The standard work is Saintsbury’s History of Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day. Vol. 1, From the Origins to Spenser, 1906; vol. II, From Shakespeare to Crabbe, 1908. See especially, in vol. 1, the chapter on The Prosody of the Scottish Poets; book IV, The Coming of Spenser; and appendixes V–IX, English Feet, Metres, Pause, Rhyme and Vowel-Music 1200–1600; and, in vol. II, book V, The Time of Shakespeare.

Great assistance for the bibliography as well as for the discussion of the subject will be found in the works of T. S. Omond: English Metrists (Tunbridge Wells, 1903, supplemented and enlarged, Oxford, 1907) and A Study of Metre, 1903.

Korting’s Grundriss may be consulted for further references, and also the following bibliography.

A. R. W.