From “Fairy Mythology.”

OUR forefathers, like their Gotho-German kindred, regulated their verse by the number of accents, not of syllables. The foot, therefore, as we term it, might consist of one, two, three, or even four syllables, provided it had only one strongly marked accent. Further, the accent of a word might be varied, chiefly by throwing it on the last syllable, as natúre for náture, honoúr for hónour, etc. (the Italians, by the way, throw it back when two accents come into collision, as, Il Pástor Fido); they also sounded what the French call the feminine e of their words, as, In oldè dayès of the King Artoúr; and so well known seems this practice to have been, that the copyists did not always write this e, relying on the skill of the reader to supply it. There was only one restriction, namely, that it was never to come before a vowel, unless where there was a pause. In this way the poetry of the Middle Ages was just as regular as that of the present day; and Chaucer, when properly read, is fully as harmonious as Pope. But the editors of our ancient poems, with the exception of Tyrwhitt, seem to have been ignorant or regardless of this principle; and in the “Canterbury Tales” alone is the verse properly arranged.