imitation of the French, is cramped and artificial compared with the Shakespearian nobility, strength, and freedom. Bearing in mind the beautiful effect of rhyme in "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," Marvel's lines on "Paradise Lost" may be quoted :—

"Thy verse, created like thy theme sublime,

In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme."

Rhyme is the agreement in sound at the end of lines; that is, the same vowel sound, but different consonants, in the last accented syllables of lines. The following is a

rhyming couplet from Pope :

"Look round our world; behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above."

Triplets are rarely used, though some good specimens may be seen in Dryden. Pope, in an imperfect triplet, thus speaks of Dryden :

"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestic march and energy divine."

Dr. Johnson condemns triplets as unskilful, but the following from Dryden is energetic in expression and continuous in sense:

"I am as free as nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

Verse with alternate rhymes is a very favourite kind. Stanzas are of different lengths, from Tennyson's four lines

in "In Memoriam," to Spenser's nine lines in the "Faerie Queene." The following are specimens of the Spenserian stanza. It consists of eight lines of five accents and one of six, the long rolling music of which will be observed, although Pope thus satirizes, as well as illustrates, the Alexandrine line :—

"A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

Which like a wound- | ed snake | drags its | slow length | along.”

UNA.

"One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight;
From her fair head her fillet she undight
And laid her stole aside. Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven, shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

It fortuned, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lion rushèd suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood.
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devoured her tender corse;
But to the prey when as he drew more nigh
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse,

And with the sight amazed, forgat his furious force.

Instead thereof he kissed her weary feet,
And licked her lily hands with fawning tongue,
As he her wrongèd innocence did weet.

Oh! how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
Whose yielded pride and proud submission,
Still dreading death, when she had marked long,
Her heart 'gan melt in great compassion;
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affection.

Redounding tears did choke th' end of her plaint
Which softly echoed from the neighbour wood;
And sad to see her sorrowful constraint,
The kingly beast upon her gazing stood;
With pity calmed down fell his angry mood.
At last, in close heart shutting up her pain,
Arose the virgin born of heavenly brood,
And to her snowy palfrey got again

To seek her strayed champion, if she might attain."

Spenser (spelling modernized).

Byron used the same stanza, but less melodiously:

66 Stop!-for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!-
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust,
Or column trophied, for triumphal show?
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so.
As the ground was before, thus let it be.-
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gained by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! King-making Victory?

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;
Last eve, in Beauty's circle proudly gay;

The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,-
The morn, the marshalling in arms,—the day,
Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it: which when rent,

The earth is covered thick with other clay

Which her own clay shall cover-heaped and pent; Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!"

The rhymes of a sonnet make that kind of verse very difficult to construct; but, when skilfully rhymed, a sonnet is very beautiful. The following is an example, though its rhymes are not always perfect in sound :—

"Scorn not the sonnet; critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp

It cheered mild Spenser, called from faery land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas! too few."-Wordsworth.

Milton's sonnet on his blindness is a more exact example of the technical form, in rhyming, of this class of poem. As some of the rhymes are distant from each other, they require a special stress of voice on the rhyming syllable to preserve the connection, or the ear might lose the effect intended by the recurrence of a particular sound :—

"When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;

· Doth God exact day-labour, light denied: '

I fondly ask but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best

Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait." "-Milton.

The elocutionary rule is to lay the stress of voice on the accented syllables that make the rhyme. There is a difference of consonants in the accented syllable, which in some of the following lines is the third from the end. The two unaccented syllables which close a line are exactly the same as in the corresponding line, thus—

"Clattering,
Scattering."

The following lines, with their effective clash of rhyme (and, indeed, the whole of the poem), may be practised with The lines are from the "Pied Piper of

advantage. Hamelin":

"There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling,
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling;
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering;
And like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running!

All the little boys and girls,

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after

The wonderful music, with shouting and laughter."

Browning.

I