By the mere fact that the variations adduced above may also occur after the first, third, and fourth foot, the number of verse-forms produced by the above-mentioned types of caesura in combination with initial truncation and the different kinds of verse-ending rises to sixty-four, to say nothing of the other metrical licences due to inversion of accent, level stress, and the presence of hypermetrical unaccented syllables at the beginning, or in the middle and the end of the line. At any rate, the varieties of even-beat metres, especially of the five-foot verse, resulting from these metrical licences, are much more numerous than those connected with the five main types of the alliterative hemistich. The great diversity of rhythm allowed by this metrical theory has, indeed, been objected to, but evidently without sufficient reason, and, as it seems, only because of the unfamiliarity of the idea. § =153.= This variable position of the caesura is, however, not found in the earliest specimens of this metre presented to us in the two poems in the Harl. MS. 2253 dating from the second half of the thirteenth century, which are edited in Wright's _Specimens of Lyric Poetry_, Nos. xl and xli (wrongly numbered xlii).[149] These are written in tripartite eight-lined, anisometrical stanzas of the form _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ c₅ c₅ d₇ d₅_, in which the fifth, sixth, and eighth lines are evidently of five feet. Ten Brink,[150] it is true, says that he has not been able 'to convince himself that this was a genuine instance of a metre which--whether in origin or character--might be identified with Chaucer's heroic verse, although in isolated instances it seems to coincide with it'. According to my conviction, there is not the slightest doubt as to the structure of these verses as lines of five feet, and Ten Brink has not expressed any opinion as to the nature of the verse to which they must otherwise be referred.[151] In both these poems there occur only verses of the type indicated by the formulas 3, 4, 7, 12: 3. _His hérte blód | he ȝéf for ál monkúnne._ xl. 35. 4. _Upón þe róde | why núlle we táken héde?_ ib. 27. 7. _Ȝéf bou dóst, | hit wól me réowe sóre._ xli. 20. 12. _Bote héo me lóuye, | sóre hil wól me réwe._ ib. 27. Among the Germanic licences the presence of a disyllabic initial or internal thesis is most noticeable in these which are, so far as is known, the earliest five-foot verses in English poetry; as, e.g. in xli. 33, 34: _Ase stérres beþ in wélkne, | and gráses sóur ant suéte; Whose lóueþ vntréwe, | his hérte is sélde séete._