IT was my original intention to offer a thesis on
certain logical aspects of the theory of modern English
verse, following lines suggested by Mayor's Chapters on
English Metre and Bridges' Milton's Prosody. After con-
siderable study, however, I found myself still in an em-
barassing uncertainty as to several of the most funda-
mental questions involved, and it was clear that a pre-
liminary investigation of the historical origin of our verse-
forms was indispensable. All the topics most intimately
involved in this investigation have already provoked
separate discussion, but there has never been any satis-
factory coordination of results; and the lack of just this
has led to many hasty inferences. The purpose of this
paper is to trace the main line of descent of our modern
versification, from the classical quantitative verse and the
Old English accentual verse, through the various forms
that were cultivated in mediaeval Latin, English and
French.