little volume of unreadable and unsaleable song. There are, however,
certain stanzas so exquisite in their unconscious absurdity that an
inverted immortality may be claimed for them. It is essential that their
authors should have been serious, because parody and light verse have
been carried to such a state of perfection that a tenth muse has been
created--the muse of Mr. Owen Seaman and the late St. John Hankin for
example. When the Anakim, men of old, which were men of renown--Shelley,
Keats, or Tennyson--become playful, I confess to a feeling of
nervousness: the unpleasant, hot sensation you experience when a
distinguished man makes a fool of himself. Rossetti--I suppose from his
Italian origin--was able to assume motley without loss of dignity, and
that wounded Titan, the late W. E. Henley, was another exception. Both
he and Rossetti had the faculty of being foolish, or obscene, without
impairing the high seriousness of their superb poetic gifts.

But I refer to more serious folly--that of the disciples of Silas Wegg.
Some friends of mine in the country employed a ladies'-maid with literary
proclivities. She was never known to smile; the other servants thought
her stuck up; she was a great reader of novels, poetry, and popular books
on astronomy. One day she gave notice, departed at the end of a month,
left no address, and never applied for a character. Beneath the mattress
of her bed was found a manuscript of poems. One of these, addressed to
our satellite, is based on the scientific fact (of which I was not aware
until I read her poem) that we see only one side of the moon. The ode
contains this ingenious stanza:--

O beautiful moon!
When I gaze on thy face
Careering among the boundaries of space,
The thought has often come to my mind