It now remains to compare _English Bards_ with other examples of English classical satire, if one may apply that title to poems which use the heroic couplet and follow the methods employed by Pope. Byron’s versification in his early satires shows the effect of a careful study of Pope. It is singularly free from double rhymes, there being but five instances of them in _English Bards_.[113] Byron was somewhat more sparing than Pope in his use of the run-on line. Adopting as a basis of judgment the conclusion of Mr. Gosse that “with occasional exceptions, the presence or want of a mark of punctuation may be made the determining element,” we find that, of the 1070 lines in _English Bards_, approximately 101 are of the run-on variety, that is, about ten out of every hundred. In Mr. Gosse’s collation of typical passages from other poets, he estimates that Dryden has 11, Pope 4, and Keats 40 run-on lines out of every hundred. In the whole length of Byron’s poem there is but one run-on couplet; in a hundred consecutive lines selected by Mr. Gosse, Dryden has one such example and Pope none. Twice Byron employs the triplet,[114] and he has two alexandrines.[115] The medial cæsura after the 4th, 5th, or 6th foot of the line occurs with great regularity as it does in Pope’s work. There are a few minor peculiarities in rhyming,[116] but in general the rhymes are pure. In summarizing, it is safe to say that Byron adhered closely to the metrical principles established by Pope. Not until Hunt, Keats, and Shelley introduced the looser and less monotonous system of versification used in _Rimini_, _Endymion_, and _Epipsychidion_, was the heroic couplet freed from the shackles with which Pope had bound it.