Note 181 — Chapter III · ORIGINS OF LINES AND STANZAS

For instance, Coleridge has shown, in the Ancient Mariner, that the ballad or common measure of four lines, 8, 6, 8, 6, abab, can be extended to any number of lines up to nine (v. sup. p. 97), with the number and order of each rhyme-end varied to suit, and yet without overrunning, or loosening the general grip and character of the stanza. Now the smallest knowledge of mathematics will show the enormous number of combinations—five-, six-, seven-, eight-, and nine-lined, with the a and b rhymes variously grouped—that would require tabulation even up to this limit. And it would argue utter insensibility to the qualities and capacities of English poetry to deny that, on the morrow of this classification, a poet might arise who would give the same solid effect to ten or more lines with still more endlessly varied rhyme-permutation. Instead, therefore, of attempting a hopeless and even mischievous task (for these classifications always generate the idea that whatsoever is outside of them is bad), it has seemed better to lay down, and to illustrate largely and variously, the principles on which all such legitimate combinations have been formed hitherto, but on which they may legitimately be formed anew ad infinitum. And this, it is hoped, has been done sufficiently here.