to giue vunto three different sounds three seuerall names:  to that which was highest lift vp and most eleuate or shrillest in the eare, they gaue the name of the sharpe accent, to the lowest and most base because it seemed to fall downe rather then to rise vp, they gaue the name of the heauy accent, and that other which seemed in part to lift vp and in part to fall downe, they called the circumflex, or compast accent:  and if new termes were not odious, we might very properly call him the (windabout) for so is the Greek word.  Then bycause euery thing that by nature fals down is said heauy, & whatsoever naturally mounts upward is said light, it gaue occasion to say that there were diuersities in the motion of the voice, as swift & slow, which motion also presupposes time, by cause time is mensura motus, by the Philosopher:  so haue you the causes of their primitiue inuention and vse in our arte of Poesie, all this by good obseruation we may perceiue in our vulgar wordes if they be of mo sillables then one, but specially if they be trissillables, as for example in these wordes [altitude] and [heauinesse] the sharpe accent falles vpon [al] & [he] which be the antepenultimaes: the other two fall away speedily as if they were scarse founded in this trissilable [forsaken] the sharp accent fals vpon [sa] which is the penultima, and in the other two is heauie and obscure.  Againe in these bisillables, endure, unsure, demure, aspire, desire, retire, your sharpe accent falles vpon the last sillable:  but in words monosillable which be for the more part our naturall Saxon English, the accent is indifferent, and may be vsed for sharp or flat and heauy at our pleasure.  I say Saxon English, for our Normane English alloweth vs very many bissillables, and also triffilables as, reuerence, diligence, amorous, desirous, and such like.

  CHAP.  VII.

Of your Cadences by which your meeter is made Symphonicall when they be sweetest and most solemne in a verse.

As the smoothenesse of your words and sillables running vpon feete of sundrie qualities, make with the Greekes and Latines the body of their verses numerous or Rithmicall, so in our vulgar Poesie, and of all other nations at this day, your verses answering eche other by couples, or at larger distances in good [cadence] is it that maketh your meeter symphonicall.  This cadence is the fal of a verse in euery last word with a certaine tunable sound which being matched with another of like sound, do make a [concord.] And the whole cadence is contained sometime in one sillable, sometime in two, or in three at the most:  for aboue the antepenultima there reacheth no accent (which is chiefe cause of the cadence) vnlesse it be vsurpation in some English words, to which we giue a sharpe accent vpon the fourth as, Honorable, matrimonie, patrimonie, miserable, and such other