Part 3

In his _Art Poëtique_, 1555, Thomas Sibilet reviews many of the former writers, and gives the rules of the poetry then in force. Immediately after this date came another change; with the famous school of Ronsard (1524-1585) and the _Pléiade_, as they are styled, one of whom, however, Du Bellay, was eager to abolish the _ballade_ and _chant royal_ in favour of the _sonnet_. The members of this group produced some notable work in strict forms. Among the Ronsardists we find Grévin the dramatist, who wrote some graceful poems which he called _Villanesques_--a modified form of the _Villanelle_--and Jean Passerat (1534-1602) who is specially noteworthy, since in his hand the _Villanelle_ crystallised into its present shape, Joseph Boulmier, in the last revival, making this form his special study, and writing all his verses after Passerat's model given elsewhere in this volume.

The rondeau was revived in great splendour in the middle of the seventeenth century. Foremost among the brilliant group is Voiture (1598-1648), the acknowledged master of this form. Only thirty of his rondeaus are left, but each one of these is a masterpiece, and may be studied for all the subtle devices and dainty inventions that the form has yet yielded. Benserade (1612-1691) and Sarrasin were also famous for rondeau-making, the former translating the whole of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ into rondeaus, which were sumptuously printed at the King's Press at a cost of 10,000 francs. When Voiture died in 1648, it is curious to note that Sarrasin wrote a "pompous funereal poem--possibly the most funny serious elegy ever composed--in which, among other strange mourners, he makes the 'poor little triolet,' all in tears, trot by the side of the dead poet," who, according to Mr. Gosse, from whom the above paragraph is quoted, had never written one in his life. Sarrasin also left a curious specimen of the _Glose_, written on the famous Sonnet "de IOB" by Benserade. In 1649 Gérard de Saint Amant wrote a volume of sixty-four triolets. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century no important examples occur. About thirty years ago De Banville revived these old shapes, and initiated a movement that Daudet, Glatigny, Boulmier, and a host of others have helped forward, so that now modern French literature is flooded with examples of the forms-the ballade, rondeau, and triolet being the most widely used.

Having imperfectly followed the growth of the forms in France, it will be interesting to give a few notes of the various attempts made to acclimatise some in England. Although no effort previous to 1873 warrants us in claiming an English pedigree for them, yet it is curious to see how often the attempt was made to write them in our own tongue. The sonnet gradually grew into use, until it became as little an exotic as the potato, to employ an uncouth simile; the ballade and rondeau--hardly more formal in their rules, and with susceptibilities of infinite grace and beauty--failed to be even residents amongst us, much less naturalised subjects, sharing the rights and duties of citizens. Chaucer is believed to have used these forms, as in "The Legend of Good Women" he says, speaking of himself--

"Many a himpne for your holy daies That highten balades, roundels, virelaies."

His "Balade de Vilage sauns Peynture," however, does not correspond with the accepted form. Mr. Gosse says that the Chaucer of 1651 contains a number of poems attributed to himself and Lydgate "which are merely pieces in rhyme-royal, so arranged as to imitate the French ballade: without its severity of form."

The following is a roundel attributed to Chaucer:--

I.-BURDEN.

So hath your beauty fro your hertè chased Pitee, that mee availeth not to pleyne; For daunger[2] halt your mercy in his cheyne.

II.

Giltles my deth thus have ye purchased, I sey you soth, me nedeth not to fayne; So hath, etc.

III.

Alas, that Nature hath in you compassed So grete beaute, that no man may atteyne To mercy, though he stewe[3] for the peyne. So hath, etc.

[2] Dominion, power.

[3] Sterve.

This is given in Furnival's _Trial-Forewords to Chaucer's Minor Poems_, and is especially interesting in connection with the history of the forms in English use.

Of his immediate followers, Lydgate, a monk of Bury, author of _London Lyckpenny_, is said by Guest to have written a "roundle," and one by Thomas Occleve is printed in Morley's _Shorter English Poems_.

John Gower (1340-1408), author of _Confessio Amantis_, at the coronation of Henry IV. presented the king with a collection of fifty _Ballades_, written in the Provençal manner, "to entertain his noble court." The thin oblong MS., on vellum, which contains them is still extant in the Marquis of Stafford's library at Trentham, and in 1818 it was printed for the Roxburghe Club; but as the poems are unfortunately written in French, they do not assist in supporting a claim for the early use of the form in England. Professor Henry Morley has translated one for his _English Writers_; it follows the rhymes accurately, but has a somewhat trite subject. A critic has well said of it, that the poets of Gowers's day "were not burdened with solving 'the riddle of the painful earth.' It may be that a good deal of their guileless delight in things fresh and young was feigned, but then so is much of our more pretentious philosophy." From its special interest it is quoted here--

Winter departs, and comes the flowery May, And round from cold to heat the seasons fly; The bird that to its nest had lost the way Rebuilds it that he may rejoice thereby. Like change in my love's world I now descry, With such a hope I comfort myself here, And you, my lady, on this truth rely: When grief departs the coming joys are near.

My lady sweet, by that which now I say You may discover how my heart leaps high, That serves you, and has served you many a day, As it will serve you daily till I die. Remember, then, my lady, knowing why, That my desire for you will never veer As God wills that it be, so be our tie: When grief departs the coming joys are near.

The day that news of you came where I lay, It seem'd there was no grief could make me sigh; Wherefore of you, dear lady mine, I pray By your own message--when you will, not I-- Send me what you think best as a reply Wherewith my heart can keep itself from fear; And, lady, search the reason of my cry-- When grief departs the coming joys are near.

_Envoy._

O noble Dame, to you this note shall hie, And when God wills I follow to my dear. This writing speaks, and says, till I am by, When grief departs the coming joys are near.

John Shirley, who lived about 1440, made a collection of _Ballades_, _Roundels_, _Virelais_, and Tragedies, in MSS., which are still extant in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. After noticing Gower, who wrote ballades in French, Charles d'Orléans, who wrote rondels in English, comes as another instance of the early use, but again as a mere exception, since the accident which led both writers to adopt exotic forms is outside the history of our native poetry, and cannot be brought forward to prove their early naturalisation. Of Charles d'Orléans much might be said worth saying, but there are so many sources of information open, that here we need note only the poems written during his captivity. He is said to have been our prisoner for about twenty-five years, and during that time to have acquired a taste for our language. The Abbé Sallier, who unearthed the manuscript of his poems in the Royal Library at Paris during the last century, says he wrote but two in English; but in the MS. at the British Museum, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the translator of Dante, found three, quoted in his _Early French Poets_ (Bohn, 1846). The editor of that volume, the Rev. Henry Cary, son of the author, mentions in a footnote a large collection among the Harleian MSS., attributed to Charles d'Orléans, but throws doubt on their being more than translations. Into this question there is no space to enter. These are the three from Cary's book:--

Go forth, my hert, with my lady; Loke that ye spar no bysines To serve her with such lolyness That ye gette her oftyme prively That she kepe truly her promes. Go forth, etc.

I must, as a helis-body,[4] Abyde alone in hevynes; And ye that dwell with your mastris In plaisaunce glad and mery, Go forth, etc.

* * * * *

My hertly love is in your governas, And ever shall whill that I live may. I pray to God I may see that day That ye be knyt with trouthful alyans. Ye shall not fynd feyning or variaunce As in my part; that wyl I truly say. My hertly, etc.

* * * * *

Bewere, my trewe innocent hert, How ye hold with her aliauns, That somtym with word of plesuns Resceyved you under covert. Thynke how the stroke of love comsmert[5] Without warnyng or deffiauns. Bewere, my, etc.

And ye shall pryvely or appert See her by me in loves dauns, With her faire femenyn contenauns Ye shall never fro her astert. Bewere, my, etc.

[4] _Helis-body_--One deprived of health or happiness.

[5] _Comsmert_--Can smart, or comes smart.

Spenser (1553-1599) is said (but I cannot trace the authority) to have used some of these forms. Again, Sir Philip Sidney's (1554-1586) famous ditty, "My true love hath my heart," recalls the rondel, but cannot claim to be one. Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) has a fine sestina (too long for quotation), "Sith gone is my delight and only pleasure."

_The Trivial Poems, and Triolets_ of Patrick Carey deserve mention. This volume was unknown until the beginning of the present century, although dated Warnefurd, 1651. The poems were brought into notice by Sir Walter Scott, who obtained the MSS. from John Murray, and after inserting a few in the _Edinburgh Annual Register_, 1810, published the whole for the first time in 1819. The following specimen is taken from Scott's reprint, p. 43:--

Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell! Farwell all earthly joyes and cares!

On nobler thoughts my soule shall dwell Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell! Att quiett, in my peacefull cell, I'le thincke on God, free from your snares; Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell! Farwell all earthly joyes and cares.

In the _Athenæum_, May 7, 1887, is a long article on Carey, signed C. F. S. Warner, M. A. Charles Cotton, the friend of Izaak Walton, wrote a rondeau, "a very ungallant example," cited in Dr. Guests' _History of English Rhythms_. There is also one unquotable, by reason of its subject, among the correspondence of Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and in the _Rolliad_, 1784, a volume of satires in prose and verse, that enjoyed a great popularity for a time, there is a set of five rondeaus, written in pure form after the Voiture model. They satirise North, Eden, Pitt, and Dorset, and are perfect in construction, and vigorous in their ridicule. The popularity of these effusions led to many imitations in the periodical prints at the beginning of this century, few, however, of sufficient merit to be worth reviving. By the courtesy of Mr. Austin Dobson, the owner, I am able to extract a specimen from a scarce and little-known book, entitled _Rondeaulx; translated from the Black Letter French Edition of 1527, by J. R. Best, Esq._;--

#Rondeaulx en Nombre trois cens cinquante.# #Singuliers et a tous propos. Nouvellement# #Imprimez a Paris. Avec Privelege# #On les vend en la grant salle du palays au# #Premier pillier en la boutique de Galliot du# #Pre marchaut librarie jure de L'universite.#

The dedication to Robert Studley Vidal, Esq., is dated 1838. The first poem is preceded by a quaint apology, that unfortunately is too long to quote, but the rondeau itself, if its rhythm is faulty and its language ungraceful, shows that the original had sterling advice to offer, and that the translator was not ignorant of the true rules of the form.

UNG BON RONDEAU

A good rondeau I was induced to show To some fair ladies some short while ago; Well knowing their ability and taste, I asked, should ought be added or effac'd, And prayed that every fault they'd make me know

The first did her most anxious care bestow To impress one point from which I ne'er should go: "Upon a good beginning must be based A good rondeau."

Zeal bid the other's choicest language glow: She softly said, "Recount your weal or woe, Your every subject free from pause or haste: Ne'er let your hero fail, nor be disgraced." The third--"With varying emphasis should flow A good rondeau."

In Mr. Oxenford's _Book of French Songs_, now published with Miss Costello's _Specimens of the Early Poetry of France_, in a volume of the _Chandos Classics_, there is one ballade given (with its original French, both without envoy); but although noting the peculiarity that each stanza has the same terminations, Mr. Oxenford has not kept it in his translation, nor has Miss Costello, in a numerous collection of ballades, rondels, lais, and other forms, once paraphrased them accurately, usually varying even the refrain; nor can I see, in her voluminous notes, that she draws attention to this important feature, although she gives the particulars of the eccentricities of rhyming known as _Fraternisée, Brisée_, and the like, and condemns their triviality rather strongly. In the edition before me no date is given; the authoress died in 1870. The oft-quoted Rondeau by Leigh Hunt is so beautiful in itself that all its shortcomings in the matter of form may be readily pardoned, and if--but the saving clause is great--others as beautiful could be built on the same shape, a "Leigh Hunt" variation would be a welcome addition to the forms in English; but it is no _rondeau_, and has not the faintest claim to be so styled. Probably it is familiar to all readers, but in case even one should not know it, it is quoted here:--

"Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets upon your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad; Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I'm growing old, but add-- Jenny kissed me."

If Mr. Swinburne's examples of the forms in his earlier volumes be not counted (since he then ignored many of the rules that, as his later books show, he can use with such splendid mastery), to Mr. Andrew Lang's _Lays and Lyrics of Old France_ (Longman, 1872) must be assigned the honour of leading the way in the reproduction in English of the old French metrical forms, made in conformance to their ascertained laws. How far that volume led the way to the modern employment of these forms for original poetry in our own tongue, is not so easily proved. One thing, at least, is certain, that Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. W. E. Henley, Mr. Payne, and one or two other writers, were each, unknown to the rest, trying the new measures. In the words of one of these, "the study of French literature was in the air;" and naturally, as we now see, the new movement began simultaneously to adapt its rules to English conditions. To Mr. Bridges belongs the honour of printing the first Triolet in modern English; but he expressly disclaims being looked upon as the apostle for the naturalisation of the exotic forms, for which he had no peculiar sympathy, and after his _Poems_, 1873, ceased to use. So little were his experiments appreciated, that their presence in his volume was considered prejudicial to its success, by competent authorities of the day, who little foresaw the rapid growth that would so soon spring up. To Mr. Austin Dobson is assigned the first _ballade_, "The Prodigals;" to Mr. Edmund Gosse the first _villanelle_ and _chant royal_; and to Mr. W. E. Henley the first _double ballade_, and a few other variations. But it is most likely that the priority of some of these was due to the mere accident of publication, and that it is more near the truth to regard the whole as a contemporaneous movement toward French rhythms, thought out and experimented upon by many writers, ignorant of the fact that they were not alone in the study, and that others were working upon the same lines. One of the first who made trial of these French rhythms has (I believe) never published any; yet examples of their use by the author of _A Child's Garden of Verse_ would have added greatly to the interest of this collection, but the author has willed that they should remain unquoted, so I can only regret their absence.

From 1873 to 1877 a fair number had appeared, but these were produced almost entirely by the writers already named. From 1877, however, the number of those who made them increased rapidly. In that year Mr. Dobson's _Proverbs in Porcelain_ was published, containing a series of these forms, which, as internal evidence of much subsequent work shows, have been accepted as typical models to be followed in their English use. The series in _The London_ noticed elsewhere, during this year and 1878, also increased their popularity, while the later English use may be traced to some extent by the examples here collected. In America about the same time the new fashion in versemaking was taken up very warmly, and to the present day the Americans have shown themselves more cordial towards the Gallic measures than even our own countrymen. In the popular periodicals of the United States there are more specimens than in our English magazines, and the appearance of so many examples in this book shows that the American poets have caught a great deal of the peculiar quality, hard to define but easy to recognise, which the forms demand. Then came Mr. W. Davenport Adams's _Latter Day Lyrics_, with a section devoted to these forms, and "A Note on Some Foreign Forms of Verse," by Mr. Dobson. Since then the poems written in these styles have been increasing in number, until the idea of collecting them in one volume, long in my mind, was favourably entertained by Mr. William Sharp, the general editor of the series in which this book appears.

The taste for these _tours de force_ in the art of versemaking is no doubt an acquired one; yet to quote the first attempt to produce a lyric with a repeated burden would take one back to the earliest civilisation. The use of the refrain and conventional arrangement of rhyme in these forms differs as widely from the burdens of the old examples, as the purely conventional design of Greek art from the savage patterns of its ancestral stock. Whether the first refrains were used for decorative effect only, or to give the singer time to recollect or to improvise the next verse, it matters little, since the once mere adjunct was made in later French use an integral and vital part of the verse. The charm of these strictly written verses is undoubtedly increased by some knowledge of their technical rules. As a subtle harmony of colours may reveal, to those who can grasp it, a miracle of skill and science, while it is no more nor less than "a pretty picture" to others--or polyphonic harmony, with all the resources of the science of music, may be employed to enrich a clear popular melody, to which the unmusical can yet nod their heads and fancy they understand it all; so a ballade or rondeau may be so deftly wrought, with an infinity of care and grace, that those who read it simply as a dainty poem never suspect the stern laws ordering the apparent spontaneity of the whole. To approach ideal perfection, nothing less than implicit obedience to all the rules is the first element of success; but the task is by no means finished there. Every quality that poetry demands, whether clearness of thought, elegance of expression, harmonious sound, or faultless rhythm, is needed as much in these shapes as in unfettered verse, and not until all those are contributed comes the final test of the poem itself; whether it utters thoughts worth uttering, or suggests ideas worth recalling. It may be said, without fear of exaggeration, that all the qualities required to form a perfect lyric in poetry are equally needful here, _plus_ a great many special ones the forms themselves demand. To the students of any art there is always a peculiar charm when the highest difficulties are surmounted with such ease, that the consummate art is hidden to all who know not the magic password to unveil it. But for those who have no special knowledge of poetry, it is pertinent to inquire what good these ingenious _tours de force_ achieve, and why the poem could not please as well if it was written in ordinary verse? This is hard to answer; but the fact remains that in every phase of art, whether music, picture, or poem, such technical achievements have invariably found admirers in any period of advanced civilisation. It has been said that these forms display no higher aim than the verses printed to resemble an hour-glass or altar, in some of our early poets; but such an accusation is hardly worthy of serious reply. If the sonnet in Italian form has gained world-wide fame, the principle of fixed form is at once shown to be acceptable to the majority of scholars, and it becomes only a question of degree whether these rondeaus and ballades gain so prominent a place. It is hardly fair to expect to find among these forms a lyric that has caught the ear of the public, and won its way to the hearts of everyone; fifteen years of use is all they may claim, and compared with the lyric poetry guileless of bonds, during the same period, they at least hold their own. It must also be remembered that they were adopted by the younger men, who won no small amount of their present fame by these pretty devices.

ON THE RULES OF THE VARIOUS FORMS.--There are several general laws governing these fixed metrical forms that must be insisted on at the outset. The rule of the limited number of rhymes holds good of nearly all. One feature prominent in the French rules is impossible in English, as the difference between the rhyme masculine on words that have not the _e_ mute for their final letter, and the rhyme feminine on words that possess the _e_ mute, is unknown to us; but side by side with the release from one binding law in French verse, a new one is imposed. In that language, words of exactly similar _sound_ and _spelling_ may be used to rhyme together, provided the meaning of the words is distinct--such license the most doggerel bard would reject in English--in spite of the precedent Milton offers, having "Ruth" and "ruth" in one of his sonnets. Purists forbid in our tongue the use of words of distinct spelling, but identical sound, as "sail" and "sale," "bear" and "bare;" nor would they allow words closely allied, as "claim," "disclaim," "reclaim," to be employed, the strict rule being, _that no syllable once used as a rhyme can be used again for that purpose throughout the poem, not even if it be spelt differently while keeping the same sound; nor if the whole word is altered by a prefix; the syllable that rhymes must always be a new one both in sense and sound_. It is this feature of the many rhymes to be found on a limited root-sound that proves the initial difficulty in these shapes.