1823.

Two Masters for One Dog.

without troubling herself about the drawn swords, she drove right at the pit of Mr. Sebastian's stomach, knocked the breath out of his body, the sword out of his hand, and him self upon his back.

"Ah! my goddess, my Juno!" "Nec cried Mr. Schnackenberger; vox hominem sonat, oh Dea certe!" "Nec vox hominem sonat?" said Mr. Fabian, rising: "Faith, you're right there; for I never heard a voice more like a brute's in my life." "Down then, down Juno," said Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno was preparing for a second campaign against Mr. Fabian's stomach: Mr. Fabian, on his part, held out his hand to his brother student-saying, "all quarrels are now ended." Mr. Jeremiah accepted his hand cordially. Mr. Fabian offered to resign "the article," however agitating to his feelings. Mr. Jeremiah, though no less agitated, protested he should not. "I will, by all that's magna"By nimous," said Mr. Fabian. the memory of Curtius, or whatever else is most sacred in self-sacrifice, you shall not," said Mr. Jeremiah. "Hear me, thou light of day," said Mr. Fabian, kneeling. "Hear me," interrupted Mr. Jeremiah, kneeling also: yes, the Schnackenberger knelt, but carefully and by circumstantial degrees; for he was big and heavy as a rhinoceros, and afraid of capsizing, and perspired freely. Mr. Fabian kneeled like a dactyle: Mr. Jeremiah kneeled like a spondee, or rather like a molossus. Juno, meantime, whose feelings were less affect ed, did not kneel at all; but, like a

tribrach, amused herself with chacing
a hare which just then crossed one
of the forest ridings. A moment
after was heard the report of a fowl-
ing-piece. Bitter presentiment of the
truth caused the kneeling duelists to
turn their heads at the same instant.
Alas! the subject of their high-
wrought contest was no more: Eng-
lish Juno lay stretched in her blood!
Up started the "dactyle;" up start-
ed the "spondee;" out flew their
swords; curses, dactylic and spon-
daic, began to roll; and the gemini
of the university of X., side by side,
strode after the Junonicide, who
proved to be a forester. The forester
wisely retreated, before the storm,
into his cottage; from an upper
window of which he read to the two
coroners, in this inquest after blood, a
section of the forest-laws, which so
fully justified what he had done-
that, like the reading of the English
riot act, it dispersed the gemini, both
dactylic and spondaic, who now held
it advisable to pursue the matter no
further.

"Sir, my brother," said Mr. Fabian, embracing his friend over the corpse of Juno, "see what comes of our imitating Kotzebue's plays! Nothing but our nefarious magnanimity was the cause of Juno's untimely end. For had we, instead of kneeling (which by the way seemed to punish you a good deal), had we, I say, vested the property in one or other of us, she, instead of diverting her ennui by hunting, would have been trotting home by the side of her master-and the article would have been still living."

1

CHAPTER XXVI.
The Funeral Games.

"Now then," said Mr. Schnackenberger, entering the Double-barreled Gun with his friend,-"Now, waiter, let us have Rhenish and Champagne, and all other good things with which your Gun is charged: fire off both barrels upon us: Come, you dog, make ready present; for we solemnize a funeral to-day: and, at the same time, he flung down the purchase-money of Juno upon the table. The waiter hastened to obey his orders.

Juno drank together, the more did they convince themselves that her death was a real blessing to herself, who had thus obviously escaped a life of severe cudgeling, which her voracity would have entailed upon her: "yes," they both exclaimed;

a blessing to herself-to her friends in particular-and to the public in general."

To conclude, the price of Juno was honourably drunk up to the last farthing, in celebration of her obsequies at this one sitting. Ως διγ ̓ ἀμφιεπον τάφον Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο, END OF MR. SCHNACKENBERGER."

The longer the two masters of

ON ENGLISH VERSIFICATION.

No. V.

OF OTHER FAULTS IN RHYMING.

THE faults in rhyming, which have hitherto been noticed, arise from some imperfection in the rhymes themselves; but there remain other faults to be pointed out, which are independent of any such imperfection. Of these, some may be attributed to the inadvertence or negligence of the writer. Of this sort is the recurrence of the same rhymes at short distances. By the same rhymes is meant, all those which rhyme together, though consisting of different words; as, bay, day; lay, may; pay, say.

Our age was cultivated thus at length,

But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength:
Our builders were with want of genius curst;
The second temple was not like the first;

Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,

Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.-Dryden.

Here the same rhymes, and even made by the same words, are separated by one couplet only.

A fault similar to this is the frequent repetition of the same rhymes, as in this example:

Shall funeral eloquence her colours spread,
And scatter roses on the wealthy dead?
Shall authors smile on such illustrious days,
And satirise with nothing-but their praise?

Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train,
Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain?
Donne, Dorset, Dryden, Rochester, are dead,
And guilt's chief foe, in Addison, is fled;
Congreve, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won,
Sits smiling at the goal, while others run:
He will not write; and (more provoking still!)
Ye Gods! he will not write, and Mævius will.
Doubly distrest, what author shall we find,
Discreetly daring, and severely kind,
The courtly Roman's shining path to tread,
And sharply smile prevailing folly dead?
Will no superior genius snatch the quill,

And save me, on the brink, from writing ill?

Though vain the strife, I'll strive my voice to raise ;

What will not men attempt for sacred praise ?Young.

Here, within the distance of ten couplets, are two rhymes twice repeated, and one three times. Again,

For where the tender rinds of trees disclose

Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows :

Just in that space a narrow slit we make,
Then other buds from bearing trees we take:
Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close,

In whose moist womb th'admitted infant grows.
But when the smoother bole from knots is free,

We make a deep incision in the tree;

And in the solid wood the slip enclose;

The battening bastard shoots again and grows.-Dryden.

The fault is still greater when two couplets together have the same. rhyme; as,

With soothing words to Venus she begun;
High praises, endless honours you have won,
And mighty trophies with your worthy son:
Two Gods a silly woman have undone.-Ibid.

Nor is the fault much less, when the rhymes, though not the same, are so near as to differ only by a single letter: these are instances.

Ere this no peasant vex'd the peaceful ground,
Which only turfs and greens for altars found:
No fences parted fields, nor marks, nor bounds,
Distinguish'd acres of litigious grounds.-Dryden.
The lofty skies at once come pouring down,
The promised crop and golden labours drown.
The dikes are fill'd, and with a roaring sound
The rising rivers float the nether ground.—Ibid.

The following couplets in Pope's Rape of the Lock are very remarkable:
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.
See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies,

With more than usual lightning in her eyes:
Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try,
Who sought no more than on his foe to die.
But this bold lord, with manly strength endued,
She with one finger and a thumb subdued :
Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,
A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw.-Canto 5.
The three first couplets have near-
ly the same rhymes; so have the
two others and to mark the poet's
negligence in this passage, the
rhymes of the first and fourth coup-
lets have the additional fault of be-
ing identical.

These are faults which, though not inexcusable in a long work, are by no means to be allowed in short pieces: for in such to be correct and polished makes a considerable part of their merit.*

Another fault to be mentioned here, is the introduction of words merely for the sake of rhyme. This is done in various ways. 1st, by unnecessary and superfluous words; as,

Rome, the terror of the world,
At length shall sink, in ruin hurl'd.
Again,

So, when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm Nature's image on its watery breast.

Parnell.

That is, when a smooth piece of water reflects natural objects. Now in both these instances the rhymes are made by words that had better been omitted; and the last not only clogs the sentence, but gives a false idea; for, the objects which are reflected by a mirror are not imprest upon it.

This fault is sometimes committed when a rhyme is wanted for a word that has but few rhymes to it in the language. The term world is one of these; there are not above five that will pair with it; two of which are furl'd, and hurl'd; and these being more pliable than the others, are therefore often worked up into some distorted phrase to furnish a rhyme; for example,

Let Envy in a whirlwind's bosom hurl'd,
Outrageous, search the corners of the world.
Churchill.

Cudworth, whose spirit flew, with sails un-
furl'd,

Through each vast empire of th' ideal world-Cawthorn.

In him He all things with strange order
hurl'd;

In him, that full abridgment of the world.
Coalcy.

Another way of making this fault is, by first pitching upon some rhyme, to which all the rest of the sentence is to be held subservient; and then, for want of a proper word to match with the rhyme already determined, the poet is often obliged to substitute such as he can get. A couplet from the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard will explain and exemplify what we mean. Pope had to express in rhyme and measure this sentence, "I would rather be the

* This frequent repetition of rhymes may be, perhaps, allowed, or, at least, will not be severely condemned in lyric compositions, where the return of the regular stanza lays the author under a greater restraint. An instance of such repetition occurs in Gray:

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood these shall try,

And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye.—Ode on the Prospect of Eton Coll.