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When he's engag'd, and takes no notice,

If any press upon him, who 'tis.

Great actions are not always true sons
Of great and mighty resolutions.

Do. 1. 701.

Do. I. 885.

You mention the comic rhymes of Swift as being superior to those of Butler, (Letters on Poetry, p. 241.) a few of them shall be given, though it is difficult to find a poem of his of the humourous kind to which reference can be made with propriety. His Rhapsody On Poetry is perhaps as little liable to exception as any with which I am acquainted:

And here a simile comes pat in:

Though Chickens take a month to fatten, &c.

In modern wit all printed trash is

Set off with numerous breaks-and dashes

Convey by penny-post to Lintot,

But let no friend alive look into 't.

For you can ne'er be too far gone
In all our modern critics jargon.

Read all the prefaces of Dryden,
And these our critics much confide in.

A forward critic often dupes us
With sham quotations, peri hupsous;
And, if we have not read Longinus,
Will magisterially out-shine us.

Then lest with Greek he over-run ye,
Procure the book for love or money, &c.

Complain, as many an ancient bard did,
How genius is no more rewarded.

Yet what the world refused to Lewis,
Applied to George, exactly true is.
Exactly true! invidious poet!

'Tis fifty thousand times below it.
Translate me now some lines, if you can,
From Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Lucan.

It strikes me that something of the same kind of sensation, a surprize and pleasure is excited if the rhyme be particularly apt, if it comes pat in; as in the following instances from the same poem

:

While every fool his claim alledges,
As if it grew in common hedges.

And how agreeably surpriz'd
Are you to see it advertiz'd!

Be silent as a politician,

For talking may beget suspicion.

You lose your credit all at once;
The town will mark you for a dunce.

Or like a bridge that joints a marish
To moorlands of a different parish.

His humble senate this professes
In all their speeches, votes, addresses.

And each perfection long imputed,
Is fully at his death confuted,

Judicious Rymer oft review,
Wise Dennis, and profound Bossu.

You raise the honour of the peerage,
Proud to attend you at the steerage.

The rhymes in Garrick's Epigram on Dr. Hill are very happy:

XXI.

For physic and farces,

His equal there scarce is;
His farces are physic,

Ilis physic a farce is.

The bad rhymes in the Epigram on Foote and Quin, given before, (p. 363.) add to the general effect of the piece. On this ground I trust the rhymes in the Song of The Onion, in the first volume of my collection, p. 342. may be defended.

A compound rhyme is introduced in a song in your Vocal Poetry. (p. 237.) The subject is light, but it does not appear sufficiently humourous to admit the comic rhyme:

Friendship of another kind is, &c.

Love, one grain is worth the Indies.

In Congreve's song "Tell me no more I am deceiv'd," (Essays on Song-Writing, p. 209.) we have the triple rhymes of common-woman and no man—and hard thing-farthing and bargain.

The Song of The Tight Little Island is very good in its comic rhymes, and with a few alterations would be an excellent Song. I have been informed on good authority that it was a

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favourite with the late amiable Bishop of London, who used to repeat the burden of it with great satisfaction. The Friends and the Oyster, given before, p. 394. contains some comic rhymes.

The effect of these rhymes is heightened when still farther violence is done to a word, as where it is divided, and one or more syllables put at the end of one line as a rhyme, and the other, or the remainder carried on to the beginning of the next, as in that admirable burlesque Song, in the play of The Rovers, in the Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin:

VERSE 5.

There first for thee my passion grew,

Sweet! sweet Matilda Pottingen! Thou wast the daughter of my Tu-tor, Law Professor at the U-niversity of Gottingen

-niversity of Gottingen.

6.

Sun, moon, and thou vain world, adieu,
That kings and priests are plotting in:
Here doom'd to starve on water gru-
-el never shall I see the U-

-niversity of Gottingen-
-niversity of Gottingen.

The compound rhyme has been sometimes admitted into serious Songs, where, if it be suffered to pass, it certainly is not desirable. Collins introduces into his Date Obolum Bellisario:

As the wise, great and good of thy frowns seldom 'scape any, Witness brave Bellisarius who begg'd for a half-penny.

This would occasion a laugh, did not the subject and the tune repress it. Again,

But each conquest I gain'd, I made friend and foe know, That my soul's only aim was pro publico bono.

In the Song of The Pilgrim, by Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, (see my Collection, Vol. ii. p. 383.) a compound rhyme is introduced which would be much more in its place in a humourous composition:

Whoso beset him round

With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound,

His strength the more is.

Of no species of Song does there appear to me to be so few good specimens as of the Comic. Of those sung upon the stage, many depend upon the mere buffoonery of the performer for effect. Such, chiefly, were those written for the late Edwin, and other performers. Many of them are indelicate, and some very gross; and many are upon subjects equally improper, as making fun of the natural infirmities of persons, which is the subject of one of the Songs in The Children in the Wood. Collins's are of a better kind, though they want much correcting. He is deficient in refinement, and

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