Pronunciation

When Orpheus smote his tuneful lyre
Among the Slocum Regis choir
Who, greatly daring, undertook
The celebrated work by Gluck
(Or, as some put it, tried their luck
At singing choruses by Gluck),
The name of his unhappy spouse
Diverse opinions did arouse.
For while sopranos, strong and screechy,
Loudly lamented Eurydice
And altos on the lower G
Bewailed the sad Eurydice,
The basses scorned distinction nice,
And sang the fate of Eurydice.

As given in the "Kipling Journal" (March 1968, vol. XXXV, no. 165). Introduced with the following: "...a memory of a verse which appeared in Punch many years ago and, if the Editor will permit, deserves repeating."

https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/journal/kj165

Google Books

Acrostics in Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream,  III, i:

TITANIA

Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate;
The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,

Comedy of Errors, I, i:

DUKE SOLINUS

Hapless AEgeon, whom the fates have mark'd
To bear the extremity of dire mishap!
Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,
Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,
Which princes, would they, may not disannul,
My soul would sue as advocate for thee.
But, though thou art adjudged to the death
And passed sentence may not be recall'd
But to our honour's great disparagement,
Yet I will favour thee in what I can.

These are probably coincidences, like the "Bible Code". For more information see "Shakespearean line-by-line acrostics" by A. Ross Eckler, Word Ways, Feb. 2007. (Free Library)   

Chaucer's color vision

Chaucer didn't have words for the colors like orange, but he could see them.

Canterbury Tales

Knight's Tale, 1273-4

The cercles of his eyen in his heed,
They glowéden bitwyxen yelow and reed

Nun's Priest's Tale, 136-7

His colour was bitwixe yelow and reed,
And tipped was his tayl and bothe hise eeris;

Rhetorical devices

Chiasmus - reversal of words with related meaning.  By day the frolic, and the dance by night. — Samuel Johnson

Antimetabole - a subtype of chiasmus. Reversal of same words. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Ciceronian irony - blame by praise and praise by blame.

Apophasis - the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up.

In the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign debates, Ronald Reagan used a humorous apophasis to deflect scrutiny of his own fitness at age 73 by replying, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

In Cicero's "Pro Caelio" speech, he says to a prosecutor, "Obliviscor iam iniurias tuas, Clodia, depono memoriam doloris mei" ("I now forget your wrongs, Clodia, I set aside the memory of my pain [that you caused].")

When apophasis is taken to its extreme, the speaker provides full details, stating or drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over: "I will not stoop to mentioning the occasion last winter when our esteemed opponent was found asleep in an alleyway with an empty bottle of vodka still pressed to his lips."

Grammar in 1846

ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEWBURYPORT FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL, ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF ITS ESTABLISHMENT, DECEMBER 19, 1846.

BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.

...I propose to give you a few hints on conversation...

...for some of the new grammars sanction these vulgarisms, and in looking over their tables of irregular verbs, I have sometimes half expected to have the book dashed from my hand by the indignant ghost of Lindley Murray.

Great care and discretion should be employed in the use of the common abbreviations of the negative forms of the substantive and auxiliary verbs. "Can't", "don't", and "havn't" [sic], are admissible in rapid conversation on trivial subjects. "Isn't" and "hasn't" are more harsh, yet tolerated by respectable usage. "Didn't", "couldn't", "wouldn't", and "shouldn't", make as unpleasant combinations of consonants as can well be uttered, and fall short but by one remove of those unutterable names of Polish gentlemen, which sometimes excite our wonder in the columns of a newspaper. "Won't" for "will not", and "aint" [sic] for "is not" or "are not", are absolutely vulgar; and "aint" [sic], for "has not" or "have not", is utterly intolerable...