Now let us dip into the volumes published by Mr. Locker's brother in art, Mr. Austin Dobson, who differs from Mr. Locker chiefly in the clear-cut classicism of his verse and in the decisive brightness of his wit.. Mr. Locker's muse moves more-what shall I say?— heartily along, more careless of the exact mode of expression, or, if not really more careless, at least apparently so. Where Mr. Locker is humorous rather than witty, Mr. Dobson is witty rather than humorous. You see this in the rapid interchange of chaff in the now well-known 'Idyll in the Conservatory,' which is a gem of drawing-room persiflage:

"If I were you, when ladies are so lavish, Sir, as to keep me every waltz but two, I would not dance with odious Miss MacTavish,

If I were you!"

There is something very clever, too, in this 'Dialogue from Plato,' in which the tone of colloquy is quite in the manner of the best society. Here, again, the persiflage is of the best:

""You're reading Greek?" "I am- and you?"

"O, mine's a mere romancer "So Plato is." "Then read him-do; And I'll read mine in answer.

I read: "My Plato (Plato, too,-
That wisdom thus should harden!)
Declares blue eyes look doubly blue
Beneath a Dolly Varden."

She smiled. "My book in turn avers
(No author's name is stated)
That sometimes these philosophers
Are sadly mistranslated."

"But hear, the next's in stranger style:
The Cynic School asserted
That two red lips which part and smile
May not be controverted!"

She smiled once more. "My book, I find,
Observes some modern doctors
Would make the Cynics out a kind
Of album-verse concocters."

Then I, "Why not? Ephesian law,
No less than time's tradition,
Enjoin'd fair speech on all who saw
Diana's apparition!"

She blush'd-this time. "If Plato's page
No wiser precept teaches,
Then I'd renounce the doubtful sage,
And walk to Burnham Beeches.'

"Agreed!" I said. "For Socrates
(I find he, too, is talking)
Thinks Learning can't remain at ease
When Beauty goes a-walking.'

There is less of the spirit of persiflage in Mr. Dobson's second volume than in his first; the 'Proverbs in Porcelain' being pitched generally in a higher key. Cupid's Alley,' however, is a good specimen of this peculiar vein, whilst there is a charming air of gay insouciance in the various triolets, rondels, and rondeaux contained in the collection. What, for example, could be better than this?

'Freeze, freeze, O icy wind!
Lucilla's cap's awry;
No signal undesign'd

To those that read the sky.
Dull drags the breakfast by;
She's something on her mind.
Freeze, freeze, O icy wind!
Lucilla's cap's awry.
"You're tired."

"And you're unkind."
"You're cross." "That I deny!"
"Perhaps you're both combined."
"I'm tired of you. Good-bye."
Freeze, freeze, O icy wind!

Lucilla's cap's awry.'

I have already quoted a little thing from Mr. Ashby-Sterry's Boudoir Ballads, the best thing in which the best thing, indeed, that the writer has produced in verse is that very pretty piece,

'Pet's Punishment,' which is in the happiest spirit of banter:

'O, if my love offended me,

And we had words together,
To show her I would master her,
I'd whip her with a feather.

If then she, like a naughty girl,
Would tyranny declare it,
I'd give my pet a cross of pearl,
And make her always bear it.

If still she tried to sulk and sigh,
And threw away my posies,
I'd catch my darling on the sly,

And smother her with roses.....

And if she dared her lips to pout,
Like many pert young misses,
I'd wind my arm her waist about,
And punish her with kisses.'

But if I attempted to enumerate all the skilful persifleurs of the present day, where should I stop? There is Mr. Gilbert, from whom I have already quoted, and whose Bab Ballads would supply an inexhaustible fund of comical quotation. If there ever was a moqueur, it is he. Not only his lyric verses, but his plays, are full of the essence of persiflage-of the disposition to poke fun' at everything, from love to lollipops. Look, too, at Mr. Burnand, with his exquisite ballad of 'True to Poll' at Mr. Courthorpe, with his gracefully-humorous Paradise of Birds,' surpassed only in occasional felicity by poor Mortimer Collins's British Birds.' Look, too, at the clever work of Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell, whose Pegasus Resaddled is almost, if not quite, as mirth-provoking as his Puck on Pegasus. There is something of the true spirit of raillery in the amusing description of 'School Feeds,' reminiscent as the dénouement is of a well-known cut in Punch:

'Alone amid the festive throng
One infant brow is sad;
One cherub face is wet with grief-
"What ails you, little lad?...

It's clear you're sadly off your feed;
Your laughing looks have fled;
Perhaps some little faithful friend
Has punch'd your little head?
You miss some well-remember'd face
The merry rout among-
The lips that blest, the arms that prest,
The neck to which you clung?

A brother's voice? a sister's smile?
Perhaps you've burnt your tongue?
Here, on a sympathetic breast,
Your tale of suffering pour.
Come, darling! tell me all." "Boo-hoo!
I can't eat any more!"'

Mr. Sawyer deserves to rank among the best of modern parodists. Some of his travesties are exceedingly successful; the following, on Home they brought her Warrior dead,' among the number. It is very wicked, but it is very clever.

'Home they brought her sailor son,

Grown a man across the sea;
Tall, and broad, and black of beard,
And hoarse of voice as man may be.
Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,

Both he offer'd ere he spoke.
But she said, "What man is this,
Comes to play a sorry joke?"
Then they praised him- call'd him
"smart;"

"Tightest lad that ever stept."
But her son she did not know,

And she neither smiled nor wept.
Rose, a nurse of ninety years,
Set a pigeon-pie in sight.
She saw him eat. ""Tis he! 'tis he!"
She knew him by his appetite.'

Here I must stay my hand, for I have not space at my disposal to do more than refer to the poetry of persiflage which has been given to us, not only by English writers like Matthew Browne, H. J. Byron, G. J. Cayley, H. Savile Clarke, H. B. Farnie, J. R. Planché, Robert Reece, G. O. Trevelyan, Godfrey Turner, and Edmund Yates, but by O. W. Holmes, Bret Harte, E. C. Stedman, J. G. Saxe, J. Russell Lowell, and other gifted Americans. have dwelt too long in very pleasant ways, and now must stop my pen.

W. DAVENPORT ADAMS.

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