Note 9 — ENGLISH VERSE (continued 2)

Gascoigne, in his Notes of Instruction (1575), mentions this form of stanza as "a royall kinde of verse, serving best for grave discourses," a statement in which he is followed by King James in his Reulis and Cautelis (1585). Puttenham, in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), speaks of the stanza as "the chiefe of our ancient proportions used by any rimer writing any thing of historical or grave poeme, as ye may see in Chaucer and Lidgate." (Arber Reprint, p. 80.)