suggested that the Chant Royal derived its name from the subjects that are more usually dedicated to its use; but while these are generally sublime topics treated in dignified allegory, yet there are examples extant entirely devoid of these characteristics. Again, the idea that it owes its name to being a form selected for competition before the king for the dignity of laureate, and hence dubbed royal-song, he also rejects, and points out that its name simply denotes that it is the most excellent form of the ballade (as we might say, the "king of ballades" in English), one that, from the increased length, both in stanzas and number of lines in each, largely augments the difficulties of construction met with in the true ballade, and marks it as "the final tour de force of poetic composition." Henry de Croï derives the title of this form from the fact that persons excelling in the composition of chants royal were worthy to be crowned with garlands like conquerors and kings. It is a moot point with students whether the ballade or chant royal is the earlier and original poem. The chant royal in the old form is usually devoted to the unfolding of an allegory in its five stanzas, the envoy supplying the key; but this is not always observed in modern examples. Whatever be the subject, however, it must always march in stately rhythm with splendid imagery, using all the poetic adornments of sonorous, highly-wrought lines and rich embroidery of words to clothe a theme in itself a lofty one. Unless the whole poem is constructed with intense care, and has intrinsic beauty of its own of no mean order, the monotony of its sixty-one lines rhymed on five sounds is unbearable. In spite of the increased burden imposed by the necessity of so many similar rhymes, no shadow of "poetic" or other license must be taken. Nothing short of complete success can warrant the choice of this exacting form, which demands all that can be given to it; enriched with

all the elaboration of consummate art in its every detail, and rising stanza by stanza, until the climax is reached in the envoy.

The laws of the ballade apply to the chant royal, with some added details of its own. The rhyme order is usually-a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d, e, d, e, with envoy of d, d, e, d, e. An example by Deschamps, "Sur le mort du Seigneur de Coucy," observes this order, a, b, a, b, b, c, c, d, e, d, and envoy, c, c, d, c, c, d. In either case the rhyme-order must be kept the same for each stanza, and the envoy commenced with an invocation as in the old ballades.

CHAIN VERSE.-There is one beautiful poem in socalled chain verse, which has so much likeness to these once-exotic forms that it deserves quotation in full, if only as an example of a native specimen of poetic ingenuity. It has little affinity with the chain verse of French art, as then the one word only grew from each line into the other (La rime Enchaînée).

Dieu des Amans, de mort me garde
Me gardant donne-moi bonheur,
Et me le donnant prend ta darde
Et la prenant navre son coeur
Et le navrant me tiendias seur

-Clement Marot.

The following hymn was written by John Byrom, and published in vol. ii. of his Posthumous Poems, 1773 :

THE DESPONDING SOUL'S WISH.

My spirit longeth for Thee,
Within my troubled breast,
Although I be unworthy
Of so Divine a Guest.

Of so Divine a Guest
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest,
Unless it comes from Thee.

Unless it comes from Thee.
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see
No rest is to be found.

No rest is to be found
But in thy blessed love!
Oh, let my wish be crowned.
And send it from above.

The Answer.

Cheer up, desponding soul,
Thy longing pleased I see:
'Tis part of that great whole
Wherewith I longed for Thee.

Wherewith I longed for Thee
And left my Father's throne,
From death to set thee free,
To claim thee for my own.

To claim thee for my own
I suffered on the cross:
O! were my love but known,
No soul need fear its loss.

No soul need fear its loss,
But, filled with love divine,
Would die on its own cross
And rise for ever thine,

This has so many points resembling the forms in this book, that it seemed worth quoting, if only to compare with the Malay Pantoum, the Villanelle, and the Rondel. KYRIELLE.The Kyrielle is so simple, and so widely used by writers, all unwittingly, that but for M. de Banville including it, it would be left unnoticed bere. It is merely a poem in four-lined of eight-syllable lines, having the last line of each the same. Our hymn books show many, witness

verses

"Jesus! Son of Mary, hear," or "Jesus, our Love, is crucified." It is a device so evident that it has naturally been used in almost all schools of poetry, and may be dismissed with no more words here.

PANTOUM.-The Pantoum, at first sight, has little reason for being included in a volume of verse in strict traditional forms, that are nearly all of French origin, since it is of Malay invention; but being introduced by M. Ernest Fouinet, and reproduced by M. Victor Hugo in the Orientales, it has found a place in the group of these forms given by De Banville, De Gramont, and others. The Pantoum is written in four-line stanzas. The second and fourth line of each verse form the first and third of each succeeding one, through an indefinite number of quatrains. At the close, to complete the unity of the work, the second and fourth line of the last stanza are made from the first and third of the first The rhymes are a b, a b,-b c, b c,—c d, e d,— de, de, and so on, until the last (which we may call z) z a, z a. In Mr. Austin Dobson's "In Town" and Mr. Brander Matthews' "En route "-as the latter himself points out in The Rhymester-"there is an attempt to make the constant repetitions not merely tolerable but subservient to the general effect of monotonously recurrent sound-in the one case the buzzing of the fly, and in the other the rattle and strain of the cars."

verse.

The RONDEL, RONDEAU, and ROUNDEL, a group having a common origin, are now to some extent classified, by each accepted variety using one form of the common name to denote its shape, but this division is purely arbitrary and a modern custom, only followed here, both in these notes and in the arrangement of the volume itself, to facilitate reference.

The RONDEL is merely the old form of the word rondeau; like oisel for oiseau, chastel for chateau so

rondel has become rondeau. It is one of the earliest of these forms, and freely used in the fourteenth century by Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, and others. It probably arose in Provence, and passed afterwards into use in Northern France. The name (rondel) is still applied to forms written after its early shape, the later spelling of the name being kept for the more recent variations of its form. In its origin the rondel was a lyric of two verses, each having four or five lines, rhyming on two rhymes only. In its eight (or ten) lines, but five (or six) were distinct, the others being made by repeating the first couplet at the end of the second stanza, sometimes in an inverse order, and the first line at the end of its first stanza. The eight-lined rondel is thus, to all intents and purposes, a triolet, although labelled a rondel. Here is a fourteenth century one by Eustache Deschamps :—

Est ce donc vostre intencion
De voloir retrancher mes gaiges
Vingt livres de ma pensica?
Est-ce donc vostre intencion?
Laissez passer l'Ascension,
Que honni soit vostre visaige!
Est-ce donc vostre intencion

De voloir retrancher mes gaiges?

Nor are these rondel-triolets exceptions; they are quite common till the beginning of the fifteenth century. With Charles d'Orléans the rondel took the distinct shape we now assign to it, namely, of fourteen lines on two rhymes, the first two lines repeating for the seventh and eighth, and the final couplet (see page 135). In this, the true type of the rondel, the two-lined refrain occurring three times in its fourteen makes it an unwieldy form to handle. In later French ones the last refrain uses but one of its lines. In Mr. Austin Dobson's "The Wanderer, the rhymes are in this order :