The effect Webbe might be talking about was still around as late as 1640: as in, for instance, Sir John Mennes’s mock-ballad, 'Upon Sir John Sucklings most warlike preparations for the Scotish Warre'. In verses with masculine rhymes, Mennes sticks an “a” on the end to make them feminine, in imitation, as others are suggesting, of a common feature of ballads:
Sir John got him on an Ambling Nag,
To Scotland for to ride a,
With a hundred horse more, all his own he swore
To guard him on every side a.
...And so on. It was printed in Musarum Deliciae (1656).
- Matt
Dr Matthew Steggle
Reader in English
Sheffield Hallam University
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