_Verses in Latin Prose_ (Vol. iv., p. 382.).--A. A. D. will surely thank
me, if his Note on the subject do not contain it, for the _rationale_,
which Sir Thomas Brown gives, _Religio Medici_, Part ii. p. 9., of the
occurrence of verses in Latin prose:
"I will not say with Plato, the soul is an harmony, but
harmonical, and hath its nearest sympathy unto music: thus some,
whose temper of body agrees, and humours the constitution of their
souls, are born poets, though indeed all are naturally inclined
unto rhythm. This made Tacitus, in the very first lines of his
story, fall upon a verse (_Urbem Romam in principio regis
habuere_); and Cicero, the worst of poets, but declaiming for a
poet, falls, in the very first sentence, upon a perfect hexameter:
_In quā me non inficior mediocriter esse_."