Stephen Hawes and Barclay again imparted to this line greater freedom with regard to the caesura. And yet the metre exhibits under their hands, in consequence of the frequent occurrence of disyllabic initial and internal theses, a somewhat uneven rhythm. The ablest of the successors of Chaucer, in technique as in other respects, are the Scots: Blind Harry, Henrysoun, King James I, Douglas, and Dunbar. The verse of Dunbar, in particular, stands on an equality with Chaucer's in rhythmical euphony, while David Lyndesay often struggles with difficulties of form, and, by frequent use of level stress, offends against the first principle of even-beat rhythm, viz. the coincidence of the metrical accent with the natural accentuation of the word and sentence. § =157.= In Modern English the rhymed five-foot verse remains essentially the same as in the Middle English period. Feminine rhymes are indeed rarer than in Middle English poetry in consequence of the disuse of flexional endings. For the same reason, and owing to the advance in technical execution, the epic caesura is also rarer. Still, examples of this as well as of the other kind of caesuras employed by Chaucer are found in Modern English: I. _The níghtingále | with féathers néw she síngs._ Sur. p. 3. II. _The sóte séason | that búd and blóom forth bríngs._ ib. p. 3. III. _Itsélf from trávail | óf the dáys unrést._ ib. p. 2. IV. _The sún hath twíce brought fórth | his ténder gréen._ V. _He knóweth how gréat Atrídes, | that máde Troy frét._ Wyatt, 152. VI. _At lást she ásked sóftly, | whó was thére._ ib. 187. In positions nearer to the beginning or the end of the line the different kinds of caesura are also rare in Modern English, and occur mostly in consequence of enjambements. In Wyatt's poems epic caesuras are found in comparatively large number; in Spenser, on the other hand, they are probably entirely lacking, owing to a finer feeling for the technique of the verse. Inversions of accent occur in the usual positions and at all times with all the poets. Level stress, on the other hand, is more frequently detected in such poets as do not excel in technical skill, as, for instance, in Wyatt and Donne, who also admit initial truncation, and more rarely the omission of a thesis in the middle of the line. In their poems disyllabic theses also often occur initially and internally, while more careful poets more rarely permit themselves these licences. To Wyatt's charge must be laid further the unusual and uncouth licence of unaccented rhyme, such rhymes, for example, as _begínnìng: eclípsìng_, p. 56, 1-3; _dréadèth: séekèth_, _inclósèd: oppréssèd_ 54, &c. In other poets this peculiarity is hardly ever found.