OF BURLESQUE AND COMIC VERSE, AND
_VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ_.
I t will be as well for the reader to divest himself at once of the
notion that verse of this class is the lowest and easiest form he can
essay, or that the rules which govern it are more lax than those which
sway serious composition. The exact contrary is the case. Comic or
burlesque verse is ordinary verse _plus_ something. Ordinary verse may
pass muster if its manner be finished, but comic verse must have some
matter as well. Yet it does not on that account claim any license in
rhyme, for it lacks the gravity and importance of theme which may at
times, in serious poetry, be pleaded as outweighing a faulty rhyme.
This style of writing needs skill in devising novel and startling
turns of rhyme, rhythm, or construction, and can hardly be employed by
those who do not possess some articulate wit or humour—that is to say,
the power of expressing, not merely of appreciating, those qualities.
A defective rhyme is a fault in serious verse—it is a crime in comic.
It is no sin to be ignorant of Greek or Latin, but it is worse than a
blunder, under such circumstances, to quote them—and quote them
incorrectly. In the same way, one is not compelled to write comic verse,
but if he does write it, and cannot do so correctly, he deserves severe
handling.
One of the leading characteristics of this style is dexterous
rhyming—and the legerdemain must be effected with genuine coin, not
dumps. In the very degree that clever composite rhyming assists in
making the verse sparkling and effective, it must bear the closest
scrutiny and analysation—must be real Moet, not gooseberry.
All, then, that has been said with regard to serious verse applies
with double force to the lighter form of _vers de société_. According to
the definition of Mr Frederick Locker, no mean authority, _vers de
société_ should be "short, elegant, refined, and fanciful, not seldom
distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should
not be pitched high; it should be idiomatic, and rather in the
conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the
rhyme frequent, and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked
by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: _for however
trivial the subject-matter may be,—indeed, rather in proportion to its
triviality,—subordination to the rules of composition, and perfection of
execution, should be strictly enforced_."
Let me entreat the reader to bear that italicised sentence in memory
when writing any style of verse, but most especially when he essays the
comic or burlesque.
No precedent for laxity can be pleaded because the poets who have at
times indulged in such trifling, have therein availed themselves of the
licenses which they originally took out for loftier writing. _Non semper
arcum tendit Apollo_, and the poet may be excused for striking his lyre
with careless fingers. But we, who do not pretend to possess lyres, must
be careful about the fingering of our kits. Apollo's slackened bow
offers no precedent for the popgun of the poetaster.
As I have already said, much of the merit of this style depends on the
scintillations, so to speak, of its rhymes. They must therefore be
perfect. When Butler wrote the much-quoted couplet:—
"When pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
he was guilty of coupling "astick" and "a stick" together as a rhyme,
which they do not constitute. But he who on that account claims
privilege to commit a similar offence, not only is guilty of the vanity
of demanding to be judged on the same level as Butler, but is illogical.
Two wrongs cannot constitute a right, and all the bad rhyming in the
world can be no extenuation of a repetition of the offence.
The results of carelessness in such matters are but too apparent! The
slipshod that has been for so long suffered to pass for comic verse, has
brought the art into disrepute. In the case of burlesque, this is even
more plainly discernible. It is held in so small esteem, that people
have come to forget that it boasts Aristophanes as its founder! Halting
measures, cockney rhymes, and mere play on sound, instead of sense, in
punning, have gone near to being the death of what at its worst was an
amusing pastime, at its best was healthy satire.
The purchase of half-a-dozen modern burlesques at Mr Lacy's, will
account for the declining popularity of burlesque. _All_ of them will be
found defaced by defective rhymes, and cockneyisms too common to provoke
a smile. In the majority of them the decasyllabic metre will be found to
range from six or eight syllables to twelve or fourteen! Most bear the
same relation to real burlesque-writing, that the schoolboy's picture of
his master—a circle for head and four scratches for arms and legs—bears
to genuine caricature.
The most telling form of rhyme in comic versification is the
polysyllabic, and the greater the number of assonant syllables in such
rhymes the more effective they prove. The excellence is co-extensive,
however, with the unexpectedness and novelty, and there is therefore but
small merit in such a polysyllabic rhyme as—
"From Scotland's mountains down he came,
And straightway up to town he came."
This merely consists of the single rhymes "down" and "town," with "he
came" as a common affix. Such polysyllables may be admitted here and
there in a long piece, but when they constitute the whole or even a
majority of the rhymes, the writer is imposing on his readers. He is
swelling his balance at his banker's by adding noughts on the right hand
of the pounds' figure without paying in the cash.
Another feature of this style of verse is the repetition of rhymes.
Open the "Ingoldsby Legends,"[17] which may be taken as the foundation
of one school of comic verse, and you will scarcely fail to light upon a
succession of rhymes, coming one after the other, like a string of boys
at leap-frog, as if the well-spring of rhyme were inexhaustible.
Although punning scarcely comes within the scope of this treatise, it
may not be amiss to remind those who may desire to essay comic verse,
that a pun is a double-_meaning_. It is not sufficient to get two words
that clink alike, or to torture by mispronunciation a resemblance in
sound between words or combinations of words. There must be an echo in
the sense—"a likeness in unlikeness" in the idea.
Proper names should not be used as rhymes. The only exception is in
the case of any real individual of note—a statesman, author, or actor,
when to find a telling rhyme to the name, a rhyme suggestive of the
habits or pursuits of the owner of that name, has some merit, especially
if the name be long and peculiar. But to introduce an imaginary name for
the sake of a rhyme, is work that is too cheap to be good. A child can
write such rhyme as—
"A man of strict veracity
Was Peter James M'Assity."
In composite rhyming the greatest care should be taken to see that
each syllable after the first is identical in sound in each line. In
"use he was" and "juicy was," the "h" destroys the rhyme, and the
difference in sound in the last syllable (however carelessly pronounced)
between such words as "oakum" and "smoke 'em" has a similar
disqualifying power. It is scarcely necessary to refer to such
inadmissible couples as "protector" and "neglect her," "birching" and
"urchin," "oracle" and "historical."
One trick in rhyming is often very effective, but it must not be put
into force too often. In some instances, however, it tells with great
comical effect, by affording a rhyme to a word which at first glance the
reader thinks it is impossible to rhyme. Canning, in the "Anti-Jacobin,"
used it with ludicrous effect in Rogero's song, and a few lines from
that will illustrate and explain the trick I allude to:—
"Here doom'd to starve on water gru-
-el, never shall I see the U-
-niversity of Gottingen!"
Here the division of the words "gruel" and "University" has an
extremely absurd effect. But the artifice must be used sparingly, and
those who employ it must beware of one pitfall. The moiety of the word
which is carried over to begin the next line must be considered as a
fresh word occupying the first foot. There is a tendency to overlook it,
and count it as part of the previous line, and that of course is a fatal
error.
Parody may be considered as a form of comic versification. It is not
enough that a parody should be in the same metre as the original poem it
imitates. Nor is it sufficient that the first line or so has such a
similarity as to suggest the original. In the best parodies each line of
the original has an echo in the parody, and the words of the former are
retained as far as possible in the latter, or replaced by others very
similar.
Another form of parody is the parody of style, when, instead of
selecting a particular poem to paraphrase, we imitate, in verse modelled
on the form he usually adopts, the mannerisms of thought or expression
for which any particular writer is distinguished.
Examples of both kinds of parody will be found in the "Rejected
Addresses" of James and Horace Smith, which should be studied together
with Hood, Barham, Wolcot, and Thackeray, by those who would read the
best models of humorous, comic, or burlesque writing. I may add here
that _vers de société_ will be best studied in the writings of Praed,
Prior, and Moore. From living writers it would be invidious to single
out any, either as models or warnings.
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