Book II, Proportion Poeticall, is a misguided prosody.

“Proportion” is exhibited (chapter ii) in “staff” (i.e., stave or stanza); (iii) in “measure” (i.e., feet) estimated by the number of syllables without assigning a distinct function to “accent”; (v) in caesura ranged with “comma, colon, periodus,” terms transferred from rhetoric to serve as aspects of rhythm; (vi and following) in “concord,” which includes rime, accent, time, “stir,” and “cadence”; (xi) in “position”; and finally in “figure,” square stanzas, triangles, ovals, suitable to emblems and other devices. Through this confusion and deviation the typical English stress habit glimmers so faintly as never to be distinct. “How Greek and Latin feet might be applied in English” (xiii) leads in the closing chapters to “a more particular declaration of the metrical feet of the ancient poets.”