The prosody of the ancients enables us to ascertain whether a syllable be long or short. Our language is so much more flexible in verse that our poetry will not enable the people of the third and fourth millenniums even to do this, without a very laborious collation, which would after all in many instances leave the point doubtful. Nor will rhyme decide the question; for to a foreigner who understands English only by book (and the people of the third and fourth millenniums may be in this state) Dove and Glove, Rove and Grove, Move and Prove, must all appear legitimate and interchangeable rhymes. I must therefore have given up the matter in despair had it not been for a most fortunate and felicitous circumstance. There is one word in the English language which, happen what may, will never be out of use, and of which the true pronunciation like the true meaning is sure to pass down uninterruptedly and unaltered from generation to generation. That word, that one and only word which must remain immutable wherever English is spoken, whatever other mutations the speech may undergo, till the language itself be lost in the wreck of all things,—that word (Youths and Maidens ye anticipate it now!) that one and only word— _Τόδε μὲν οὐκέτι στόματος ὲν πύλαις Καθέξω·_[2] that dear delicious monosyllable LOVE, that word is a true and perfect rhyme to the name of our Doctor. Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied; ... pronounce but Love and Dove.[3] [Footnote 2: EURIPIDES.] [Footnote 3: ROMEO AND JULIET.] CHAPTER CCXXIV. CHARLEMAGNE, CASIMIR THE POET, MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, NOCTURNAL REMEMBRANCER.—THE DOCTOR NOT AMBITIOUS OF FAME.—THE AUTHOR IS INDUCED BY MR. FOSBROOKE AND NORRIS OF BEMERTON TO EJACULATE A HEATHEN PRAYER IN BEHALF OF HIS BRETHREN. _Tutte le cose son rose et viole Ch' io dico ò ch' io dirò de la virtute._ FR. SANSOVINO. It is recorded of Charlemagne by his secretary Eginhart, that he had always pen, ink and parchment beside his pillow, for the purpose of noting down any thoughts which might occur to him during the night: and lest upon waking he should find himself in darkness, a part of the wall, within reach from the bed was prepared, like the leaf of a tablet, with wax, on which he might indent his memoranda with a style. The Jesuit poet Casimir had a black tablet always by his bedside, and a piece of chalk, with which to secure a thought, or a poetical expression that might occur to him, _si quid insomnis noctu non infeliciter cogitabat ne id sibi periret._ In like manner it is related of Margaret Duchess of Newcastle that some of her young ladies always slept within call, ready to rise at any hour in the night, and take down her thoughts, lest she should forget them before morning.