derive like them, their poetry from the Celts ; and yet it does not 

 feem to have taken an early form, for in the year 1670, James Doufa 

 is the firft who compofed the Belgian alexandrine, which is in rhime, 

 and may be found in Pafchius : after him comes B. Dn. Major, in a 

 Latin poem out of all metre ; 



" Sperlingi, Panfophe, Theologe facunde, 



" MufEum ambulans, die mihi unde," &c. 5:c. 



About this period we have alfo Riparius, who has the honor of being 

 the inventor of another fpecies of Latin verfe, in ftrophes, with inter- 

 calary rhimes, all ending alike. Plempius, another Belgian, in the year 

 1639, publiflied his " Quifquilice Poeticae," in which he rhimes away 

 in as bad Latin as any monk of them all. He has the merit of in- 

 venting another fort of Macaronic, or a Belgico-Latino-Latino-Belgico 

 -verfe, the words in each language bearing the fame import ; a fpecimen, 

 it is prefumed, is unneceffary. Yet although as faid above, the Bel- 

 gic poetry had not taken an early root, we have in the ninth cen- 

 tury, Hubald, a monk of this order, (the order feems to have been 

 more devoted to the rhime than their rituals,) compofmg a poem in praife 

 of baldnefs, and addrefl to Carolus Calvus, the firft line of which begins 

 thus, 



" Carmina Clarifonffi Calvis Cantate Camsens." 



This reminds us of Placentius's pig-poem, mentioned by Voflius, in 

 his hiftory of the Latin poets, cap, 3. ; where every word began with 

 a P, but which Sandius, in his Animadverfions, declares to have been 

 impoflible. Hubald, however, has proved the poffibility of fuch allite- 

 rative rhime. And had this been wanting, we have Hader the Dane's 

 " Canum cum catis certamen," which may be conflxued in his own way, 



" The 



