Was beat with Fist instead of a Stick."
Where, unless we pronounce the particle a with a strong accent upon it, and make it sound like the vowel a in the last syllable but one of ecclesiastic, the verse will lose all its beauty and rhyme. But this is allowable in burlesque poetry only.
Observe that these double rhymes may be composed of two several words, provided the accent be on the last syllable of the first of them; as these verses of Cowley, speaking of gold,
"A Curse on him who did refine it,
A Curse on him who first did coin it."
Or some of the verses may end in an entire word, and the rhyme to it be composed of several; as,
"Tho' stor'd with Deletery Med'cines
Which whosoever took is dead since."—Hudibras.
The treble rhyme is very seldom used, and ought wholly to be exploded from serious subjects; for it has a certain flatness unworthy the gravity required in heroic verse. In which Dryden was of opinion, that even the double rhymes ought very cautiously to find place; and in all his translations of Virgil he has made use of none, except only in such words as admit of a contraction, and therefore cannot properly be said to be double rhymes; as giv'n, driv'n, tow'r, pow'r, and the like. And indeed, considering their measure is indifferent from that of a heroic verse, which consists but of ten syllables, they ought not to be too frequently used in heroic poems; but they are very graceful in the lyric, to which, as well as to the burlesque, those rhymes more properly belong.
Section III.—Further instructions concerning rhyme.