To join these squadrons, o'er the champaign came
A numerous race of no ignoble name;
_Riddle_ and _Rebus_, Riddle's dearest son,
And _false Conundrum_ and _insidious Pun_.
_Fustian_, who scarcely deigns to tread the ground,
And _Rondeau_, wheeling in repeated round.
On their fair standards, by the wind display'd,
_Eggs_, _altars_, _wings_, _pipes_, _axes_, were pourtray'd.
I find the origin of _Bouts-rimés_, or "Rhyming Ends," in Goujet's Bib.
Fr. xvi. p. 181. One Dulot, a foolish poet, when sonnets were in demand,
had a singular custom of preparing the rhymes of these poems to be
filled up at his leisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was
regretting most the loss of three hundred sonnets: his friends were
astonished that he had written so many which they had never heard. "They
were _blank sonnets_," he replied; and explained the mystery by
describing his _Bouts-rimés_. The idea appeared ridiculously amusing;
and it soon became fashionable to collect the most difficult rhymes, and
fill up the lines.
The _Charade_ is of recent birth, and I cannot discover the origin of
this species of logogriphes. It was not known in France so late as in
1771; in the great Dictionnaire de Trévoux, the term appears only as the
name of an Indian sect of a military character. Its mystical conceits
have occasionally displayed singular felicity.
_Anagrams_ were another whimsical invention; with the _letters_ of any
_name_ they contrived to make out some entire word, descriptive of the
character of the person who bore the name. These anagrams, therefore,
were either satirical or complimentary. When in fashion, lovers made use
of them continually: I have read of one, whose mistress's name was
Magdalen, for whom he composed, not only an epic under that name, but as
a proof of his passion, one day he sent her three dozen of anagrams all
on her lovely name. Scioppius imagined himself fortunate that his
adversary _Scaliger_ was perfectly _Sacrilege_ in all the oblique cases
of the Latin language; on this principle Sir John _Wiat_ was made out,
to his own satisfaction--_a wit_. They were not always correct when a
great compliment was required; the poet _John Cleveland_ was strained
hard to make _Heliconian dew_. This literary trifle has, however, in our
own times produced several, equally ingenious and caustic.
Verses of grotesque shapes have sometimes been contrived to convey
ingenious thoughts. Pannard, a modern French poet, has tortured his
agreeable vein of poetry into such forms. He has made some of his
Bacchanalian songs to take the figures of _bottles_, and others of
_glasses_. These objects are perfectly drawn by the various measures of
the verses which form the songs. He has also introduced an _echo_ in his
verses which he contrives so as not to injure their sense. This was
practised by the old French bards in the age of Marot, and this poetical
whim is ridiculed by Butler in his Hudibras, Part I. Canto 3, Verse 190.
I give an example of these poetical echoes. The following ones are
ingenious, lively, and satirical:--