And again: "Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that fassoun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule quhilk I gave before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth. Quhair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, quhen they keip ordour: albeit the maist part of thame be out of ordour, and keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit Tumbling verse." (Arber Reprint, pp. 68, 63, 64.) See further on the persistent use of this rough measure in English, side by side with the more regular syllable-counting verse, Schipper's observations and examples in the _Grundriss der Englische Metrik_, pp. 109 ff. As a modern example Schipper cites one of Thackeray's ballads: "This Mary was pore and in misery once, And she came to Mrs. Roney it's more than twelve monce. She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner nor no tea, And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three." [18] This poem of Robert Manning's was a translation of a Norman French work, Waddington's _Manuel des Pechiez_. The following is the original of the passage here reproduced: "Si vus unques par folye Entremeissez de nigremancie, Ou feites al deable sacrifise, Ou enchantement par fol aprise; Ou, a gent de tiel mester Ren donastes pur lur jugler, Ou pur demander la verite De chose qe vous fut a dire,-- Fet avez apertement Encuntre ceo commandement; Ceo est grant mescreaunceie, Duter de ceo, ne devez mie." (Furnivall ed. of Manning, p. 12. ll. 1078-1089.) II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE The five-stress or decasyllabic verse (iambic pentameter) is so much more widely used in modern English poetry than any other verse-form, that its history is of special interest. It is curious that a form so completely adopted as the favorite of English verse should be borrowed rather than native; but, the syllable-counting principle once being admitted, there is nothing in five-stress verse inconsistent with native English tendencies. A very great part of such verse has really only four full accents, and this we have seen to be the number of accents in the native English verse. On this point, see further remarks in connection with the specimen from Spenser, p. 180 below. This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic couplet) and unrimed (blank verse). The rimed form was the earlier, the unrimed being merely a modification of it under the influence of other unrimed metres. A.--THE DECASYLLABIC COUPLET Lutel wot hit anymon, hou love hym haveþ ybounde, Þat for us oþe rode ron, ant boht us wiþ is wounde. Þe love of hym us haveþ ymaked sounde, ant ycast þe grimly gost to grounde. Ever & oo, nyht & day, he haveþ us in is þohte, He nul nout leose þat he so deore bohte. * * * * *