Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,

To make a wash would HARDLY stew a child.

Subtle and confounding contradiction of appearances:—

Zara resembles Etna crown'd with snows;
Without she freezes, and within she glows;
Twice ere the sun descends, with zeal inspir'd,
From the vain converse of the world retir'd,
She reads the psalms and chapters for the day
In-Cleopatra, or the last new play.

Thus gloomy Zara, with a solemn grace,

Deceives mankind, and hides behind her face.

Pope.

Young's Love of Fame.

One excessive conceit refuted by greater excess in another :

[Dryden's lover (in one of his plays), lamenting an

My wound is great, because it is so small.

unworthy passion.]

Then 'twould be greater, were it none at all.

[Buckingham, from the side boxes.]

An exception without one :

The Germans in Greek

Are sadly to seek;

Not one in five-score,

But ninety-nine more;

All save only Herman,

And-Herman's a German.

Porson, of the German Professors.

The monotonous jingle in the last line of this epigram on the words Herman and German gives double effect to its air of indif ference or nullification.

Contemptuous mimicry. Sound echoing to the sense:

Hear the pretty ladies talk,

Tittle tattle, tittle tattle:

Like their pattens when they walk;

Pittle pattle, pittle pattle.

Dr. Darwin.

This is very ungallant of the Doctor; but he was a ladies' man

not of the most sentimental order; and such are always ready to become their satirists.

Hear a greater genius of the same class, crowning his love with the king of rhymes :

But oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,

Inform us truly,-haven't they hen-peck'd you all?

Don Juan, Canto i.

Butler is so profuse of good and astounding rhymes, that they become a part of his wit, by the increase and gaiety of the surprise. The best of them are brought together in the present volume. Here are two excellent ones of Prior's, the latter rendered perfect in its application by its imitating the language of the school-divines:

Egyptian gard'ners thus are said to
Have set the leeks they after pray'd to;
And Romish bakers praise the deity

They chipp'd while yet in its paneity ;

that is to say, its state of being bread. Swift is famous for his rhymes. They are often admirable, but in general not so happy as Butler's. He forces them too much for their own sakes. Butler brings them out of the words before him, as they naturally present themselves in the flow of composition. He is resolved that nothing shall baulk him; and nothing does. Swift, however, often wrote forced verses as a pastime, for the avowed purpose of forcing them; and they are sure to be clever and amusing. He is not content with triple rhymes. He quadruples, and even quintuples them.

I thought the lady at St. Catherine's

(pronounced Cattern's)

Knew how to set you better patterns.
For this I will not dine with Agmondisham;
And for his victuals, let a ràgman dish'em.

Answer to Sheridan.

Dear Tom,-This verse, which, however the beginning may appear, yet

in the end's good metre,

Is sent to desire, that when your August vacation comes, your friends you'd meet here:

For why should you stay in that filthy hole, I mean the city so smoky, When you've not one friend left in town, or at least not one that's witty to joke w'ye.

Invitation to Sheridan.

There is a good forced rhyme in Drunken Barnaby's Journal, almost the only good thing in it. It was suggested by the writer's Latin (for he was the author both of the original and the version), but it is not the worse for that. Indeed the passage is much better in the English than in the Latin.

Veni Banbury, O profanum,

Ubi vidi Puritanum

Felem facientem furem,

Quia Sabbatho stravit murem.

To Banbury came I, O profane one,
Where I saw a Puritàne one

Hanging of his cat on Monday

For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

Ludicrous panegyric and climax, out of a Poem in praise of the Horn-Book. This might have come under the head of Exaggeration.

Thy heavenly notes, like angel's music, cheer
Departing souls, and soothe the dying ear.
An aged peasant on his latest bed

Wish'd for a friend some godly book to read:
The pious grandson thy known handle takes,
And (eyes lift up) this savory lecture makes ;-
"Great A," he gravely read. Th' important sound
The empty walls and hollow roof rebound;
Th' expiring ancient rear'd his drooping head,
And thank'd his stars that Hodge had learn'd to read
"Great B," the younker bawls. O heavenly breath!
What ghostly comforts in the hour of death!

What hopes I feel !-"Great C," pronounc'd the boy;
The grandsire dies with ecstasy of joy.

Ludicrous association of ideas, and aspect of solemnity.

Tickell.

My hair I'd powder in the woman's way,
And dress, and talk of dressing, more than they.
I'll please the Maids of Honor, if I can:
Without black velvet breeches WHAT IS MAN?

Bramston's Man of Taste.

Bramston was a facetious clergyman and minor poet, whose verses are to be found in Dodsley. They would be worth reprinting in some selection, especially with notes explaining the allusions. He has considerable spirit and ease; and with more attention to the structure of his verse, might have gone nigh to rival a portion of the Dunciad. One of his poems is an Art of Politics. The Man of Taste ends with the following convincing of arguments:summary

This is true Taste; and whoso likes it not,

Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, and sot.

A great prose wit, Arbuthnot (who, by the way, left some interesting serious verses on the subject of Self-Knowledge, which are to be found in the same Collection), tells a friend in a letter, that the following thought came into his head one day, as he was getting into his chariot. It is a banter on the subtleties of the schools, and the metaphysical poets.

The dust in smaller particles arose

Than those which fluid bodies do compose.
Contraries in extremes do often meet:

It was so dry, that you might call it wet.

Burdens of songs have been rendered jovial and amusing not only by mere analogies of sound, like those of Darwin, such as the glou glou of the French bacchanalian poets (imitating the decantering of wine), and Chaulieu's parrots in a masquerade calling to the waiters,—

(Tôt, tôt,-tôt, tôt,—tôt, tôt,—

Du rôt, du rôt, du rôt,

Holà, holà, laquais,

Du vin aux perroquets)

but a man of genius, the best farcical writer in our language,

O'Keefe, has made them epitomes of character and circumstance, and filled them with a gaiety and a music the most fantastical and pleasant. It is hardly fair to quote them apart from the whole context of the scene; and readers are warned off, if their own animal spirits cannot enter heartily into an extravagance. But such as are not afraid to be amused, will be.

I shall give, however, but one taste of such excessive pickle. The following is a part of a song sung by a schoolmaster, whose animal spirits triumph over his wig and habiliments :

Amo, umas,

I love a lass

As cedar tall and slender;
Sweet Cowslip's grace

Is her nominative case,
And she's of the feminine gender.

(Pleasant bit of superfluous information!)

Rorum, corum,

Sunt Divorum,

Harum scarum Divo;

Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig, and hat-band,
Hic hoc horum, genitivo.

66

A collection of songs, particularly street songs, good and bad (that is to say, very bad, or unintentionally absurd), remains to be made by some competent hand,” and would be a rich exhibition of popular feeling. A distinguished living writer and statesman, who is great enough to be a thorough humanist, and to think nothing beneath him which interests his fellow-creatures, is in possession of some such collection, and might perhaps allow it to be used. Materials for such things have influenced the fate of kingdoms; and what is more, or at least no anti-climax, Uncle Toby patronized them. Everybody knows how fond he was of the tune of Lillibullero; his comfort under all afflictions,-controversy, surgery, and Dr. Slop.

The late Mr. Mathews, a man of genius in his way, an imitator of mind as well as manner, and a worthy contributor to the wit which he collected from friends and kindred, was a disburser of much admirable "acute nonsense," which it is a pity not to