a kind of burlesque poetry, consisting of a jumble of different languages, with words of the vulgar tongue Latinized, and Latin words modernized. Macarostri, amongst the Italians, as has been observed by Celsus Rhodiginus, signifies a coarse clownish man; and because this kind of poetry is patched up out of several languages, and full of extravagant words and combinations, the Italians, amongst whom it took its rise, gave it the name of macaronic poetry. Others, however, derive the name a macaronibus, from macaroons, a kind of confection made of meal not boullet, sweet almonds, sugar, and the white of eggs, and accounted a great dainty amongst the country people in Italy; which circumstance occasioned this kind of poetry, which consists of Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, English, and other languages, and is thus composed of various ingredients, to be called by the same name or appellation. Thus a bold fellow, in the macaronic style, says,

Enfilavi omnes scadrones et regimandos.

And the following is in the same vein;

Archeios pistilliferos furianique mamantum, Et grandem esmentam qua inpomipum facta ruelle est: Toximumaque alto trambulent corda clochero, &c.

Theophilus Folengius, a Benedictine monk of Mantua, was the first who invented, or at least cultivated, this kind of verse. The best pieces of the Macaronic kind are, the Baldus of Folengio, and Macaronis Forza by Stefonio, a Jesuit, amongst the Italians; and the Reatus veritabilis, super terribili exsulta Paisanarum de Ruellis, amongst the French. The famous Rabelais first transferred the macaronic style set of Italian verse into French prose, and upon this model formed some of the best things in his Pantagruel. We have but little in English in the macaronic style; and nothing scarce, excepting some little loose pieces collected in Camden's remains. But the Germans and people of the Netherlands have had their macaronic poets; for instance, the Certamen Catholicum cum Calvinistis of Martinus Hamconius Frisius, which contains about 1200 verses, all the words of which begin with the letter C.