On a particular occasion the poet submitted to the restraint of equal syllables, as we discover in "The Court of Love," elaborately metrical, and addressed to "his princely lady," with the hope that she might not refuse it "for lack of ornate speech." It is evident, therefore, that Chaucer had a distinct conception of the heroic or decasyllabic verse, but he did not consider that the mechanical construction of his verse was essential to the free spirit of his fancy. "I am no metrician," he once exclaimed; he wrote Books, songs, ditees In RIME, or else in CADENCE. "The House of Fame." This circumstance arose from the custom of the age, when poems were _recited_, and not _read_; readers there were none among the people, though auditors were never wanting; it was much the same among the higher orders. Poems were usually performed in plain chant, and a verse was musical by the modulation of the harp. There was no typographical metre placed under the eye of the reciter; the melody of the poet too often depended on the adroitness of the performer; and the only publishers of the popular poems of Chaucer were the harpers, who, in stately halls on festal days, entranced their audience with Chaucer's Tale, or his "Ballade." His poem of "Troilus and Cressida," although almost as long as the Æneid, was intended to be _sung_ to the harp as well as _read_, as the poet himself tells us, in addressing his poem--- And _redde_ where so thou be, or elles _sung_. In the most ancient manuscripts of Chaucer's works the cæsura in every line is carefully noted, to preserve the rhythmical cadence with precision; without this precaution the harmony of such loose versification would be lost. In the later editions, when the race of roaming minstrels had departed, and our verse had become solely metrical, the printers omitted this guide to the ancient recitation. We perceive this want in the uncertain measures of Chaucer's versification; and a dexterous modulation is still required to catch the recitative of Chaucer's poems.