In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis (_Quomodo E. Spenserus_, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in _Modern Language Notes_ for November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English_ (1575), we find: "There are also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below. Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), where the writer compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.) _Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:_ Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage L'immortel s'émouvant, n'eût pas sonné si tôt La retraite des eaux que soudain flot sur flot Elles gaignent au pied; tous les fleuves s'abaissant. Le mer rentre en prison; les montagnes renaissent. (DU BARTAS: _La Première Semaine_. 1579.) See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse. _Specimen of early blank verse printed with regular medial cesura:_ O Knights, O Squires, O Gentle blouds yborne, You were not borne, al onely for your selves: Your countrie claymes, some part of al your paines. There should you live, and therein should you toyle, To hold up right, and banish cruel wrong, To helpe the pore, to bridle backe the riche, To punish vice, and vertue to advaunce, To see God servde, and Belzebub supprest. You should not trust, lieftenaunts in your rome, And let them sway, the scepter of your charge, Whiles you (meane while) know scarcely what is don, Nor yet can yeld, accompt if you were callde. (GASCOIGNE: _The Steel Glass_, ll. 439 ff. 1576.)