Alliterations Carried to Absurd Excess
In the early part of the seventeenth century the fashion of hunting after alliterations was carried to an absurd excess. Even from the pulpit the chosen people were addressed as “the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation.” “Ane New-Year Gift,” or address, presented to Mary Queen of Scots by the poet Alexander Scot, concludes with a stanza running thus—
“Fresh, fulgent, flourist, fragrant flower formose,
Lantern to love, of ladies lamp and lot,
Cherry maist chaste, chief, carbuncle and chose, &c.”