§ =155.= The end also of the line may be either masculine or feminine. Both kinds occur side by side on a perfectly equal footing, the feminine endings probably somewhat oftener in Chaucer's verse owing to the numerous terminations consisting of _e_ or _e_ + consonant which were still pronounced at his time. Besides the variety in the caesura and the end of the verse, the well-known licences of even-beat rhythm play a considerable part; as, for instance, inversion of accent, ordinary and rhetorical, at the beginning of the verse and after the caesura: rédy _to wénden_ Prol. 21; Sýngynge _he wás_ ib. 91; Schórt _was his góune_ ib. 93; Tróuthe _and honóur_, frédom _and cóurteisíe_ ib. 46. Although omission of the anacrusis is on the whole unfrequent, it yet undoubtedly occurs (cf. p. 137, footnote): _Ál besmótered | wíth his hábergeóun._ Prol. 76. _Gýnglen ín a | whístlyng wýnd as clére._ ib. 170. Disyllabic theses are often found initially and internally. _With a thrédbare cópe | as is a póure schóler._ Prol. 262. _Of Éngelónd, | to Cáunterbúry they wénde._ ib. 16. Similar rhythmical phenomena are caused by the slurring of syllables, such, e.g., as _Many a, tharray_ from _the array_, &c., &c., in regard to which reference should be made to the chapter on the metrical value of syllables. Level stress occurs most frequently in Chaucer in rhyme: _f+i+ft+é+ne_: _Trámasséne_ 61-2; _d+a+gg+é+re_: _spere_ 113-14; _thing_: _wr+i+t+ý+ng_ 325-6. Enjambement and rhyme-breaking are used by him with great skill (cf. §§ 92, 93). § =156.= In later Middle English this metre on the whole retained the same character, and individual poets vary from one another only in a few points. Of Gower's five-foot verse only short specimens are preserved. Like his four-foot verse, they are very generally regular. Inversion of accent is the licence he most often employs. Gower uses almost exclusively the masculine caesura after the second foot and the lyric caesura in the third foot. But epic caesura also occasionally occurs in his verse: _Fór of batáille | the fínal énde is pés._ Praise of Peace, 66. A decline in the technique of the five-foot verse begins with Lydgate and Hoccleve. These writers deprived the caesura of its mobility and admitted it almost exclusively after the second beat. Hoccleve uses hardly any caesuras but the masculine and lyric, whilst in Lydgate's verse epic caesura is often met with (cf. p. 211). Both indulge in the licences of initial truncation and omission of the unaccented syllable after the caesura (cf. l. c.) as well as level stress and the admission of several unaccented syllables at the beginning of the verse and internally; there are even cases of the omission of unaccented syllables in the middle of the verse: _Of hárd márble | they díde anóther máke._ Min. P., p. 85, 24. The slight license of inversion of accent is also taken advantage of.