The reason why I cannot tell;

Each day I fancy, more and more, I do not like the Villanelle !

It makes me stamp and storm and yell,

It makes me wildly rage and roar : This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

I look upon it as a sell,

Its use I constantly deplore;

I do not like the Villanelle !

Poetic thoughts it must dispel,

It very often tries me sore: This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

For this I know, and know full wellLet me repeat it o'er and o'er

I do not like the Villanelle,

This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

Such was Mr. Punch's opinion of this delicious form of verse, which must be complete in nineteen lines, arranged as above. The accepted model is the following old French Villanelle by Jean Passerat :

J'ay perdu ma tourterelle;
Est-ce-point elle que i'oy? *
Je veux aller après elle.

Tu regrettes ta femelle ;
Hélas! aussy fay-je moy :
J'ay perdu ma tourterelle.

Si ton amour est fidèle,
Aussy est ferme ma foy;
Je veux aller après elle.
Ta plainte se renouvelle?
Toujours plaindre je me doy :

J'ay perdu ma tourterelle.

En ne voyant plus la belle

Plus rien de beau je ne voy:
Je veux aller après elle.

Mort, que tant de fois j'appelle
Prens ce qui se donne à toy:
J'ai perdu ma tourterelle,

Je veux aller après elle.

THE STREET SINGER.
(Villanelle from my window.)

HE stands at the kerb and sings.
'Tis a doleful tune and slow,
Ah me, if I had but wings!
He bends to the coin one flings,
But he never attempts to go,-
He stands at the kerb and sings.

The conjurer comes with his rings.
And the Punch-and-Judy show.
Ah me, if I had but wings!

They pass like all fugitive things-
They fade and they pass, but lo!
He stands at the kerb and sings.

All the magic that Music brings

Is lost when he mangles it so—

Ah me, if I had but wings!

But the worst is a thought that stings!
There is nothing at hand to throw !
He stands at the kerb and sings-
Ah me, if I had but wings!

AUSTIN DOBSON.

CULTURE IN THE SLUMS.

Now ain't they utterly too-too

(She ses, my missus mine, ses she), Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Joe, just you kool 'em-nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,

Now ain't they utterly too-too?

They're better than a pot'n' a screw,

They're equal to a Sunday spree,

Them flymy little bits of Blue!

Suppose I put 'em up the flue,

And booze the profits, Joe? Not me. Now ain't they utterly too-too?

I do the 'Igh Art fake, I do.

Joe, I'm consummate; and I see

Them flymy little bits of Blue.

* An adaptation of "Madonna mia."

The Triolet, which should consist of eight lines, but only two rhymes, is more often met with in French literature than in our own; the following old specimen was christened by Ménage le roi des Triolets:

Le premier jour du mois de mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie :
Le beau dessein que je formai,
Le premier jour du mois de mai!
Je vous vis et je vous aimai.
Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie,
Le premier jour du mois de mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie.

JOHN TWIG.

HOW TO FASHION A TRIOLET.

As triolets are now the "go,"
A charming one I'll write,
Their little niceties to show,-
As triolets are now the "go,"-
I'm writing one (and apropos,
By Webster, I am right);
As triolets are now the "go,"
A charming one I'll write.

The dictionary teaches me

The triolet receipt :

The verses of eight lines must be ;

The dictionary teaches me
The first line, by the recipe,
Three times I must repeat.
The dictionary teaches me
The triolet receipt.

The second line must reappear
To form the final line;

No matter if it soundeth queer.
The second line must reappear;
When poetry is far from clear
It is considered fine !
The second line must reappear
To form the final line.

Now, do you like the triolet ?
Your true opinion say.

It puts me in a horrid pet;
Now, do you like the triolet ?
I wish your real thought to get,
So do be candid, pray.
Now do you like the triolet ?
Your true opinion say.

Detroit Free Press, 1888.

Punch.

:0:

THE RONDEAU.

(In a Rage.)

W. BEST.

PRAY tell me why we can't agree
To bid the merry Muse run free?
Pray tell me why we should incline
To see her in a Rondeau pine,
Or sigh in shackled minstrelsy?
Why can't she sing with lark-like glee,
And revel in bright jeux d'esprit ?
Where form can't fetter or confine-
Pray tell me why?

Pray tell me why that frisky gee,
Called Pegasus, should harnessed be?
Why bit and bridle should combine
To all his liveliness consign,-
To deck the Rondeau's narrow line-
Pray tell me why?

RONDEAU.

Ma foi, c'est fait de moi, car Isabeau
Ma conjuré de lui faire un rondeau.
Cela me met en peine extréme

Quoi! treize vers, huit en eau, cing en eme!
Je lui ferais aussitot un bateau.

En voilà cing pourtant en un monceau.
Faisons-en huit en invoquant Brodeau,
Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagème :
Ma foi, c est fait.

Si je pouvais encor de mon cerveau
Tirer cinq vers l ouvrage serait beau;
Mais cependant je suis dedans l' onzième;
Et ci je crois que je fais le douzième ;
En voila treize ajustés au niveau.
Ma foi, c'est fait.

-VOITURE.

The following humorous paraphrase was written, some years since, by Mr. Austin Dobson :

You bid me try, BLUE-EYES, to write
A Rondeau. What! forthwith ?-to-night?
Reflect. Some skill I have, 'tis true;

But thirteen lines -and rhymed on two!-
"Refrain," as well. Ah, hapless plight!
Still there are five lines-ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you—
You bid me try!

"That makes them eight.-The port's in sight:
Tis all because your eyes are bright!

Now just a pair to end in "o0,"—
When maids command, what can't we do!
Behold! The RONDEAU-tasteful, light-
You bid me try!"

One night and one day have I wept my woe;
Nor wot I when the morrow doth begin,
If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,

To pray them to advance the requisite tin
For ransom of their salesman, that he may
Go forth as other boarders go alway-

As those I hear now flocking from their tea,
Led by the daughter of my landlady

Piano-ward. This day for all my moans,
Dry bread and water have been servéd me.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

III.

Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so

The heart of the young he-boardér doth win, Playing "The Maiden's Prayer," adagio

That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray : That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye Ere sits she with a lover, as did we Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be

That all that arduous wooing not atones For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three? Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

IV.

Yea! she forgets the arm was wont to go

Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin Galleth the crook of the young man's elbow; I forget not, for I that youth have been. Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay. Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay Close in his room. Not calm, as I, was he; But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily. Small ease he gat of playing on the bones, Or hammering on his stove-pipe, that I see. Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

V.

Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow

I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin! Thee will I show up-yea, up will I shew

Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin. Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray! Thou dost not "keep a first-class house," I say! It does not with the advertisements agree. Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,

And thou hast harboured Jacobses and Cohns, Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Poets of the Esthetic School

About ten years ago London Society was divided into two hostile Camps, one known as the Esthetes, the other as the Philistines. Neither title was correct, nor very expressive, but each conveyed a certain meaning which even now could not be briefly expressed in more simple language.

The Esthetes were originally a small body of artists and poets, belonging to what was called the Pre-Raphaelite school, who strove to educate the English people up to a certain standard in art and culture.

All the men who founded this school subsequently became eminent in their professions, but they were, for many years, subjected to the ridicule and criticisms of the Philistines.

Yet it is probable that most of this opposition was directed less against the men of genius who actually created Pre-Raphaelitism, than against those too ardent devotees of the new fashion, who carried all its dictates to the extreme, and frequently turned the true and the beautiful into the absurd and grotesque by their exaggerations in dress, language, and deportment.

On the other hand many of the opponents of Estheticism were those who having seen Du Maurier's caricatures in Punch, and witnessed Burnand's vamped up old comedy The Colonel, or Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience, thought themselves fully qualified to jeer at the "consummate the "utter" and the "too-too,' " without having either read a poem by Swinburne, or Morris, or having seen a painting by Burne-Jones or Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

This opposition did some good in its day, for although Estheticism eventually triumphed, only the beautiful that it created has survived, the lank and melancholy maidens, and the "Grosvenor-Gallery" young men, have departed, but the revival-the Renaissance in fact-of British Art in Painting, poetry, dress, decoration, and even in house furniture, is an accomplished fact. Much has been written, and remains to be written, on this fascinating topic, but this collection cannot be made the medium for Lectures on Art.

At the risk of appearing egotistical the following little work can be mentioned as conveying useful information on a subject which is certainly worthy of some little study:"The Esthetic Movement in England," by Walter Hamilton. Third edition-London. Reeves and Turner, 1882.

Without further preface a selection of parodies will be given on the works of Rossetti, who was not only a founder of the school, but also one of its most eminent exponents.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, BORN May 12, 1828. | DIED April 9, 1882.

There was a particular metre much affected by this great artist and poet, of which perhaps the best example to be found is in his weird "Sister Helen," which has been frequently parodied. It commences thus:—

"WHY did you melt your waxen man,
Sister Helen?

(0 Mother, Mary Mother,

Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)

This, and other poems by Rossetti, such as Eden Bower, and Troy Town, only revived a very old fashion-the ballad with a refrain or burden.

But when once it was revived so many indifferent poets attempted to utter their little insipidities in the ballad style, that the parodists soon caught the infection. One gentleman furbished up a tremendous ballad which resembled nothing so much as the cry of a costermonger, for its burden, oft repeated, was

"Apple, and orange, and nectarine,"

whilst one of the evening papers published the following satire on Rossetti's style :

AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI.

"WHY do you wear your hair like a man,

Sister Helen?

This week is the third since you began."
"I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can,
Little brother,

(0 Mother Carey, mother! What chickens are these between sea and heaven ?”)

"But why does your figure appear so lean,
Sister Helen?
And why do you dress in sage sage, green?"
"Children should never be heard, if seen,
Little brother!
(0 Mother Carey, mother!
What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!"'

"But why is your face so yellowy white,

Sister Helen?

And why are your skirts so funnily tight ?"
"Be quiet you torment, or how can I write,
Little brother?

(0 Mother Carey, mother! How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven.") "And who's Mother Carey, and what is her train, Sister Helen?

And why do you call her again and again?"
"You troublesome boy, why that's the refrain,
Little brother!

O Mother Carey, mother!
What work is toward in the startled heaven?")
"And what's a refrain? What a curious word,
Sister Helen ;

Is the ballad you're writing about a sea-bird ?" "Not at all! why should it be? Don't be absurd, Little brother.

(0 Mother Carey, mother!

Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)" (A big brother speaketh :)

"The refrain you've studied a meaning had,
Sister Helen!

It gave strange force to a weird ballad.
But refrains have become a ridiculous 'fad,'
Little brother.

And Mother Carey, mother,

Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven."