Malherbe’s Canons of French Poetry

(1) Poetry is to contain only such words as are in common use by well-educated Parisians.

(2) A word ending with a vowel must in no case be followed by a word beginning with a vowel.

(3) One line in no wise is to run into another.

(4) The cæsura must always be most strictly observed.

(5) Every alternate rhyme must be feminine.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.