King James VI was a contemporary of the last poets who wrote in alliterative lines in the North and therefore undoubtedly had heard such poems read by reciters who had kept up the true tradition of their scansion. We have here then the very best proof we can desire not only of the four-beat rhythm of the line, but also of the fact that unaccented words, although they may alliterate intentionally, as they do often in poems of the fifteenth century, or unintentionally, as earlier, do not get a full accent in consequence of the alliteration, as some scholars have thought, but remain unaccented.[109] As to the quality of the alliteration the same laws on the whole still prevail as in Old English poetry, but are less strictly observed. Thus frequently voiced and unvoiced sounds alliterate together, and the aspiration is neglected; _f_ alliterates with _v_, _v_ with _w_, _w_ with _wh_, _s_ with _sh_ or with combinations of _s_ and other consonants, _g_ with _k_, _h_ with _ch_: _=h=értes and =h=índes | and =ó=þer bestes mánye._ W. 389. _of =f=álsnesse and =f=ásting | and =v=óuwes ibróken._ P. P. Prol. 68. _bat he =w=íst =w=íterly | it was the =v=óis of a childe._ W. 40. _to a=c=órde wiþ þe =k=íng | and =g=ráunte his wílle._ ib. 3657. _I =s=áyle now in þe =s=ée | as =sch=íp boute mást._ ib. 567. _such =ch=ástite withouten =ch=árite | worþ =cl=áymed in hélle!_ P. P. i. 168. On the other hand, sometimes (as e.g. in the _Alisaunder_ fragments) greater strictness may be noticed in regard to alliteration of vowels, as only the same vowels[110] are allowed to alliterate: _wiþ þé =é=rldam of =É=nuye | =é=uer forto láste._ P. P. ii. 63. Later on, in the fifteenth century, vocalic alliteration in general falls into disuse more and more. § =55. Comparison of Middle English and Old English alliterative verse.= With regard to the rhythmic structure of the verse the Middle English alliterative line is not very different from the corresponding Old English metre. Two beats in each hemistich are, of course, the rule, and it has been shown by Dr. K. Luick, in a very valuable paper on the English alliterative line in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,[111] that all the different types which Prof. Sievers has discovered for the two sections of the Old English alliterative line occur here again, but with certain modifications. The modifications which the five chief types have undergone originated in the tendency to simplify their many varieties exactly in the same way as the Old English inflexional forms of the language were simplified and generalized in the Middle English period.