Their popularity is conspicuous in their verse. The measure above may be found, indeed, among learned poets; but it is originally and usually the verse of common people. Latin popular verse, even in classical times, was probably accentual. Though still called by the grammarians dimeter, this particular measure is certainly accentual as it is used in hymns of later centuries, and as it is rendered later even in hymns of this early period. Is it accentual as rendered even here at the beginning of Latin hymnody? The answer, though still disputed, has been much advanced in the last fifty years. To begin with clear terms, _accentual_ means controlled by stresses; _quantitative_, controlled by time. All verse beyond mere mechanical exercise and doggerel has both elements; but every verse has one or the other for its control, its rhythm. All verse is something like dance, something like song; but every verse is dominated by the one rhythm or the other. In this sense English verse is accentual. Every expert English poet regards time also, as he is aware of alliteration or subtler recurrences, or as he uses rime; but he sets and holds his rhythm by stresses. In this sense modern French verse is quantitative. Though it regards other elements, including stress, it makes time, as English verse does not, essential in its pattern. The same difference distinguishes the verse of Bernard of Morlaix from the verse of Vergil, and generally medieval Latin verse from ancient. Medieval Latin verse has a different rhythm. Probably the new rhythmical habit began early. But when we try to determine dates, we should remember that old verse habits give way to new gradually. Poetic does not progress by revolutions. The decorative habit of the _Roman de la Rose_, though it is now a curious piece of antiquity, survived long after Chaucer had outgrown it and had even exploded it in satire. In verse, too, the three centuries including Chaucer help us to understand the centuries from Sedulius to Bede. With other court poets, Chaucer was bilingual. He not only understood and spoke French; he had French verse in his subconscious mind. True, the French verse of his time shows, more than that of to-day, awareness of stress. The two rhythms were so much less distinct that Chaucer could more easily turn French to the profit of his own development in metric. None the less his rhythm is English. In spite of his ready tolerance of a shift of stress in foreign words, and of the enhancing of his harmonies by long vowels, his rhythm, the pattern or control of his verse, is consistently accentual. The first great English poet, as he used French, indeed, but turned for his poetry to English, kept no less confidently English rhythm.