The most important are the _real envois_. Of these, two subordinate species can be distinguished: (_a_) when the form of the envoi differs from the form of the stanza, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 92, and even more markedly in Chaucer's _Compleynt to his Purse_, a poem of stanzas of seven lines, the envoi of which addressed to the king consists of five verses only; (_b_) when the form of the envoi is the same as that of the other stanzas of the poem, as e.g. in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 111 (a greeting to a mistress), in Dunbar's _Goldin Targe_ (address to the poem itself). When the poem is of some length the envoi may consist of several stanzas; thus in Chaucer's _Clerkes Tale_ (stanzas of seven lines) the envoi has six stanzas of six lines each. _Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their form_ are generally shorter than the chief stanzas, but of similar structure. Generally speaking they are not very common. Specimens may be found in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, pp. 38, 47, &c. _Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their contents._ An example occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 31, where the concluding stanza contains an address to another poet. Religious poems end with addresses to God, Christ, the Virgin, invitations to prayer, &c.; for examples see Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 111, and _Hymns to the Virgin_ (ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S. 24), p. 39, &c. All these may possibly fall under this category. Even in Modern English poetry the envoi has not quite gone out of use. Short envois occur in Spenser, _Epithalamium_; S. Daniel, _To the Angel Spirit of Sir Philip Sidney_ (Poets, iv. 228); W. Scott, _Marmion_ (Envoy, consisting of four-foot verses rhyming in couplets), _Harold_, _Lord of the Isles_, _Lady of the Lake_ (Spenserian stanzas); Southey, _Lay of the Laureate_ (x. 139-74), &c.; Swinburne, _Poems and Ballads_, i, pp. 1, 5, 141, &c. Concluding stanzas resembling envois occur pretty often in poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Carew, Donne, Cowley, Waller, Dodsley, &c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, p. 794 note). NOTES: [186] See _The Oxford Dante_, pp. 379-400, or _Opere minori di Dante Alighieri_, ed. Pietro Fraticelli, vol. ii, p. 146, Florence, 1858, and Böhmer's essay, _Über Dante's Schrift de vulgari eloquentia_, Halle, 1868. [187] See B. ten Brink, _The Language and Metre of Chaucer_, translated by M. Bentinck Smith. London, Macmillan & Co., 1901, 8º, § 350. PART II STANZAS COMMON TO MIDDLE AND MODERN ENGLISH, AND OTHERS FORMED ON THE ANALOGY OF THESE CHAPTER III BIPARTITE EQUAL-MEMBERED STANZAS I. _Isometrical stanzas._