“’Needy knife | -grinder! | whither | are you | going? 
Rough is the | road, your | wheel is | out of | order—­
Bleak blows the | blast;—­your | hat has | got a | hole in’t,
So have your | breeches!

    ’Weary knife | -grinder! | little | think the | proud ones
     Who in their | coaches | roll a | -long the | turnpike—­
     Road, what hard | work ’tis, | crying | all day, | ’Knives and
               Scissors to | grind O!’”—­P. 44.

OBS. 13.—­Among the humorous poems of Thomas Green Fessenden, published under the sobriquet of Dr. Caustic, or “Christopher Caustic, M. D.,” may be seen an other comical example of Sapphics, which extends to eleven stanzas.  It describes a contra-dance, and is entitled, “Horace Surpassed.”  The conclusion is as follows:—­

   “Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla,
    Almost as light as air-balloon inflated,
    Rigadoons around her, ’till the lady’s heart is
                    Forced to surrender.

    Benny Bamboozle cuts the drollest capers,
    Just like a camel, or a hippopot’mus;
    Jolly Jack Jumble makes as big a rout as
                    Forty Dutch horses.

    See Angelina lead the mazy dance down;
    Never did fairy trip it so fantastic;
    How my heart flutters, while my tongue pronounces,
                    ‘Sweet little seraph!’

    Such are the joys that flow from contra-dancing,
    Pure as the primal happiness of Eden,
    Love, mirth, and music, kindle in accordance
                    Raptures extatic.”—­Poems, p. 208.

SECTION V.—­ORAL EXERCISES.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE PROSODY, OR ERRORS OF METRE.

LESSON I.—­RESTORE THE RHYTHM.

“The lion is laid down in his lair.”—­O.  B. Peirce’s Gram., p. 134.

[FORMULE.—­Not proper, because the word “lion,” here put for Cowper’s word “beast” destroys the metre, and changes the line to prose.  But, according to the definition given on p. 827, “Verse, in opposition to prose, is language arranged into metrical lines of some determinate length and rhythm—­language so ordered as to produce harmony by a due succession of poetic feet.”  This line was composed of one iamb and two anapests; and, to such form, it should be restored, thus:  “The beast is laid down in his lair.”—­Cowper’s Poems, Vol. i, p. 201.]

   “Where is thy true treasure?  Gold says, not in me.”
        —­Hallock’s Gram., 1842, p. 66.

   “Canst thou grow sad, thou sayest, as earth grows bright?”
        —­Frazee’s Gram., 1845, p. 140.

   “It must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well.”
        —­Wells’s Gram., 1846, p. 122.

   “Slow rises merit, when by poverty depressed.”
        —­Ib., p. 195; Hiley, 132; Hart, 179.