verses,
Vomits forth and d--ns our souls.

In Beppo there is much gay carnival merriment and some humour--a style
well suited to Italian revelry. When Laura's husband, Beppo, returns,
and is seen in a new guise at a ball, we read--

"He was a Turk the colour of mahogany
And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,
Because the Turks so much admire philogyny,
Although the usage of their wives is sad,
'Tis said they use no better than a dog any
Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad;
They have a number though they ne'er exhibits 'em,
Four wives by law and concubines 'ad libitum."

On being assured that he is her husband, she exclaims--

"_Beppo._ And are you really truly, now a Turk?
With any other women did you wive?
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?
Well, that's the prettiest shawl--as I'm alive!
You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.
And how so many years did you contrive
To--Bless me! did I ever? No, I never
Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?"

More than half the poem is taken up with digressions, more or less
amusing, such as--

"Oh, mirth and innocence! Oh milk and water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!
In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter
Abominable man no more allays
His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter,
I love you both, and both shall have my praise!
Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy!
Meantime I drink to your return in brandy."

We may observe that there is humour in the rhymes in the above stanzas.
He often used absurd terminations to his lines as--

"For bating Covent garden, I can hit on
No place that's called Piazza in Great Britain."

People going to Italy, are to take with them--

"Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar and Harvey,
Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye."

We are here reminded of the endings of some of Butler's lines. Such
rhymes were then regarded as poetical, but in our improved taste we only
use them for humour. Lamb considered them to be a kind of punning, but
in one case the same position, in the other the same signification is
given to words of the same sound. The following couplet was written
humorously by Swift for a dog's collar--

"Pray steal me not: I'm Mrs. Dingley's
Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies."

Pope has the well known lines,

"Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow,
And all the rest is leather and pru