Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/130

VERSIFICATION. 96 English roetre. The eight-line stanza, imitated from the Italian 'ottava rima' {rhyming abababcc ) , was introduced by Wyatt and Surrey, and used by Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Harring- ton, and Fairfax, cliiefly in romantic poetry. In the nineteenth century Keats, Shelley, and other poets wrote it in the romantic spirit, while Byron and Hookham Frere turned it to satirical uses. The 'Spenserian' stanza (whatever the exact process of its formation) consists of eight pentameter lines (rhyming ababbcbc) with an added Alexandrine. It was invented by Spenser and used in the greater part of his poetry; and it has been imitated by a nuniljer of later poets, among them Thomson, Shenstoup, Beattie, and Keats. The pentameter couplet, Chaucer's favor- ite metre, was used by the Elizabethans for various purposes. But its greatest vogue wa8 in the 'classic' period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it was steadily de- veloped and perfected by Jonson, Sandys, Waller, Denham. Dryden, and Pope. Throughout the eighteenth century it was the prevailing measure and was written by many poets with strictness and technical skill". In the nineteenth century a freer form, approaching the efl'ect of 'blank verse,' was developed by Leigh Hunt, Keats, Shelley, and Browning. Alongside of the 'heroic couplet' should be mentioned the less widely used 'heroic stanza' (a pentameter quatrain rhyming abab), best known through Gray's Elegy. Blank verse, or iambic pentameter measure without rhyme, is probably the most distinctive of Eng- lish metres, and has served the highest uses. Introduced in the sixteenth century, during the classical reaction against rhyme, it became in the hands of Marlowe and Shakespeare the ac- cepted form for English dramatic poetry ; and after Jlilton's use of it in Paradise Lost it was widely adopted for epic and reflective poetry as well. Among the non-dramatic writers who used it in the eighteenth century were Blair, Akenside, Thomson, Young, and Cowper. In the nineteenth century it was very generally written — in highest perfection, perhaps, by Keats and Tennyson, and with great freedom and in- dividuality by Browning. (For fuller treatment of the more important lyric forms, see Ode; Sonnet.) It is impossible to take account here of the numerous minor metrical form.s, chiefly lyric, of different periods. Some of them have arisen from the imitation of French metres which began in the Middle English period. There was a distinct revival of this in the nineteenth century, represented by the lighter verse of HenU'V, Dobson, and Andrew Lang. A number of metrical experiments have been made in the effort to reproduce in English the ancient classi- cal verse-forms, sometimes preserving even their quantitative scansion. On(' inijiortant metre which has been often tried, but never completely naturalized, is the dactylic hexameter. Tliis was first taken up in the time of the classical Renais- sance, and among the poets who attempted it were Stanyhurst and Gabriel Harvey, and even Sidney and Spenser. The earlv hexameters were quantitative. In the eighteenth century the measure was revived, largely under German in- fluence, by Coleridge and William Taylor. The modern hexameters have been for the most part accentual in rhythm, and in the hands of VERTEBRATA. Southey, Clough, Longfellow, and Kingsley have attained some real popularity. Bibliography. General theory: J. B. Mayor, Chapters on English Metre (2d ed., Cambridge, 1901), a valuable exposition of the usual sys- tem of metrics; for recent attempts to develop a new system, compare Sidney Lanier, Science of English Verse (New York, 1881); Dabney, The Musical Basis of English 'erse (ib., 1901) ; Lid- dell, An Introduction to the Study of Poetry (ib., 1902). For general historical surveys, see Ed- win Guest, A History of English Rhythms, edited by W. W. Skeat (London,' 1882) ; J. Schipper, Englische Metrik (Bonn, 1881-88). On the old Germanic verse-forms, see Sievers, AUgermanisohe Metrik ( Halle. 1892 ) : also Ten Brink in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (Strass- burg, 1901 et seq.), and Kaluza, Der altenglische Vers ( 1894) , both holding the four-accent theory. On German versifieation, which it has not been possible to include in this article, see for the earlier periods Paul in the Gruiulriss der ger- manischen Philologie, and for the modern periods Westphal, Theorie der neuhoehdeutschen Metrik (2d ed., Jena, 1877) ; Minor, Neuhoch- deutschc Metrik (2d ed., Strassburg, 1902). VERSTEGAN, fer-sta'g«n. Rich.rd (c.1.54.^- C.1030). An Anglo-Dutch antiquarian author, born in London. In 1565 he was entered at Christ Church, Oxford, as Richard Rowlands. After 1576 he removed to Antwerp and resumed the Dutch name of his family. There he established a print- ing press, and was actively concerned in the printing and dissemination of Catholic litera- ture. His zeal in this respect later caused his imprisonment in Paris (1587) at the instance of the English ambassador. He is known to have gone about 1595 to Spain, where he was received bv Philip II. and had some connection with the Catholic college at Seville. He wrote: The Post of the World, wherein is contayned the antiquities and originall of the most famous cities in Europe (1570); Theatrum Crudelita- turn Hcereticorum nostri Temporio (1587, 1588, and 1592; French trans., 1588) : A Dialogue on Dying Well (1003; translated from the Italian of Pietro di Lucca), and Restitution of Decayed Intelligenee in Antiquities conccmin'g the Eng- lish Nation ( 1605) . VERSUNKENE GLOCKE, fer-zun'kr-nf glr/Uc, Die. See Sunken Bell, The. VERT, var (Fr., green). The name for green in heraldry (q.v.) . VERTEBRA. See Skeleton; Spinal COH'MX. VERTEBRATA (Xeo-Lat. nom, pi. of Lat. rerlrhratus. jointed, articulated, from vertebra, joint, vertebra, from vcrtere, to turn). A sub- division of the phyhim Chordata. which includes the largest and most different iatcd or highly de- veloped of animals. The group called vertebrates, or backboned animals, may be defined as fol- lows: Segmented Mclazoa proviiled at some stage of devi'lopmcnl with a gelatinous supporting rod or 'chorda' running tlirough the long axis of the body, and with throat-clefts or jjill-slits. They have a main nerve-tube lying near the dor- sal surface of the body which enlarges anteriorly to a brain. There is an internal, metanieric, cartilaginous or bony skeleton, consisting typi-