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The Arte of English Poesie by George Puttenham
page 74 of 344 (21%)
from them, I meane the running of their feete, there is nothing of
curiositie among them more then with vs nor yet so much.




_CHAP. III._

_How many sorts of measures we use in our vulgar._


To returne from rime to our measure againe, it hath bene sayd that
according to the number of the sillables contained in euery verse, the
same is sayd a long or short meeter, and his shortest proportion is of
foure sillables, and his longest of twelue, they that vse it aboue, passe
the bounds of good proportion. And euery meeter may be aswel in the odde
as in the euen sillable, but better in the euen, and one verse may begin
in the euen, & another follow in the odde, and so keepe a commendable
proportion. The verse that containeth but two silables which may be in one
word, is not vsuall: therefore many do deny him to be a verse, saying that
it is but a foot, and that a meeter can haue no lesse then two feete at
the least, but I find it otherwise aswell among the best Italian Poets, as
also with our vulgar makers, and that two sillables serue wel for a short
measure in the first place, and midle, and end of a staffe: and also in
diuerse scituations and by sundry distances, and is very passionate and of
good grace, as shalbe declared more at large in the Chapter of proportion
by scituation.

The next measure is of two feete or of foure sillables, and then one word
_tetrasillable_ diuided in the middest makes vp the whole meeter, as thus
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