Inftead of faireft colours,

Set forth with curious art
Her image fhall be painted
On my diftreffed heart.
Ding, &c.

And thereon fhall be graven
Her epitaph fo faire,

"Here lies the lovelieft maiden,

"That e'er gave thepheard care.
Ding, &c.

In fable will I mourne ;

Blacke fhall be all my weede,

Ay me! I am forlorne,

Now Phillida is dead.

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,.

35

40

45

This alludes to the painted effiges of Alabaster, anciently erected upon

Bambs and monuments.

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

THE COMPLAINT OF CONSCIENCE.

I fhall begin this THIRD BOOK with an old allegoric Satire: Amanner of moralizing, which, if it was not firft introduced by the author of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS, was at leaft chiefly brought into repute by that ancient fatirift. It is not fo generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad hath any affinity with the peculiar metre of that writer, for which reafon I fall throw together fome curfory remarks on that very fingular Species of verfification, the nature of which has been fo little understood.

alliterative

We learn from Wormius (a), that the ancient Islandic poets ufed a great variety of meafures: he mentions 136 different kinds, without including RHYME, or a correfpondence of final fyllables: yet this was occafionally ufed, as appears from the Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inferted in his book.

He hath analyfed the structure of one of thefe kinds of - verfe, the harmony of which neither depended on the quantity of the fyllables, like that of the ancient Greeks and Romans; nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry; but confifted altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the founds in the middle of the verfes. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their profody, one of which was, that every diftich fhould contain at least three words beginning with the fame letter or found. Two of thefe correfpondent founds might be placed either in the first or fecond line of the diftich, and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line. This will be best underflood by the following examples (b).

"Meire og Minne

Mogu heimdaller."

"Gab Ginunga
Enn Gras huerge."

There were many other little niceties obferved by the
Ilandic poets, who as they retained their original lan-
guage and péculiarities longer than the other nations of
Gothic

(a) Literatura Runica. Hafnie 1636. 4to.-1651. fol. The I ANDIC language is of the fame origin as our ANGLO-SAXON, being both dialects of the ancient GoTHIC OF TEUTONic. Vid. Hickefii Prefat. in Granmat. Anglo Saxon, & Mo Goth. 4to, 1689.

(6) Vid Hicks Antiq. Liter.tu. Septe:tional. Tom. 1. p. 217.

(moeso-Goth).