according to the distribution of
the first five rhymes.

10. _Ottava rima._--A metre with an Italian name, and borrowed from Italy,
where it is used generally for narrative poetry. The Morgante Maggiore of
Pulci, the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto,
the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso, are all written in this metre. Besides
this, the two chief epics of Spain and Portugal respectively (the Auraucana
and the Lusiados) are thus composed. Hence it is a form of poetry which is
Continental rather than English, and naturalized rather than indigenous.
The stanza consists of eight lines of heroics, the six first rhyming
alternately, the last two in succession.

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears,
Which suddenly along the forest spread;
Whereat from out his quiver he prepares
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head;
And, lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears,
And onward rushes with tempestuous tread,
And to the fountain's brink precisely pours,
So that the giant's join'd by all the boars.
_Morgante Maggiore_ (LD. BYRON'S _Translation_.)

11. _Terza rima._--Like the last, borrowed both in name and nature from the
Italian, and scarcely yet naturalized in England.

The Spirit of the fervent days of old,
When words were things that came to pass, and Thought
Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold
Their children's children's doom already brought
Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,
The chaos of events where lie half-wrought
Shapes that must undergo mortality:
What the great seers of Israel wore within,
That Spirit was on them and is on me:
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din
Of conflicts, none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the wilderness, the sin
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.

12. _Alexandrines._--Six measures, x a, generally (perhaps always) with
rhyme. The name is said to be taken from the fact that early romances upon
the deeds of Alexander of Macedon, of great popularity, were written in
this metre. One of the longest poems in the English language is in the
Alexandrines, viz. Drayton's Poly-olbion, quoted above.

13. _Spenserian stanza._--A stanza consisting of nine lines, the first
eight heroics, the last an Alexandrine.

It hath been through all ages ever seen,
That with the prize of arms and chivalrie
The pr