In the course of a conversation upon words intractable to rhyme, it was admitted that no counterpart could be found for the word month, by all of the company except one, who instantly repeated the following: Among our numerous English rhymes, They say there's none to "month:" But succeeded the hundred and onth. "And why not onth?" he responded to the hearty laugh which saluted him; "why not onth, as well as fourth, fifth, tenth? why not say the hundred and onth time as well as the hundred and first?" Who will undertake to find a rhyme for the word silver? Butler's facility in overcoming stubborn words is amusing. For instance : There was an ancient sage philosopher, Who had read Alexander Ross over. Hood's Nocturnal Sketch presents a remarkable example of la difficulté vaincue. Most bards find it sufficiently difficult to obtain one rhyming word at the end of a line; but Hood secures three, with an ease which is as graceful as it is surprising: Even has come; and from the dark park, hark Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz. Anon night comes, and with her wings brings things Now thieves do enter for your cash, smash, crash, And while they're going, whisper low, "No go!" Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads, Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls Now bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise But nurse-maid, in a night-mare rest, chest-pressed, That upward goes, shows Rose knows those beaux' woes. Conformity of Sense to Sound. In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.-COLERIDGE: trans. Schiller. ARTICULATE IMITATION OF INARTICULATE SOUNDS. Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. POPE: Essay on Criticism. O'er all the dreary coasts! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortured ghosts. POPE: Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.-MILTON: Lycidas. Snatched two unhappy of my martial band, And dashed like dogs against the stony floor.-POPE: Hom. Odys. At dead of night, 'mid his orison, hears Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. DYER: Ruins of Rome. What! like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With arms, and George, and Brunswick, crowd the verse, With drum, gun, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder? Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay, Lull with Amelia's liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line.-POPE: Sat. I. Remarkable examples are afforded by Dryden's Alexander's Feast, and The Bells of Edgar A. Poe. IMITATION OF TIME AND MOTION. When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecs sound To many a youth and many a maid Dancing in the checkered shade.-MILTON: L'Allegro. Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone; The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. POPE: Hom. Odys. Which urged, and labored, and forced up with pain, DRYDEN: Lucretius. A needless Alexandrine ends the song, Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, POPE: Essay on Criticism. POPE: Essay on Criticism. Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES. 367 Oft on a plat of rising ground Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar.-MILTON: Il Penseroso. The well-known hexameters of Virgil, descriptive respectively of the galloping of horses over a resounding plain, and of the heavy blows in alternately hammering the metal on the anvil, afford good examples,-the dactylic, of rapidity, the spondaic, of slowness. Quadrupe- dante pu- | trem soni- | tu quatit | ungula | campum, Eneid, viii. 596. Illi in- ter se- | se mag- na vi | brachia | tollunt.-Eneid, viii. 452. IMITATION OF DIFFICULTY AND EASE. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line, too, labors, and the words move slow, &c.-POPE: Ess. on Criticism. Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous in their gait, He came, and with him Eve, more loath, though first So he with difficulty and labor hard MILTON: Paradise Lost, x. Moved on, with difficulty and labor he.-MILTON: Paradise Lost, ii. Familiar Quotations from Unfamiliar CHRISTMAS Comes but once a year.-THOMAS TUSSER, 1580. Originally written, It is an ill wind turns none to good.-THOMAS TUSSER. 368 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES. Look before you leap. Originally, Look ere thou leap.-THOMAS TUSSER. And Look before you ere you leap.-BUTLER: Hudibras, c. 2. Count the chickens ere they're hatched.-Hudibras, c. 3. The old man eloquent.-MILTON: Tenth Sonnet. SHAKSPEARE: Merchant of Venice. Assume a virtue though you have it not.-Hamlet. The sere, the yellow leaf.-Macbeth. Curses not loud, but deep.-Macbeth. Thereby hangs a tale.-As You Like It. Good wine needs no bush.-As You Like It. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.-Troilus and Cressida. DR. JOHNSON: Prologue at the Opening of the Drury Lane Theatre, 1747. DR. JOHNSON: Vanity of Human Wishes. GOLDSMITH: Retaliation. Winter lingering chills the lap of May.-GOLDSMITH: The Traveller. Of two evils I have chose the least.-PRIOR. His (God's) image cut in ebony.-THOMAS FULLER. Richard's himself again.-COLLEY CIBBER. Originally written, Building castles in Spain.-SCARRON. Hope, the dream of a waking man.-BASIL. CONGREVE: The Mourning Bride. Let who may make the laws of a people, allow me to write their ballads, and I'll guide them at my will.-SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war. Originally, When Greeks joined Grecks, then was the tug of war. NAT LEE: Play of Alexander the Great, 1692. Westward the course of empire takes its way.-BISHOP BERKELEY. |