book.]




VI.


There is little need to dwell upon these crepuscular stirrings of
popular Latin poetry in the earlier Middle Ages. To indicate their
existence was necessary; for they serve to link by a dim and fragile
thread of evolution the decadent art of the base Empire with the
renascence of paganism attempted in the twelfth century, and thus to
connect that dawn of modern feeling with the orient splendours of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy.

The first point to notice is the dominance of music in this verse, and
the subjugation of the classic metres to its influence. A deeply
significant transition has been effected from the _versus_ to the
_modulus_ by the substitution of accent for quantity, and by the value
given to purely melodic cadences. A long syllable and a short
syllable have almost equal weight in this prosody, for the musical
tone can be prolonged or shortened upon either. So now the
_cantilena_, rather than the _metron_, rules the flow of verse; but,
at the same time, antique forms are still conventionally used, though
violated in the using. In other words, the modern metres of the modern
European races--the Italian Hendecasyllable, the French Alexandrine,
the English Iambic and Trochaic rhythms--have been indicated; and a
moment has been prepared when these measures shall tune themselves by
means of emphasis and accent to song, before they take their place as