These passages illustrate sufficiently the grotesque effects of double and triple rime in English verse,--effects of which Byron and Browning are the unquestioned masters. Professor Corson observes that the double rime is to be regarded as the means of "some special emphasis," whether serious or humorous. More commonly the effect is humorous, of course, as in _Don Juan_, where the rimes indicate "the lowering of the poetic key--the reduction of true poetic seriousness." The rimes in the _Flight of the Duchess_ Mr. Edmund Gurney has said sometimes "produce the effect of jokes made during the performance of a symphony." The specimen which follows illustrates the use of these double and triple rimes for a wholly serious purpose. Professor Corson remarks that in this case the rime serves "as a most effective foil to the melancholy theme. It is not unlike the laughter of frenzied grief." It is interesting to note that in the Italian language, where double rimes are almost constant, masculine rimes are sometimes used for grotesque effect in the same way that English poets use the feminine. Perishing gloomily, Spurred by contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest.-- Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Over her breast. Owning her weakness, Her evil behaviour, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! (THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._) Roll the strong stream of it Up, till the scream of it Wake from a dream of it Children that sleep, Seamen that fare for them Forth, with a prayer for them; Shall not God care for them, Angels not keep? Spare not the surges Thy stormy scourges; Spare us the dirges Of wives that weep. Turn back the waves for us: Dig no fresh graves for us, Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep. (SWINBURNE: _Winter in Northumberland_, xiv.) Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods he came. (SIDNEY LANIER: _A Ballad of Trees and the Master._) _Broken rime._ There first for thee my passion grew, Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen! Thou wast the daughter of my tu- tor, law-professor at the U- niversity of Gottingen. Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu! That kings and priests are plotting in; Here doomed to starve on water gru- el, never shall I see the U- niversity of Gottingen. (GEORGE CANNING: Song in _The Rovers; Anti-Jacobin_, June 4, 1798.[13]) Winter and summer, night and morn, I languish at this table dark; My office-window has a corn- er looks into St. James's Park.