There ſtill survive of his writings five poems, the greateſt of which is De Contemptu Mundi. It was written about 1145, and contains three thouſand lines, divided into three books. In ſubſtance the poem is a ſatire, unforgiving and ſevere: in form it is in dacylic hexameter verſe. According to Dr. Duffield, to whoſe judgment I defer, "each line conſiſts of a firſt part compoſed of two dactyls, a ſecond containing two more dactyls, and a third made up of a dactyl and a trochee. The laſt dactyls of the firſt and second parts rhyme together, and the lines are in couplets—the final trochees alſo rhyming. This remark upon the dactylic nature of the rhymes in the firſt two parts is not made by Neale or Coles or the compiler of the Seven Great Hymns. They all italiciſe the laſt two ſyllables, whereas it ſhould be the laſt three, i. e., the foot itself.
Sobria muniat || improba puniat || utraque juste,
is in all reſpects a perfect line—each foot being a word, and the rhyme unimpeachable."2
