession of rhymes is more irregular in the Skeltonic metre, as e. g. in the passage: _What cán it auáyle To drýue fórth a snáyle, Or to máke a sáyle Of an hérynges táyle; To rýme or to ráyle, To wrýte or to endýte, Eyther for delýte, Or élles for despýte; Or bókes to compýle Of dívers maner stýle_, &c. Colin Cloute (i. 311). In other cases short bob-lines of one beat only interchange with two-beat rhythms, as e.g. in Skelton's poem _Caudatos Anglos_ (i. 193):