surprise, partake of the nature of wit; and such, whether double or triple, are sometimes called Hudibrastic, because they remind us of the humourous Satire of Butler.

"In mathematics he was greater,
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater;

Beside, he was a shrew'd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
Whatever sceptic could enquire for,
For every Why he had a Wherefore."

Hudibras.

Whether the consonance be single, double, or triple, the first syllables, according as they are long or short, constitute two distinct species of Rhymes. Thus,

dare; daring; daringly,

spāre; spāring; spāringly,

are examples of consonances, beginning with a long syllable, and

flăt; flättěr; flattering,

påt; påttĕr; påttĕring,

are Rhymes that have their first syllable short. Although a long vowel is often merely a protracted

pronunciation of a short one, yet those shorts and longs should not be indiscriminately yoked together. Such pairs as den and fane; pin and mean, make but imperfect echoes. Formerly words ending with y unaccented were made to rhyme with ee-probably these words were then accented on the last syllable, as "a far countreé,” for a far country.

The Spanish have a peculiar species of Rhyme called asonantes, in which the vowels only of the rhyming syllables are the same. Such terminating words as toda, monta, tropa, and briosa, belong to this species of Rhyme; and the echo of the vowels, o and a, are thus repeated, without regard to the consonants, from the beginning to the end of the poem. The versification in which these asonantes are used is termed Romance, and consists of eight syllables, making four Trochaic feet. The first line is a Blank Verse and the second an Assonant one; and so on, alternately, to the close of the piece. All the Spanish Dramas are written in this species of verse which seems well adapted to the orthography of that language. The first stanza of the old popular ballad of "William and Margaret," contains an Assonant Rhyme :

"When all was wrapt in dark midnight,

And all were fast asleep,

In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,

And stood at William's feet."

Sleep and feet are now considered as a false Rhyme.

Alliteration (Latin ad to, and litera, a letter) is another species of Rhyme. It is the resonance, or sounding again, of the same consonant, as in the words Bug-bear, Hell-hound and Sea-sick. The return of such sounds, like that of the Rhymes above treated of, if not too frequent, is agreeable to the ear; because the succeeding impression is made with less effort than that which precedes. Perhaps it is for this reason, that Alliteration, as well as Rhyme, has a tendency like verse to fix a sentence on the memory. It is hence that Proverbs have generally one or other of those auxiliaries, without any pretension to poetical feeling. Thus,

Birds of a feather-flock together.'

'Fast bind,-fast find.'

If you trust before you try,-you may repent before you die.'

'Cut your coat according to your cloth.'

'When the steed is stolen, shut the stable door.' "Tis too late to spare, when all is spent.'

'I talk of chalk, and you of cheese.'

The reader will recollect a multitude of others which have been implanted in the memory, by

means either of Rhyme or Alliteration. Indeed those Proverbs which contain neither may be considered as of later introduction; or, else, as having been translated from a more ancient saw. Thus, Burnt children dread the fire' has neither Alliteration nor Rhyme; but the Scotch Burnt bairns fear the fire' is genuine: bearn being the Saxon for child, from bearan, to bear. We could mention many such alterations which have arisen, as in the present case, from words becoming obsolete; and, in others, on account of indelicacies, real or apparent, which were either tolerated or not perceived by our ancestors.

Previous to the Norman conquest, we have no remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry that deserve the name. "They are," says Warton, " for the most part, little more than religious rhapsodies, and scarce any compositions remain marked with the native images of that people in their Pagan state." In some stanzas of a Norman ballad written about the year 1200 and quoted by the last-mentioned author, it seems doubtful whether the poet trusted most to Alliteration or to Rhyme. The "Visions of Pierce Plowman," composed by Longlandes, about the year 1350, present a curious display of Alliteration. These Visions are humourous and satirical; but filled with those allegorical personifications which constituted the

machinery of so many poets and prosers from the thirteenth to the close of the seventeenth century:-which tires us in Spenser, and is the only merit of Bunyan. But it is the versification (if it can be so called) of Longlandes with which we are now concerned. The following is "an extract in which Nature (Kynde) at the command of Conscience and its companions, Age and Death, sends her diseases from the planets:

Kynde, Conscience then heard, and came out of the
planetts,

And sent forth his forriours, Fevers and Fluxes,
Coughes and Cardiacles, Crampes and Toth aches,
Reumes and Kadgondes, and raynous Scalles,
Byles and Botches, and burnynge Agues
Freneses and foule Evill, foragers of Kynde.
There was 'Harowe! and Helpe! here cometh Kynde!
With Death that is dreadful, to unde us all!
The lord that lyveth after lust tho aloud cried

"

A few of the preceding lines are similar to the Hexameters formerly mentioned, while others present no feature of regularity, but depend on Inversion and Alliteration to distinguish them from prose. In this the poet imitated the AngloSaxons, who, probably, acquired the practice of writing lines, without either Rhythm or Rhyme, in consequence of translating literally from Latin Verses. Here, however, Longlandes was peculiar;