In the Elizabethan age the alexandrine and the septenary were each used
chiefly in conjunction with the other, in alternation of six-stress and
seven-stress verses. The name commonly applied to the combination is
taken from Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction_ (1575), where he says:
"The commonest sort of verse which we use now adayes (viz. the long
verse of twelve and fourtene sillables) I know not certainly howe to
name it, unlesse I should say that it doth consist of Poulters measure,
which giveth xii. for one dozen and xiiii. for another." (Arber's
Reprint, p. 39.) It strikes the reader with surprise to find the measure
thus spoken of as "the commonest sort of verse," but a glance at any of
the early Elizabethan anthologies will show the justness of Gascoigne's
words. Yet the measure, while exceedingly popular, seems to have been
instinctively avoided by the best poets (after the days of Surrey and
Sidney); hence it is unfamiliar to modern readers.
The use of alexandrines and septenaries together, we have seen, was
common even in the Middle English period, but not in regular
alternation. The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (about 1300) mingles
both measures, but with alexandrines predominating. In some of the early
Mystery Plays they are found in alternation; for example, where Jacob,
in one of the Towneley plays, is relating his hunger to Esau:
"Meat or drink, save my life, or bread, I reck not what:
If there be nothing else, some man give me a cat."
See also the specimen from _The Marriage of Wit and Science_, p. 256,
above.
Schipper says that he does not know who first brought the two measures
together in alternate use for lyrical poetry. Guest says that the
Poulter's Measure came into fashion soon after 1500 (_History of English
Rhythms_), but gives no examples so early. The history of the measure
should be further investigated.
After the Elizabethan period the Poulter's Measure practically
disappears from English poetry. A curious suggestion of it may be found
in a little poem of Leigh Hunt's (_Wealth and Womanhood_), cited by
Schipper, who calls the verse "Poulter's Measure in trochaics":
"Have you seen an heiress in her jewels mounted,
Till her wealth and she seemed one, and she might be counted?"
Laid in my quiet bed, in study as I were,
I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear:
And every thought did show so lively in mine eyes,
That now I sighed, and then I smiled, as cause of thought doth rise.
(EARL OF SURREY: _How no Age is Content with his Own Estate_, in
Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. Arber's Reprint, p. 30. Pub. 1557.)
Her forehead jacinth like, her cheeks of opal hue,
Her twinkling eyes bedeck'd with pearl, her lips as sapphire blue;
Her hair like crapal stone, her mouth O heavenly wide;
Her skin like burnish'd gold, her hands like silver ore untried.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Mopsa_, in the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.)