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Macaroʹnic Verse

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Verses in which foreign words are ludicrously distorted and jumbled together, as in Porson’s lines on the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon. (Lingo drawn for the Militia.) So called by Teofʹilo Folengo, a Mantuan monk of noble family, who published a book entitled Liber Macaronicoʹrum, a poetical rhapsody made up of words of different languages, and treating of “pleasant matters” in a comical style (1520). Folengo is generally called Merlinus Coccaius, or Merlino Coccajo. (See preceding.) The Vigonce of Tossa was published in 1494. The following Latin verse is an hexameter;

Trumpeter unus erat qui coatum scarlet habebat”


⁂ A. Cunningham published in 1801 a Delectus macaronicorum carminum, a history of macaronic poetry


Cane carmen Sixpence, pera plena rye,

De multis atris avibus coctis in a pie:

Simul hæc apertʹest, cantat omnis grex,

Nonne permirabile, quod vidit ille rex?

Dimidium rex esus, misit ad reginam

Quod reliquit illa, sending back catīnum.

Rex fuit in ærario, multo nummo tumens;

In culīna Domina, bread and mel consumens,

Ancell in horticulo, hanging out the clothes,

Quum descendens cornix rapuit her nose.


E. C. B.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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MacPherson
MacTab
MacTurk (Captain Mungo or Hector)
Macaber
Macadamise
Macaire
Macamut
Macare (French)
Macaroni
Macaronic Latin
Macaronic Verse
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Macbriar (Ephraim)
Maccabæus
Macdonald
Macduff
Macheath (Captain)
Machiavelli
Machiavellism
Mackintosh or Macintosh
Macklin

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