In Gower’s five-accent line, as exhibited in the Supplication of viii. 2217-2300 and in the poem _In Praise of Peace_, Schipper finds less smoothness of metre, ‘owing perhaps to the greater unfamiliarity and difficulty of the stanza and verse’ (_Englische Metrik_, i. 483 ff.). His examples, however, are not conclusive on this point. Some of the lines cited owe their irregularity to corruptions of text, and others prove to be quite regularly in accordance with Gower’s usual metrical principles. For instance, in viii. 2220 the true text is ‘That wher so that I reste or I travaile,’ which is a metrically perfect line. Again, in the _Praise of Peace_, l. 79, ‘And to the heven it ledeth ek the weie,’ it is impossible, according to Gower’s usage, that ‘heven’ should stand as a dissyllable. He wrote always ‘hevene,’ and the penultimate was syncopated. So also ‘levere’ in l. 340, ‘evere,’ l. 376. Hence there is no ‘epic caesura’ in any of these cases. Nor again in l. 164, ‘Crist is the heved,’ can ‘heved’ be taken as a dissyllable in the verse: it is always metrically equivalent to ‘hed.’ The only fair instance of a superfluous syllable at the caesura is in l. 66, ‘For of bataile the final ende is pees.’ It seems that the trochee occurs more commonly here than in the short line. Such examples as Schipper quotes, occurring at the beginning of the line, ‘Axe of thi god, so schalt thou noght be werned,’ ‘Pes is the chief of al the worldes welthe,’ are of the same character as those which we find in the octosyllabics. Perhaps, however, a difference is afforded by the more frequent occurrence of the same licence in other parts of the verse, as, ‘So that undir his swerd it myht obeie,’ 39. The rhyming on words like ‘manhode,’ ‘axinge,’ &c., is in accordance with the poet’s general usage. On the whole, the combination of the syllabic and the accentual system is effected in the five-accent line of these stanzas almost as completely as in the short couplet; and in his command of the measure, in the variety of his caesura, and the ease with which he passes without pause from line to line and rounds off the stanza with the matter, the author shows himself to be as fully master of his craft upon this ground as in the more familiar measure of the _Confessio Amantis_.