440 
Sitdt que piqué fe vit, 
Ah, je fuis perdu! ce dit: 
Et s’encourant vers fa mere, 
Luy montra fa plaie amere, 
« Qui Va, dis-moy, faux garcony 
Bieflé de telle fagon? 
Sont-ce mes Graces riantes 
De leurs aiguilles poignantes 27” 
<< Nennt, eft un ferpenteat, 
ui vole au printems nouwedtly 
Avecque deux aiferettes 
Ca et 1a fur les fleurettes.”” 
« Ah! vraiment je le cognois,”” 
Dit Venus, & les villageois 
Dela Montagne d’Hymette, 
Le furnomment Afellifette. 
€ Si doncques un animal 
Si petit fait tant de mal, 
Quand fon halefne efpoincenne 
La main de queique perfonne ; 
&¢ Combien fais-tu de douleur, 
Au prix de luy, dans le caeur 
De celuy en qui tu jettes 
Tes amoureuies fagettes ?*’ 
if. Anacreon. ODE 4o. E:s Epwila. 
ONCE, a bee, unfeen while fleeping, 
‘Touch’d by Love, from rofe-buds creeping, 
Stung the boy, who blead efpying 
On his finger, fell a-crying: 
Then, both feet and pintens ftraining 
Flew to Venus, thus complaining: 
«Oh! mamma, matuma, I’m dying, 
Me a little dragon fpying, 
Which the plaughman-tribe, {eo fiupids 
Cail a bee, has bit your Cupid-” 
«Ah!? guoth Venus, fmiling threwdlys 
Ef a bee can wound fo rudely, | 
Cupid, think how tharp the torraws 
Caus’d by thy envenom’d arrows !”’ 
The playful fweetnefs of mike is 
happily imitated in beth thefe preduc- 
tions, and as the one has already been 
cited * as.a firiking inftance of the effect 
of diminuives in language, fo the other 
is, perhaps, no iefs fuccefsful an exam- 
ple of the double rhyme. 
fn cracigg the hiftory of various lan- 
guages, we fhall often find that nations 
have voluntarily abandoned advantages 
of exprefiion or cotftruétion, which fuc- 
ceeding ages could not eafily revive. It 
is univerfally acknowledged that the fine- 
nefs and delicacy introduced into the Ita- 
han ianguage, by means of their great 
variety of diminutives and augmenta- 
tives, highly improves their poetry, and 
contributes, perhaps, not a little to that 
refinement of ‘national tafte for which 
they have long been celebrated. The 

% See Gebelin’s Gram, Univ. p. 99. 
Ef2ats of Diminutives and double Rhymes. 

[Dees 
poets who fir reformed the French — 
language, forming themfelves on the 
Greek, Italian, and Provencal models, 
were fully fenfible of the value of thefe 
words in giving a grace and delicacy to 
the poetic painting. They copied their 
mafiers largely in this refpe&t, and this 
fingle circumftance frequently renders 
their produétions.(notwithftanding the 
obf{curity of their language) far more in- 
terefting than the modern French poetry, 
which, under a falfe idea of refinement, 
has pruned away moft of the luxuriancies 
of verfe. At prefent it is remarkable 
enough that this peculiarity of language, 
both in French and Englifh, is moitly 
confined to provincialifms: the Scotch 
dialeét has many diminutives unknown — 
to what ts called pure Englith; and the 
fame obfervation may be made on the - 
diale€is of Provence, Languedoc, &c. 
compared with the pure French. 
But though in the formation of words 
the Englifh language is thus defeétive, 
the conftruétion of our verfe has a much 
greater latitude, and enables the poet to 
adapt his expreffion to his fubjeét with a 
happy facility. Iam the more induced 
to make thefe obfervations by having 
obferved, of late, many attempts at no- 
velty in metre, fome of which have been 
attended with a very admirable effect, 
whilft the failure of others is only to-be 
attributed to a'want of obfervation with 
regard to the effet produced on an 
Englifh ear by certain fucceffions of 
founds. It is, perhaps, an erroneous 
idea that fuch experiments cannot well 
be reduced to a fyftematic accuracy. F 
do not mean here to lay down the gene- 
ral principles of fuch a fcience, nor, per- 
haps, would fuch a tafk be eafy; I thall 
content myfelf therefore with fuggefting, 
that: the previous produétions of our 
poets have fufficiently exemplified the 
general power of thofe fucceffions of 
found which conftitute moft of our metres. 
With regard to the double rhyme (or 
that whole forse falls on the penultima) 
it is of fo foft and fowing a nature, and 
approaches fo near to the eafe of fami- 
liar difcourfe, that it is feldom ufed but 
in combination with others, to which it 
communicates its own eafe, making the 
light more humorous, and giving to the 
ferious a caft of tendernefs. The little ~ 
poem which I have above communicated 
is, perhaps, of the only kind which 
would admit this metre unmixed; its 
fhortnefs prevents it from producing 2 
jangle on the ear, and the mixture of ten- 
J | derne({s 
