_Sir Hárry Pérssy cam to the wálles, The Skóttish óste for to sé; And sáyd, and thou hast brént Northómberlónd, Full sóre it réwyth mé._ The ballads of the end of the Middle English period are generally composed in far more regular lines or stanzas. The feminine endings of the Septenary are, however, as a rule replaced by masculine endings, whether the lines rhyme crosswise or only in the three-foot verses. Cf. the ballad, _The Lady's Fall_ (Ritson, ii. 110), which, however, was probably composed as late as the Modern English period: _Mark wéll my héavy dóleful tále, You lóyal lóvers áll, And héedfullý béar in your bréast A gállant lády's fáll._ § =140.= In Modern English the Septenary has been extensively used, both in long and in short rhyming lines. One special variety of it, consisting of stanzas of four lines, alternately of eight and six syllables (always with masculine ending), is designated in hymn-books by the name of Common Metre. In the long-lined form this metre occurs at the beginning of this period in poems of some length, as, for instance, in William Warner's _Albion's England_, and in Chapman's translation of the _Iliad_. Here, too, the ending of the line is almost without exception masculine, and the rhythm, on the whole, pretty regular, although this regularity, especially in Chapman, is, in accordance with the contemporary practice, only attained by alternate full pronunciation and slurring of the same syllables (Romanic _-ion_, _-ious_, &c., and Germanic _-ed_, &c.) and by inversion of accent. The caesura is always masculine at the end of the first hemistich, but masculine or feminine minor caesuras are often met with after the second or in the third foot, sometimes also after the first or in the second: _Occásioned thús: | Chrýses the príest || cáme to the fléet to búy._ i. 11. _To plágue the ármy, | ánd to déath || by tróops the sóldiers wént._ ib. 10. Secondary caesuras also occur, though less frequently, in other places in the line, particularly in the second hemistich: _But íf thou wílt be sáfe begóne. || This sáid, | the séa-beat shóre._ ib. 32. _All mén in óne aróse and sáid: || Atrídes, | nów I sée._ ib. 54.