This meeter of twelue sillables the French man calleth a verse _Alexandrine_, and is with our moderne rimers most usuall: with the auncient makers it was not so. For before Sir _Thomas Wiats_ time they were not vsed in our vulgar, they be for graue and stately matters fitter than for any other ditty of pleasure. Some makers write in verses of foureteene sillables giuing the _Cesure_ at the first eight, which proportion is tedious, for the length of the verse kepeth the eare too long from his delight, which is to heare the cadence or the tuneable accent in the ende of the verse. Neuerthelesse that of twelue if his _Cesure_ be iust in the middle, and that ye suffer him to runne at full length, and do not as the common rimers do; or their Printer for sparing of paper, cut them of in the middest, wherin they make in two verses but halfe rime. They do very wel as wrote the Earle of Surrey translating the booke of the preacher. _Salomon Davids sonne, king of Ierusalem._ This verse is a very good _Alexandrine_, but perchaunce woulde haue sounded more musically, if the first word had bene a dissillable, or two monosillables and not a trissillable: hauing his sharpe accent vppon the _Antepenultima_ as it hath, by which occasion it runnes like a _Dactill_, and carries the two later sillables away so speedily as it seemes but one foote in our vulgar measure, and by that meanes makes the verse seeme but of eleuen sillables, which odnesse is nothing pleasant to the eare. Iudge some body whether it would haue done better (if it might) haue bene fayd thus, _Roboham Dauids sonne, king of Ierusalem._ Letting the sharpe accent fall vpon _bo_, or thus _Restore king Dauids sonne vnto Ierusalem_. For now the sharpe accent falles vpon _bo_, and so doth it vpon the last in _restore_, which was not in th'other verse. But because we haue seemed to make mention of _Cesure_, and to appoint his place in euery measure, it shall not be amisse to say somewhat more of it, & also of such pauses as are vsed in vtterance, & what commoditie or delectation they bring either to the speakers or to the hearers. _CHAP. IIII._ _Of Cesure._