I. ALLITERATIVE.--Enough has probably been said above of the old alliterative line and its generic character; while the later variations, which came upon it after its revival, have also been noticed and exemplified. Its origin is quite unknown; but the presence of closely allied forms, in the different Scandinavian and Teutonic languages, assures, beyond doubt, a natural rise from some speech-rhythm or tune-rhythm proper to the race and tongue. It is also probable that the remarkable difference of lengths--short, normal, and extended--which is observable in O.E. poetry is of the highest antiquity. It has at any rate persevered to the present day in the metrical successors of this line; and there is probably no other poetry which has--at a majority of its periods, if not throughout--indulged in such variety of line-length as English. Nor, perhaps, is there any which contains, even in its oldest and roughest forms, a metrical or quasi-metrical arrangement more close to the naturally increased, but not denaturalised, emphasis of impassioned utterance, more thoroughly born from the primeval oak and rock.
II. "SHORT" LINES.--Despite the tendency to variation of lines above noted, A.S. poetry did not favour _very_ short ones; and its faithful disciple and champion, Guest, accordingly condemns them in modern English poetry. This is quite wrong. In the "bobs" and other examples in Middle English we find the line shortened almost, if not actually, to the monosyllable, and this liberty has persisted through all the best periods of English verse since, though frequently frowned upon by pedantry. Its origin is, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be traced to French and Provençal influence, especially to that of the short refrain; but it is so congenial to the general tendency noted above that very little suggestion must have been needed. It must, however, be said that very short lines, in combination with long ones, almost necessitate rhyme to punctuate and illumine the divisions of symphonic effect; and, consequently, it was not till rhyme came in that they could be safely and successfully used. But when this was mastered there was no further difficulty. In all the best periods of English lyric writing--in that of _Alison_ and its fellows, in the carols of the fifteenth century, in late Elizabethan and Caroline lyric, and in nineteenth-century poetry--the admixture of very short lines has been a main secret of lyrical success; and in most cases it has probably been hardly at all a matter of deliberate imitation, but due to an instinctive sense of the beauty and convenience of the adjustment.