Definition of "anapaestic"

The public has referred the question to Time: the procedure of this great king I venture to describe, from precedents, by an adaptation of some smart anapaestic tetrameters--your anapaest is the foot for satire to halt on, both in Greek and English--which I read about twenty years ago, and with the point of which I was much tickled.

1872, Augustus de Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II)‎