The poetry of the Saxons was without rhyme, and the author of "an essay on Chaucer," says, "without metre." The learned antiquary must have attached a meaning to the word _metre_, wholly at variance with that now and usually received. Metre (from the Greek [Greek: metron] and Latin _metrum_) has several meanings, but scarcely distinct ones: all may be included in that of 'an harmonious disposition of words.' It is not enough to say that it differed from prose in being the language of passion. The general rules by which we judge poetry, are immutable, and equally applicable to that of Greeks, Saxons, and modern English. Dr. Blair and his authorities, define poetry to be "the language of passion metrically arranged," (I quote from memory) and supported so ably, I will not consent to a halving of the definition. The before mentioned Essayist on Chaucer, adduces the "vision of Pierce Ploughman" as a specimen of the Saxon style of poetry. And herein it becomes evident that he mistakes the meaning of the word _metre_. For those old lines, composed about the middle of the fourteenth century, are, notwithstanding the ancient mode of writing without breaks or division into lines, beyond doubt capable of being arranged in separate and distinct verses. I am not without support in the opinion here given; Dr. Hickes[6] maintains that the Saxons observed syllabic quantities "though perhaps not so strictly as the Greek and Latin heroic poets." It may be asked how this comes to be at all a question, since monuments of Saxon poetry still remain by which we can judge. But it is no such easy matter to judge correctly. Syllables were accented much at the whim of the versifyer; so much so that general rules for the disposition of accent are little less than useless. Add to this the common custom, before mentioned, of writing poetry and prose alike; and when we remember that the object in view is to ascertain the number and accentuation of syllables, the wonder will disappear. [Footnote 6: Pref. Sax. Gram.] One among the earliest specimens of the use of rhyme in the Island of Great Britain, is to be found in the Saxon Chronicle. The author says that he himself had seen the Conqueror, and we may thence infer that the lines were written in the reign of William Rufus, or at farthest in that of his brother and successor Henry. It may be as well before quoting this literary curiosity, to notice a distich in itself trifling, and only worth noticing as the very earliest specimen of Saxon Rhyme, on record. Aldred, Archbishop of York, threw out two rhyming verses against one _Urse_, sheriff of Worcestershire, not long after the conquest: "_Hatest thou Urse--Have thou God's curse._" _Vocaris Ursus--Habeas dei maledictionem._