however, poetry remains a matter of private devotion unless given a musical setting for trained choirs or for congregational singing. rather than iambic pentameter, in england and scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries, the overwhelming preference in rural congregations was for iambic tetrameters (8s) and iambic trimeters (6s), ridiculed in shakespeare's a midsummer night's dream, in which nick bottom and the other "rude mechanicals" obsess over the need for a prologue "written in eight and sixe". the three meters then in use: common meter (8,6,8,6), long meter (8,8,8,8), and short meter (6,6,8,6) remain in widespread use in hymnals today.