Can Mr. Bede produce anything to match the following sample of the crater, to be found in our most polished English poet?
"Alas! if I am such a creature,
To grow the worse for growing greater!"
Dialogue between Pope and Craggs.
It will be seen, from the foregoing quotations, that the rhymes described as Irish were, a century and a half ago, common to both countries,—a fact which Mr. Bede was probably not sufficiently aware of when he introduced the subject in "N. & Q." For obvious reasons, the use of such rhymes, at the present day, would be open to the imputation of "Irishism;" but it was not so in the days of Swift.
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
In a former Number I drew attention to that peculiar fondness for "Irish rhymes" which is more evident in Swift than in any other poet; and another correspondent afterwards gave examples to show that "our premier poet, Pope," sometimes tripped in the same Hibernian manner. In looking over an old volume of the New Monthly Magazine, during the time of its being edited by the poet Campbell, I have stumbled upon a passage which is so apropos to the subject referred to, that I cannot resist quoting it; and independent of its bearing on our Irish rhyming discussion, the passage has sufficient interest to excuse my making a Note of it. It occurs in one of a series of papers called "The Family Journal," supposed to have been written by the immediate descendants of the "Will Honeycomb" of the Spectator. A
dinner-party is assembled at Mr. Pope's, when the conversation takes this turn:
"Mr. Walscott asked if he (Dryden) was an Englishman or an Irishman, for he never could find out. 'You would find out,' answered Mr. Pope, 'if you heard him talk, for he cannot get rid of the habit of saying a for e. He would be an Englishman with all his heart, if he could; but he is an Irishman, that is certain, and with all his heart too in one sense, for he is the truest patriot that country ever saw.... You must not talk to him about Irish rhymes,' added Mr. Pope, 'any more than you must talk to me about the gods and abodes in my Homer, which he quarrels with me for. The truth is, we all write Irish rhymes, and the Dean contrives to be more exact that way than most of us.' 'What!' said Mr. Walscott, 'does he carry his Irish accent into his writings, and yet think to conceal himself?' Mr. Pope read to us an odd kind of Latin-English effusion of the Dean's, which made us shake with laughter. It was about a consultation of physicians. The words, though Latin in themselves, make English when put together; and the Hibernianism of the spelling is very plain. I remember a taste of it. A doctor begins by inquiring,
"'Is his Honor sic? Præ lætus felis pulse. It do es beat veris loto de.'
"Here de spells day. An Englishman would have used the word da.
"'No,' says the second doctor; 'no, notis as qui cassi e ver feltu metri it,' &c.
"Metri for may try.
"Mr. Pope told us that there were two bad rhymes in the Rape of the Lock, and in the space of eight lines:
"'The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.
But this bold lord, with manly strength endued,
She with one finger and a thumb subdued.'
"Mr. Walscott. 'These would be very good French rhymes.'
"Mr. Pope. 'Yes, the French make a merit of necessity, and force their poverty upon us for riches. But it is bad in English. However, it is too late to alter what I wrote. I now care less about them, notwithstanding the Doctor. When I was a young man, I was for the free disinvolte way of Dryden, as in the Essay on Criticism; but the town preferred the style of my pastorals, and somehow or other I agreed with them. I then became very cautious, and wonder how those lines in the Lock escaped me. But I have come to this conclusion, that when a man has established his reputation for being able to do a thing, he may take liberties. Weakness is one thing, and the carelessness of power another.'"—New Monthly Magazine, vol. xiii. (1825), pp. 551, 552.