The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical EssaysSteele, Richard, Sir
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The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays
Steele, Richard, Sir
English essays -- 18th century -- Periodicals
_He rag'd, and kept as heavy a Coil as
Stout Hercules for loss of_ Hylas;
_Forcing the Valleys to repeat
The Accents of his sad Regret;
He beat his Breast, and tore his Hair,
For Loss of his dear Crony Bear,
That Eccho from the hollow Ground
His Doleful Wailings did resound
More wistfully, bu many times,
Then in small Poets Splay-foot Rhymes,
That make her, in her rueful Stories
To answer to Introgatories,
And most unconscionably depose
Things of which She nothing knows:
And when she has said all she can say,
'Tis wrested to the Lover's Fancy.
Quoth he, O whither, wicked_ Bruin,
_Art thou fled to my-----Eccho_, Ruin?
_I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a Step
for Fear. (Quoth Eccho)_ Marry guep.
_Am not I here to take thy Part!
Then what has quell'd thy stubborn Heart?
Have these Bones rattled, and this Head
So often in thy Quarrel bled?
Nor did I ever winch or grudge it,
For thy dear Sake. (Quoth she)_ Mum budget.
_Think'st thou 'twill not be laid i' th' Dish.
Thou turn'dst thy Back? Quoth Eccho_, Pish.
To run from those th' hadst overcome
Thus cowardly? Quoth Eccho_, Mum.
_But what a-vengeance makes thee fly
From me too, as thine Enemy?
Or if thou hadst not Thought of me,
Nor what I have endur'd for Thee,
Yet Shame and Honour might prevail
To keep thee thus for turning tail;
For who will grudge to spend his Blood in
His Honour's Cause? Quoth she_, A Pudding.
[Footnote 1: From [Greek: leíp_o], I omit, [Greek: grámma], a letter. In
modern literature there is a Pugna Porcorum (pig-fight) of which every
word begins with a p, and there are Spanish odes from which all vowels
but one are omitted. The earliest writer of Lipogrammatic verse is said
to have been the Greek poet Lasus, born in Achaia 538 B.C. Lope de Vega
wrote five novels, each with one of the five vowels excluded from it.]
[Footnote 2: This French name for an enigmatical device is said to be
derived from the custom of the priests of Picardy at carnival time to
set up ingenious jests upon current affairs, 'de _rebus_ quæ geruntur.']
[Footnote 3: Addison takes these illustrations from the chapter on
'Rebus or Name devises,' in that pleasant old book, Camden's Remains,
which he presently cites. The next chapter in the 'Remains' is upon
Anagrams.]
[Footnote 4: _Colloquia Familiaria_, under the title Echo. The dialogue
is ingeniously contrived between a youth and Echo.]
* * * * *
No. 60. Wednesday, May 9, 1711. Addison.
'Hoc est quod palles? Cur quis non prandeat, Hoc est?'
Per. 'Sat. 3.'
Several kinds of false Wit that vanished in the refined Ages of the
World, discovered themselves again in the Times of Monkish Ignorance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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