In his practice with regard to the caesura, the suppression of the anacrusis, and the use of disyllabic theses in the interior of the verse, he differs little from his predecessors. One distinctive feature of his verse is that he usually gives their full syllabic value to the Teutonic inflexional endings (_-ed_, _-est_), as well as to the Romanic noun- and adjective-suffixes; as _-iage_, _-iance_, _-ion_, _-eous_, _-ial_ &c. (cf. §§ 102-7). By a frequent use of these endings as full syllables which is not always in conformity with the spoken language of his time, his verse obtains a certain dignity and pathos; cf. the following lines: _Yét in my thóughts | shall Chríst be hónouréd._ Tamb. ii, p. 148. _They sáy, | we áre a scáttered | nátión._ Jew of M. I, Sc. i. _These métaphýsics | óf magíciáns._ Faust. I, Sc. ii. Allied with this is the fact that Marlowe still has a great predilection for masculine endings, although feminine endings are also met with now and then, especially in his later plays. Run-on lines do not often occur, but many two- and three-foot lines as well as heroic couplets are found at the end of longer speeches, scenes, and acts. The blank verse of Greene, Peele, Kyd, and Lodge has a similar structure to that of Marlowe, especially as regards the prevalence of masculine endings. The verse of Greene and Peele, however, is rather monotonous, because generally the caesura occurs after the second foot. On the other hand, the metre of Kyd and Lodge stands in this respect much nearer to that of Marlowe and in general shows greater variety.[156] § =164. The blank verse of Shakespeare=,[157] which is of great interest in itself, and moreover has been carefully examined during the last decades from different points of view, requires to be discussed somewhat more fully. It is of the first importance to notice that Shakespeare's rhythms have different characteristic marks in each of the four periods of his career which are generally accepted.[158] For the determination of the dates of his plays the metrical peculiarities are often of great value in the absence of other evidence, or as confirming conclusions based on chronological indications of a different kind; but theories on the dates of the plays should not be built solely upon these metrical tests, as has been done, for instance, by Fleay. Such criticisms, generally speaking, have only a subordinate value, as, amongst others, F.J. Furnivall has shown in his treatise _The Succession of Shakespeare's works and the use of metrical tests in settling it_ (London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1877. 8º). The differences in the treatment of the verse which are of greatest importance as distinctive of the several periods of Shakespeare's work are the following: