Historie of Glaucus and Scilla," but has omitted to mention the following madrigal, the most beautiful, perhaps, of all Lodge's compositions, and it is given here as an excellent illustration of monosyllabic verse, few words of more than one syllable appearing in it.

MADRIGAL.

Love in my bosom, like a bee,

Doth sucke his sweete;

Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feete.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amid my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest.

Strike I my lute-he tunes the string,
He music plays, if I do sing;
He lends me every living thing,
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting.

What, if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod,

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
O Cupid! so thou pity me,
I will not wish to part from thee.

Coleridge considered that the most beautiful verse, and also the most sublime, in the Bible was that in the book of Ezekiel which says "And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest." Here are seventeen monosyllables, and only three words of two syllables.

The author of the "Night Thoughts," also, in a very impressive passage, says—

"The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
Save by its loss; to give it then a tongue

Was wise in man."

The following lines of Hall, satirising the vanity of those who take pleasure in adding house to house and field to field,

"Fond fool, six feet shall serve for all thy store,

And he that cares for most shall find no more

gave occasion for the historian Gibbon's appreciative remark, "What harmonious monosyllables!"

NONSENSE VERSE, &c.

HE French had at one time a favourite and ingenious kind of versification called

Amphigourie, or Nonsense Verse. The word is derived from two Greek words signifying about and circle, and the object was to give verses the appearance of good sense and fine poetry, while in reality meaning nothing whatever! The primary example given is richly-rhymed, elegantly expressed, but actual nonsense! It is taken from Disraeli's "Curiosities of Literature."

AMPHIGOURIE.

Qu'il est heureux de se défendre
Quand le cœur ne s'est pas rendu !
Mais qu'il est fâcheux de se rendre
Quand le bonheur est suspendu !
Par un discours sans suite et tendre,
Égarez un cœur eperdu ;

Souvent par un mal-entendu

L'amant adroit se fait entendre.

IMITATED.

How happy to defend our heart,
When Love has never thrown a dart!
But ah! unhappy when it bends,
If pleasure her soft bliss suspends !
Sweet in a wild disordered strain,
A lost and wandering heart to gain,
Oft in mistaken language wooed
The skilful lover's understood.

The preceding was sung by the celebrated Madame Tencin one evening to Fontenelle, and they bore such a resemblance to meaning that Fontenelle requested they should be repeated. "Do you not perceive," said the witty authoress, "that they are nonsense?" "Ah,” replied the poet, sarcastically, "they are so much like the fine verses I have heard here, that it is not surprising I should be for once mistaken!"

Pope furnishes the best English specimen of this kind of poetry-the "Song by a Person of Quality," and it is believed to have been written to ridicule certain namby-pamby poets of his day. The lines are as follow:

SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.
Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart,

I a slave in thy dominions,
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,
All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourned Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, tune the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Armed in adamantine chains,

Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mournful Cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.

Melancholy, smooth Mæander,

Swiftly purling in a round, On thy margin lovers wander

With thy flowery chaplets crowned.

Thus when Philomela, drooping,

Softly seeks her silent mate,