There is a species of verse, hitherto not classified distinctively, for
which it seems desirable to find a name. In the first place, it may be
necessary, perhaps, to emphasize once more the simple distinction
between verse and poetry. There are, indeed, excellent and happy people
for whom there is no difference between the two--for whom all that is
not prose is poetry, and who recognise no other varieties in literature.
Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by
the necessity of distinguishing between this and that--of pronouncing
upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were
careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this
rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it. Unluckily,
the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse
of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in
essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking,
it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as
opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling.
Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The
one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the
natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is
exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of
verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is
derivable from their work.
They must not, however, all be grouped together under one embracing
appellation. If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and
verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with
the inferior article. There are many different sorts of verse. There is
that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly
comic, and there is that which is something between the two--neither
over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and
marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse
has been given, in general, the name of _vers de societe_ or _vers
d'occasion_--verse of society or for the moment. Mr. Frederick Locker,
nearly twenty years ago, thus labelled his volume of 'Lyra
Elegantiarum'--still, even at this distance of time, the best available
collection of our lighter verse. But the label is not sufficiently
distinguishing; it is too haphazard and too narrow. The term _vers de
societe_ will not include all that is commonly ranged under it. For
what, in reality, is _vers de societe_? It is what it professes to
be--it is the verse of society, the verse which deals with the various
phenomena of the fashionable world. The writers of genuine _vers de
societe_ have themselves been men and women of society, who had caught
its tone and could reproduce it in their rhythmic exercises. Mr.
Locker's 'St. James's Street,' Mr. Dobson's 'Rotten Row,' Prior's lines
'To a Child of Quality,' and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's 'Ode to Miss
Harriet Bunbury'--these are the true _vers de societe_, the true
'poetry' of the ball-room and the _salon_.
What, then, is to become of the large amount of verse which remains
unaccounted for--which is neither distinctively sentimental nor
distinctively comic, and yet has no right to the designation of
society-verse? Well, this is the class of verse which, as we have said,
has hitherto not been christened, and for which it is desirable to find
a name. It is a very delightful species of rhythmic work, and deserves a
denomination of its own. It has the tone, less of society and of the
Court, than of the familiar intercourse of every day--of the
intercourse, that is, which goes on between people of ordinary breeding
and education. It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor
does it rise to the height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low
comedy. It is 'familiar, but by no means vulgar.' Its first quality is
ease--absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a _degage_ air. It is in
rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is--flowing and
unpremeditated without slovenliness--having the characteristics of the
best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its
second quality is playfulness--a refusal to be too much in earnest in
any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme.
It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its
dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the
sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes to the humorous; but
always the style and atmosphere are those of familiar life, of everyday
reunions; and hence the suggestion that it should be recognised as
'Familiar Verse.'
I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by
those who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are
well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in,
periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its
best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our
literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though
some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force,
with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease--with Suckling, whose
'Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?' is in exactly the right tone; and
with Dorset, whose 'To all you ladies now on land' is another typical
specimen. By-and-by Dryden showed how well he could write in the
familiar style, when he composed the song about fair Iris:
'She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as she;
We neither believe what either can say,
And neither believing, we neither betray.'
Then came the reign of Pope, and Swift, and Prior, and
Peterborough--Pope, with his truly playful 'What is Prudery?' Swift,
with his charming lines to Stella; Prior, with his 'Dear Chloe, how
blubber'd is that pretty face!' and Peterborough, with that masterpiece
of the familiar _genre_:
'I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking,
Thou wild thing, that always art leaping and aching,
What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,
By turns has not taught thee this pit-a-pat-ation?'
Then there were the Lady Wortley Montagu, with her lines to Congreve;
and Chesterfield, with his 'Advice to a Lady in Autumn'; Fielding, with
his inimitable epistles to Walpole; and Goldsmith, with his incomparable
'Retaliation.' Later, again, came Cowper, with his 'Nose and Eyes' and
'Names of Little Note'; Byron, with his verses 'To Tom Moore'; Moore
himself, with his 'Time I've Lost in Wooing'; Barham, with his 'Lines
left at Hook's'; Peacock, Canning, James Smith, Praed, and Mahony; and,
still later, Hood, with his 'Clapham Academy'; Brough, with his
'Neighbour Nelly'; Mortimer Collins, with his tribute to his 'Old Coat';
and a hundred others, all of whom could play delightfully on the
familiar string.
And, happily, the manufacture of familiar verse still goes on
swimmingly. The Laureate has engaged in it, and even Mr. Browning has
condescended to it. It has never, in the whole course of its career,
been written better than by Mr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell, and, among
ourselves, by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson. No age,
indeed, was ever more favourable than our own for the composition of
verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into
exaggeration--which may have, if it please, a _soupcon_ of wit and
humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be
tolerant and urbane.