Lear was an artist draughtsman, his subjects being mainly
ornithological and zoological. Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson)
was an expert in mathematics and a lecturer on that science in
Christ Church, Oxford.

Both these men numbered among their friends many of the greatest
Englishmen of the day. Tennyson was a warm friend and admirer of each,
as was also John Ruskin.

Lear's first nonsense verses, published in 1846, are written in the
form of the well-known stanza beginning:

There was an old man of Tobago.

This type of stanza, known as the "Limerick," is said by a gentleman
who speaks with authority to have flourished in the reign of William
IV. This is one of several he remembers as current at his public
school in 1834:

There was a young man at St. Kitts
Who was very much troubled with fits;
The eclipse of the moon
Threw him into a swoon,
When he tumbled and broke into bits.

Lear distinctly asserts that this form of verse was not invented by
him, but was suggested by a friend as a useful model for amusing
rhymes. It proved so in his case, for he published no less than two
hundred and twelve of these "Limericks."