ENGLISH VERSIFICATION BY JAKOB SCHIPPER, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH AND ABERDEEN HONORARY MEMBER OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1910 PREFACE IT is now more than twenty years since a reviewer of the author's Englische Metrik, in three volumes, expressed the opinion that 'an English translation of it would do a service to English philology'. At that time, however, it seemed doubtful whether such a voluminous work, which probably would have interested only a comparatively small circle of English scholars, would have found a market. Even in Germany, although the work was favourably reviewed, and although at the time when it appeared great interest was felt in metrical research, the sale was comparatively slow. Much livelier, on the other hand, was the demand for an abridged edition of it which appeared under the title Grundriss der englischen Metrik (Wien, 1895). It was therefore found possible, several years after its publication, to make arrangements with the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for an English edition of this smaller book. Unfortunately, however, the printing of the manuscript, which was submitted to the supervision of the late Professor York Powell, was delayed, first by the illness and the untimely death of that eminent scholar, and afterwards by other circumstances which it is not necessary to mention here. On the whole the English text of the present volume is a close rendering of the German book, except in the first few chapters, which have been somewhat more fully |