A NOTE ON SOME FOREIGN FORMS OF VERSE. "They are a school to win The fair French daughter to learn English in ; And, graced with her song, To make the language sweet upon her tongue." -BEN JONSON, Underwoods. BY way of Appendix to the foregoing selection The of later English lyrics, I have been asked by the Editor to supply some brief notes as to the rules for writing the old French forms, of which the book contains sundry English examples. request is in a measure embarrassing, because the pieces of this kind in our language are not very numerous, and being few in number, can scarcely be held to be fairly representative. They come, not "in battalions," but rather as "single spies,"-with something on them of the strangeness born of another air and sun. They have, besides, a little of that hesitation which betokens those who are not quite sure of the welcome they will receive. To quit metaphor, it has been urged, and by some whose opinions are entitled to the utmost consideration, that the austere and lofty spirit of our island Muse is averse to the poetry of art pure and simple ;—that genuine inspiration and emotion do not express or exhibit themselves in stereotyped shapes and set refrains;—and it must be candidly admitted that it is by no means easy to combat such objections. Then again, there are opponents of less weight, to whom (it may be), in the words of the "great Author" in Fielding's "Amelia,"-" Rhymes are difficult things, -they are stubborn things, Sir!"-and to such, committed (perchance) to the comfortable but falsely-seductive immunities of blank verse, the introduction of outlandish complications is a gratuitous injury. To them it appears conclusive to say"These forms are certainly not new: if they are so excellent, why were they not introduced before?" There is, at all events, one answer, which once held equally good of not a few foreign products which have since become domestic necessaries-" Because no one has introduced them." When the English sonnet was in leading-strings, there were doubtless contemporary critics who regarded it as a merely new-fangled Italian conceit, suitable enough for the fantastic gallantries of Provençal "Courts of Love," but affording little or no room for earnest or serious effort. They could not foresee "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints,"-in the primitive essays of Surrey and Wyatt. And who shall say that some Shakespeare of the future (or the present) shall not "unlock his heart" with a Rondeau? Not that it is for a moment proposed to put the Rondeau on a level with the Sonnet. Still, it must not be forgotten that the Sonnet, however deservedly popular with English writers, is nevertheless a "foreign product" and an "arbitrary form." But without entering further into these considerations, it may be conceded that the majority of the forms now in question are not at present suited for, nor are they intended to rival the more approved national rhythms in, the treatment of grave or elevated themes. What is modestly advanced for some of them (by the present writer at least) is that they may add a new charm of buoyancy,-a lyric freshness, to amatory and familiar verse, already too much condemned to faded measures and out-worn cadences. Further, upon the assumption that merely graceful or tuneful trifles may be sometimes written (and even read), that they are admirable vehicles for the expression of trifles or jeux d'esprit.* They have also a humbler and obscurer use. If, to quote the once-hackneyed, but now too-much-forgotten maxim of Pope "Those move easiest that have learned to dance," what better discipline, among others, could possibly be devised for "those about to versify" than a course of Rondeaux, Triolets, and Ballades? After all, it is chiefly as an aid in this direction that the following rules for writing the six principal forms, as given by French authorities, are here reproduced. Into their history and origin it is not proposed to enter minutely; but those curious in these respects are referred * Do we not just a little forget, now-a-days, that our "nuga" should be "canora"?—that one requisite, at least, of a song is that it shall be musical ?— "Parnassus' peaks still catch the sun; But why-O lyric brother!- A Platform on the other?" We can never want for lectures or sermons, in their proper places. |