Specimens of macaronic poetry

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NA POL l

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INTRODUCTION.

ΤΗΕ solio ing collection comprises the best specimensos Macaronte poet , containing a se that are but lituo known; and although in some instances the dissiculi nature of the composition may be the principat recommendation to notice, rei in othera will bo mund genuine wit and humour. The substance of this introduction has Hready appearsed in the Genti eman s Magagine in the courae oflast year. Previousty in mentioning the Macaronic authors, it maynot be out os character in reser shortly to some Other peculiar and affected styles of writing, having some amnity totheir labours. Nany os the examples mill probably besamiliar in the reader, and othera Will remi ly suggestthemselves. e classic Writers contain specimens os accidental alliteration, M

Medea, Euripid. Infans namque pudor prubibebat plura prosari.

Libera lingua loquuntur ludis liberalibus.

Naevius.

Nor must we overtook Cicero's unluchy line, O fortunatam natam me consule Romam, whicli, With the satirisi's remark upon it, is well known to the readers of Iuvenal, though probably only to a smati

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ii INTRODUCTION.

Portion os those who are so os using the si sic

omnia.

But affected alliteration alono is inin to the presentpurpose, as the line os Ennius O Τite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, Tyranne, tulisti :

Machina multa minax minitatur maxima muris ;

Cane decane cane, ne tu cane cane de Rue, De cane sed canis cane decane cane.

The lines on Cardinal Wolfey are old acquaintanee. Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred, How high his Highness holds his haughty head l e lipogrammati sis Mere Writers Who excluded some particular letter of the alphabet hom their compositio , like skilial chess-players giving up a plece to an inferior antagonist. Os these, Tryphiodorus, a Greeli poet and grammari an os Egypt, in the si xth century, was the most laborious. Anxious to ouldo Homer, he wrote a Poem onthe destruction os Troy, in twenty- ur books, stom thefirst os whicli the α was caresulty excluded; hom thesecond book the β, and so on through the alphabet. DI raeli, in his V Curiosities os Literature,' mentions a prosework by Fulgentius, in twent three chapters, Wherein asimilar system os exclusion is adopted sor ille Latin alph bet : also an ode os Ρindar, Where the letter . is pu posely omitted; and fiva novela by Lopes de Vega, the fidit os whicli is Mithout tho letter a, the second without e, M. Gregorio Leti presented a discourse to the Academyof tho Humorista at Rome, wherein me letter r Was ex cluded ; and a Diend having requested a copy as a literarycuriosity, he replied by a copi Ous ans er Of Seven Pages, written in the fame manner. anecdote gi ven by D'Israeli, astor stating stat the Orientalisis have this literarysolly, may illustrate these lipogrammatistis.

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INTRODUCTION. ill

In the Anthologia Graeca, edit. H. Steph. i. 58, aremems in presse os Bacchus, and os Apollo, on a disserent plan. They consist os twenty our lines, incli mota in thefirat line heginning with α, in the second line With β, and w on, e. p. stom poem to Bacchus.