Of commentaries upon Donne's prosody there would seem to be no end and of final agreement upon the details of his metrics there would seem to be no hope. Nevertheless, in still another attempt to probe Donne's technical mystery, it may be useful to recall the rather large area of agreement in principle which can now be assumed as undebatable. As opposed to Dryden's implication of a lack of metrical skill the modern student may be certain with Gosse that “what there was to know about prosody was … perfectly known to Donne.” Most careful readers, too, will accept the essential Tightness of Saintsbury's generalization that Donne's poetic manner is not of one piece. Fletcher Melton's thesis-arsis variation principle remains significantly valid despite the injudicious lengths to which it was pushed. Mario Praz has stressed the contrast between the “traditionally poetical and the normally prosiac” in Donne's poetry, and Sir Herbert Grierson has pointed out that historically the “poetic rhetoric” of Donne was continued with characteristic originality by Dryden. Arnold Stein, the most recent contributor to the literature of Donnean prosody, has written with graphic illumination of Donne's use of stress-shift and of his matching of feminine with masculine rime.1Concerning elision in Donne's poetry Stein has commented at some length: