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!
Though his enemies called him a screecher, who scraught.

His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk;
And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk;
While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk.

He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed,
For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed,
And what he was longing to do, then he doed.

In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke,
To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke;
So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.

He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode,
They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode,
And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode.

Then homeward he said let us drive, and they drove,
And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove;
For whatever he couldn't contrive, she controve.

The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole;

At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole;
And he said, "I feel better than ever I fole."

So they to each other kept clinging, and clung,
While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung;
And this was the thing he was bringing and brung:

The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught-
That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught-
Was the one she now liked to scratch, and she scraught.

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 vowed if the lady would only be mine,

I would always be ready to please her;

She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass
Said never a word except "You're an ass-

An ass-an ass-iduous teazer!"

But when we were married, I found to my ruth
The stammering lady had spoken the truth;
For often, in obvious dudgeon,

She'd say if I ventured to give her a jog

In the way of reproof-"You're a dog-dog-dog-
A dog-a dog-matic curmudgeon!"

And once, when I said, "We can hardly afford
This immoderate style with our moderate board,"
And hinted we ought to be wiser,

She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue,
And fretfully cried, "You're a Jew-Jew-Jew-
A very ju-dicious adviser!"

Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk
Some rather unpleasant and arduous work,

I begged her to go to a neighbor,

She wanted to know why I made such a fuss,
And saucily said, "You're a cuss-cuss-cuss-
You were always ac-cus-tomed to labor!"

Out of temper at last with the insolent dame,
And feeling the woman was greatly to blame,
To scold me instead of caressing,

I mimicked her speech, like a churl as I am,
And angrily said, "You're a dam-dam-dam-
A dam-age instead of a blessing."

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.
Such pain as mine can never sleep!-
Zounds! as I live, another's gone!

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!
No balm to ease the troubled heart,-

Who starched this bosom? I declare
That writhes from hate's envenomed dart!-
It's enough to make a parson swear!
When faith in man is given up-

How plaguey shiftless are some women!
Then sorrow fills her bitter cup-

I'll have to get my other linen.
And to its lees the white lips quaff—

Smith says he's coming in to-night,
While Malice yields her mocking laugh!-
With Mrs. S., and Jones and Wright.

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
Could Lethe's waters o'er me roll,-

These stockings would look better mended!
And bring oblivion to my soul,—

When-will-you-have-that-ditty-ended?

Then haply I, in other skies,

We'd better have the oysters fried.
Might find the love that earth denies!
There! now at last my dickey's tied!

THOUGHTS WHILE SHE ROCKS THE CRADLE.

What is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful thing, no doubt,

Unwritten history!

Unfathomable mystery!

But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,

As if his head were as full of kinks,
And curious riddles, as any sphinx!
Warped by colic and wet by tears,

Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two years;
And he'll never know

Where the summers go:

He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!

Who can tell what the baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shores of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,

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,
Specked with the barks of little souls-
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide'
And what does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?

What of the cradle roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?

What does he think of his mother's breast-
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight—

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
With a tenderness she can never tell,

Though she murmur the words

Of all the birds

Words she has learned to murmur well?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep!

I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes, in soft eclipse,
Over his brow, and over his lips,

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,
For he's quite in his element underground.