ns' praise | with such | an earth | -ly tongue."
_The Passionate Pilgrim, Stanza IX_;
SINGER'S SHAK., Vol. ii, p. 594.

_Example IV.--The Ten Commandments Versified_.

"Adore | no God | besides | me, to | provoke | mine eyes;
Nor wor | -ship me | in shapes | and forms | that men | devise;
With rev | 'rence use | my name, | nor turn | my words | to jest;
Observe | my sab | -bath well, | nor dare | profane | my rest;
Honor | and due | obe | -dience to | thy pa | -rents give;
Nor spill | the guilt | -less blood, | nor let | the guilt
| -y live;[507]
Preserve | thy bod | -y chaste, | and flee | th' unlaw | -ful bed;
Nor steal | thy neigh | -bor's gold, | his gar | -ment, or | his bread;
Forbear | to blast | his name | with false | -hood or deceit;
Nor let | thy wish | -es loose | upon | his large | estate."
DR. ISAAC WATTS: _Lyric Poems_, p. 46.

This verse, consisting, when entirely regular, of twelve syllables in six
iambs, is the _Alexandrine_; said to have been so named because it was
"first used in a poem called _Alexander_."--_Worcester's Dict._ Such metre
has sometimes been written, with little diversity, through an entire
English poem, as in Drayton's Polyolbion; but, couplets of this length
being generally esteemed too clumsy for our language, the Alexandrine has
been little used by English versifiers, except to complete certain stanzas
beginning with shorter iambics, or, occasionally, to close a period in
heroic rhyme. French heroics are similar to this; and if, as some assert,
we have obtained it thence, the original poem was doubtless a French one,
detailing the exploits of the hero "_Alexandre_." The phrase, "_an
Alexandrine verse_," is, in French, "_un vers Alexandrin_." Dr. Gregory, in
his Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, copies Johnson's Quarto Dictionary,
which says, "ALEXANDRINE, a kind of verse borrowed from the French, first
used in a poem called Alexander. They [Alexandrines] consist, among the
French, of twelve and thirteen syllables, in alternate couplets; and, among
us, of twelve." Dr. Webster, in his American Dictionary, _improperly_ (as I
think) gives to the name two forms, and seems also to acknowledge two sorts
of the English verse: "ALEXAN'DRINE, or ALEXAN'DRIAN, _n._ A kind of verse,
consisting of twelve syllables, or of twelve and thirteen alternately."
"The Pet-Lamb," a