When the drama, and in particular tragedy, was reinstituted in England, sentimental readers found a field for their emotions on the stage, and the heroic romances immediately began to go out of fashion. They lingered, however, for a quarter of a century more, and M. Jusserand has analysed what may be considered the very latest of the race, _Pandion and Amphigenia_, published in 1665 by the dramatist, John Crowne. See Gordon de Percel, _De l'usage des romans_ (1734); Andre Le Breton, _Le Roman au XVII^e siecle_ (1890); Paul Morillot, _Le Roman en France depuis 1610_ (1894); J. J. Jusserand, _Le Roman anglais au XVII^e siecle_ (1888). (E. G.) HEROIC VERSE, a term exclusively used in English to Indicate the rhymed iambic line or HEROIC COUPLET. In ancient literature, the heroic verse, [Greek: heroikon metron], was synonymous with the dactylic hexameter. It was in this measure that those typically heroic poems, the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ and the _Aeneid_ were written. In English, however, it was not enough to designate a single iambic line of five beats as heroic verse, because it was necessary to distinguish blank verse from the distich, which was formed by the heroic couplet. This had escaped the notice of Dryden, when he wrote "The English Verse, which we call Heroic, consists of no more than ten syllables." If that were the case, then _Paradise Lost_ would be written in heroic verse, which is not true. What Dryden should have said is "consists of two rhymed lines, each of ten syllables." In French the alexandrine has always been regarded as the heroic measure of that language. The dactylic movement of the heroic line in ancient Greek, the famous [Greek: rhythmos heroos] of Homer, is expressed in modern Europe by the iambic movement. The consequence is that much of the rush and energy of the antique verse, which at vigorous moments was like the charge of a battalion, is lost. It is owing to this, in part, that the heroic couplet is so often required to give, in translation, the full value of a single Homeric hexameter. It is important to insist that it is the couplet, not the single line, which constitutes heroic verse. It is interesting to note that the Latin poet Ennius, as reported by Cicero, called the heroic metre of one line _versum longum_, to distinguish it from the brevity of lyrical measures. The current form of English heroic verse appears to be the invention of Chaucer, who used it in his _Legend of Good Women_ and afterwards, with still greater freedom, in the _Canterbury Tales_. Here is an example of it in its earliest development:-- "And thus the longe day in fight they spend, Till, at the last, as everything hath end, Anton is shent, and put him to the flight, And all his folk to go, as best go might."