§ =239.= A variety that belongs to Modern English only is that in which the tail-verses are placed at the head of the half-stanzas, according to the formula _a b b a c c_. It occurs in Ben Jonson's _Hymn to God_ (Poets, iv. 561), consisting of two-foot iambic verses; another example, with four-foot trochaic verses, occurs in Mrs. Browning, _A Portrait_ (iii. 57); cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 274. A twelve-lined stanza, resulting from the doubling of the six-line stanza, is found only in Middle English poetry, its arrangement of rhymes being _a a b c c b d d b e e b_; or with a more elaborate rhyme-order, _a a b a a b c c b c c b_, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 41. Still another modification of the simple six-lined stanza consists in the addition of a third rhyme-verse to the two rhyming couplets of each half-stanza; so that an eight-lined stanza results with the scheme _a a a b c c c b_. Two specimens of this kind of stanza, consisting of two-stressed lines and occurring in Early English dramatic poetry, have been quoted above, § 70. The same stanza of two-foot verses occurs in the _Coventry Mysteries_, p. 342. In Modern English, too, we find it sometimes, consisting of three-foot iambic verses, as in Longfellow, _King Olaf's Death Drink_ (p. 577). Stanzas of five-, four-, and two-foot iambic verses and other metres are likewise in use. (For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 275.) Some rarely occurring extended forms of this stanza are exemplified in Metrik, ii, § 277, their schemes being _a ~ a ~ b ~ c d ~ d ~ b ~ c₄_, _a ~ b ~ c ~ d e ~ f ~ g ~ d₃_, _a b b c a d d c₄_, _a a a a b c c c c b₄_. Sixteen-lined stanzas of this kind of two-stressed verses (rhyming _a a a b c c c b d d d b e e e b_) that were frequently used in Middle English Romances have been quoted and discussed above, § 65. II. _Anisometrical Stanzas._ § =240.= In connexion with the last section, the chief species of the =tail-rhyme stanza= may be discussed here first of all. This stanza, as a rule, consists of four four-foot and two three-foot verses, rhyming according to the scheme _a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃_; cf. the following specimen (Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 101): _Lustneþ alle a lutel þrowe, Ȝe þat wolleþ ou selue yknowe, Unwys þah y be: Ichulle telle ou ase y con, Hou holy wryt spekeþ of mon; Herkneþ nou to me._ The last line of each half-stanza, the tail-verse proper, was originally simply a refrain. The tripartite character of the half-stanza and the popular origin of the stanza was shown long ago by Wolf, _Über die Lais, Sequenzen und Leiche_, p. 27 (cf. _Engl. Metrik_, i, pp. 353-7). According to him this stanza was developed first of all from choruses sung in turn by the people and from the ecclesiastical responses which also had a popular origin, and lastly from the sequences and 'proses' of the middle ages. A sequence-verse such as: _Egidio psallat coetus | iste laetus | Alleluia_,