A curious instance of involuntary rhythm occurs in President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:— Fondly do we hope, Fervently do we pray, That this mighty scourge of war May speedily pass away: Yet if be God's will That it continue until-" but here the strain abruptly ceases, and the President relapses into prose. In the course of a discussion upon the involuntary metre into which Shakspeare so frequently fell, when he intended his minor characters to speak prose, Dr. Johnson observed; "Such verse we make when we are writing prose; We make such verse in common conversation." Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, from their habit of committing to memory and reciting dramatic blank verse, unconsciously made their most ordinary observations in that measure. Kemble, for instance, on giving a shilling to a beggar, thus answered the surprised look of his companion: "It is not often that I do these things, But when I do, I do them handsomely." And once when, in a walk with Walter Scott on the banks of the Tweed, a dangerous looking bull made his appearance, Scott took the water, Kemble exclaimed :— "Sheriff, I'll get me up in yonder tree." The presence of danger usually makes a man speak naturally, if anything will. If a reciter of blank verse, then, fall unconsciously into the rhythm of it when intending to speak prose, much more may an habitual writer of it be expected to do so. Instances of the kind from the table-talk of both Kemble and his sister might be multiplied. This of Mrs. Siddons, "I asked for water, boy; you've brought me beer,—' is one of the best known. The Humors of Versification. THE LOVERS. IN DIFFERENT MOODS AND TENSES. Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught, And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher, who praught! His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk; He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed, In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke, He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode, Then homeward he said let us drive, and they drove, The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole; At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole; So they to each other kept clinging, and clung, The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught- And Charley's warm love began freezing and froze, While he took to teasing, and cruelly toze The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze. "Wretch!" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left, "How could you deceive, as you have deceft?" And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I've cleft." A STAMMERING WIFE. When deeply in love with Miss Emily Pryne, I would always be ready to please her; She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass An ass-an ass-iduous teazer!" But when we were married, I found to my ruth She'd say if I ventured to give her a jog In the way of reproof-"You're a dog-dog-dog- And once, when I said, "We can hardly afford She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue, Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk I begged her to go to a neighbor, She wanted to know why I made such a fuss, Out of temper at last with the insolent dame, I mimicked her speech, like a churl as I am, A SONG WITH VARIATIONS. [SCENE.-Wife at the piano; brute of a husband, who has no more soul for music than his boot, in an adjoining apartment, making his toilet.] Oh! do not chide me if I weep!— Come, wife, and sew this button on. For unrequited love brings grief, A needle, wife, and bring your scissors. And Pity's voice gives no relief The child! good Lord! he's at my razors! Who starched this bosom? I declare How plaguey shiftless are some women! I'll have to get my other linen. Smith says he's coming in to-night, Oh! could I stifle in my breast And Jones will bring some prime old sherry. This aching heart, and give it rest, We'll want some eggs for Tom-and-Jerry These stockings would look better mended! When-will-you-have-that-ditty-ended? Then haply I, in other skies, We'd better have the oysters fried. THOUGHTS WHILE SHE ROCKS THE CRADLE. What is the little one thinking about? Unwritten history! Unfathomable mystery! But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, As if his head were as full of kinks, Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears, Where the summers go: He need not laugh, for he'll find it so! Who can tell what the baby thinks? By which the manikin feels his way Into the light of day? Out from the shores of the unknown sea, Tossing in pitiful agony! Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, What of the cradle roof that flies What does he think of his mother's breast- Cup of his joy and couch of his rest? What does he think when her quick embrace Presses his hand and buries his face Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell Though she murmur the words Of all the birds Words she has learned to murmur well? I can see the shadow creep Out to his little finger tips, Softly sinking, down he goes! Down he goes! down he goes! [Rising and carefully retreating to her seat.] See! he is hushed in sweet repose! A SERIO-COMIC ELEGY. WHATELY ON BUCKLAND. In his "Common-Place Book," the late Archbishop Whately records the following Elegy on the late geologist, Dr. Buckland: Where shall we our great professor inter, That in peace may rest his bones? If we hew him a rocky sepulchre He'll rise and break the stones, And examine each stratum which lies around, |