cally autonomous"-a "leap and a bound" was meant here. These two last examples are "firstproof" faults, and were corrected before publication. One or two more, and we have done. In the Times report of Disraeli's speech upon the causes of the rebellion in India, that usually exceptionally correct paper made him refer to the law which "permitted Hindoo windows to marry." A still more curious instance occurred in the same paper in connection with the Jamaica prosecutions. Mr. Stephens was reported to have said that he had treated Mr. Eyre as he had often treated obscene and uninteresting criminals. It was easy to see that this was a misprint for "obscure," but the editor insisted that the error was in the manuscript. Towards the close of the American Civil War, a newspaper contained a strong leader upon the failure of the Southern States to establish their independence, and contained the curious statement that since General Lee had capitulated, the other divisions of the Confederate armies "would, in all likelihood, now commence a gorilla warfare' guerilla, of course, was here meant. About the same time, there appeared a report of the seizure of the goods of a certain refractory gentleman for the non-payment of a local tax which had been وو the occasion of much trouble in one of our northern cities, and mention was made of one article which had been seized among the rest, and this was characterised as "an eloquent chest of drawers." In complimenting a soldier as a "battle-scarred veteran," a paper gave him the character of a "battle-scared veteran," and in afterwards inserting an erratum and apology, made matters worse by styling him a "bottle-scarred veteran!" R SHAPED POEMS. IGURATE or Shaped Poems have considerable antiquity, and several in Greek, attributed to Theocritus, Simmias of Rhodes, and others, have come down to us; while mediæval Latin poetry also furnishes many of these curious versifications. The minor poets of Dryden's time were much given to this literary folly, though it sometimes required a little aid from the imagination to trace the resemblance to the object indicated, and greater attention was frequently paid to the shape of the verse than to its sense or rhythm. Ben Jonson satirised these early poets for their facility in this pattern-cutting style, saying they could fashion "A pair of scissors and a comb in verse." Bottles, glasses, axes, fans, hearts, wings, true-love knots, ladies' gowns, flying angels, trumpets of fame, &c., were all favourite forms; and, with another class of poets, pulpits, altars, and tombstones were the mode; whilst Gabriel Harvey is reputed to have been an adept at verses "in the form of a pair of gloves, a pair of spectacles, and a pair of pothooks." Butler also speaks severely regarding this literary folly; referring in the "Character of a Small Poet" to Edward Benlowes, called in his day "the excellently learned," he says of him: "There is no feat of activity, nor gambol of wit, that ever was performed by man, from him that vaults on Pegasus, to him that tumbles through the hoop of an anagram, but Benlowes has got the mastery of it, whether it be high-rope wit or lowrope wit. He has all sorts of echoes, rebuses, chronograms, &c. As for altars and pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way; for he has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that besides the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did perfectly represent the noise that is made by these utensils. When he was a captain, he made all the furniture of his horse, from the bit to the crupper, in the beaten poetry, every verse being fitted to the proportion of the thing; as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of content, and the crupper of constancy; so that the same thing was to the epigram and emblem even as the mule is both horse and ass." Verses in such fantastic and grotesque shapes were also common in France at one time-the poet Pannard (1640) tortured his agreeable vein into such forms, making his Bacchanalian songs take the form of bottles and glasses, this being done by lengthening or shortening the lines as required, though with sad detriment to the verse. Pannard's method will be best understood from the following two examples of his verse: Nous ne pouvons rien trouver sur la terre où souvent pétille, mousse, et brille content. Quelle douceur tot tot tot Qu'on m'en donne vite et comme il faut tot tot tot qu'on m'en donne vite et comme il faut L'on y voit sur ses flots chéris nager l'allégresse et les ris. |