The rhymed five-foot verse was known in English poetry as far back as the second half of the thirteenth century, and has been a favourite metre from Chaucer's first poetic attempts onward to the present, whilst the blank verse was first introduced into English literature about the year 1540 by the Earl of Surrey (1518-47), and has been frequently employed ever since that time. The rhymed five-foot verse was, and has continued to be, mainly preferred for lyrical and epic, the blank verse for dramatic poetry. The latter, however, has been employed e.g. by Milton, and after him by Thomson and many others for the epic and allied species of poetry; while rhymed five-foot verse was used during a certain period for dramatic poetry, e.g. by Davenant and Dryden, but by the latter only for a short time. =Rhymed five-accent verse= occurs in Middle English both in poems composed in stanza form and (since Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_, c. 1386) in couplets. This metre, apart from differences in the length of the line and in number of accents, is by no means to be looked upon as different from the remaining even-stressed metres of that time. For, like the Middle English four-foot verse and the Alexandrine, it derives its origin from a French source, its prototype being the French decasyllabic verse. This is a metre with rising rhythm, in which the caesura generally comes after the fourth syllable, as e.g. in the line: _Ja mais n'iert tels | com fut as anceisors._ Saint Alexis, l. 5. To this verse the following line of Chaucer's corresponds exactly in point of structure: _A kníght ther wás, | and thát a wórthy mán._ Cant. Tales, Prol. 43. § =152.= The English verse, like the French decasyllabic, admits feminine caesuras and feminine line-endings, and the first thesis (anacrusis) may be absent; there are, therefore, sixteen varieties theoretically possible. I. Principal Types. 1. ⏑ – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 syll. 2. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 11 " 3. ⏑ – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 " 4. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 12 " II. With Initial Truncation (omission of the first thesis). 5. – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 syll. 6. – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 10 " 7. – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 " 8. – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 " III. With Internal Truncation (omission of the thesis after the caesura). 9. ⏑ – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 syll. 10. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 10 " 11. ⏑ – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 " 12. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 " IV. With both Initial and Internal Truncation. 13. – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 8 syll. 14. – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 " 15. – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 9 " 16. – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 "