S is brisk Sall, who a chicken can baste;
Tis Theresa, at love who grimaced;
U is pure Una, that maid undebased;
V is Victoria, an empire who graced;
W is Winifred, time who will waste;
X is Xantippe, for scolding well-braced;
Y's Mrs. Yelverton: ending in haste,
Z is Zenobia, in panoply cased.

The last we select bears the signature of E. A. D.:

A stands for Apple, most useful of trees;
B for the busiest of creatures, the Bees;
C for a Cold, that will cause you to wheeze;
D for a Doctor, that will cure you for fees;
E for an Earwig, your hearing to tease;
F for a Fortune in lacs of rupees ;

G for a Goblet of wine with its lees;

H for a Horse, but with two broken knees;
I for an Iceberg, on which you will freeze;
J for a Jumper, that hops like parched peas;
K for a Kirtle, worn over chemise;

L for a Lady, whose hand you may squeeze ;
M for the Mineral called Manganese;

N for a Nun, among strict devotees;
O for an Octave in musical glees;

P for a Pope, with his crosses and keys;
Q for a Quilt, that will harbour the fleas;

R for Religion, where no one agrees;

S stands for Snuff, that will cause you to sneeze;
T for a Table of marriage degrees;

U for an Ulcer, a horrid disease;
V stands for Virtue, that nobody sees;
W for Welshman, fondest of cheese;
X for Xenodochy,* strangers to ease;
Y for a Yawl, just catching the breeze;

Z stands for Zenith-or Zeal-which you please.
Xenodochy, "reception of strangers."

LIPOGRAMS.

IPOGRAM is the name applied to a species of verse in which a certain letter, either

vowel or consonant, is altogether omitted -that is to say, the author in what he writes will avoid the use of one letter in particular; a kind of literary work involving an amount of labour and ingenuity altogether inadequate to the result achieved; and if to anything at all in this book the title of Literary Frivolity may be more specially applied, it is to this.

One of the earliest who tried this kind of verse was the Greek poet Lasus (538 B.C.), who wrote an ode upon the Centaurs and a hymn to Ceres without inserting the letter s in the composition; and it is recorded of another Greek, Tryphiodorus, also of the sixth century B.C., that he composed a poem on the destruction of Troy in twenty-four books, from each of which in succession was excluded one letter of the Greek alphabet: the first book had no

a, the second no ẞ, the third no y, and so on throughout. The works of Pindar also contain an ode in which the letter s does not appear; so that if this kind of literary folly has little beauty, it has at least the sanction of antiquity.

Several French poets have written works after this fashion, and some of those of Lope de Vega— works now little heard of, and perhaps better so, since many of these were of unworthy character— are lipogrammatic. The Spanish poet wrote no less than fifteen hundred plays; and among De Vega's other writings are five tales, from each of which one of the five vowels was excluded-a conceit which must have cost their author considerable labour.

Gregorio Leti on one occasion wrote a discourse throughout which he omitted the letter r; and in the sixth century Fabius Fulgentius, a Christian monk, performed a similar feat to that of Tryphiodorus. This fashion seems also to have extended to the farther East, for Isaac Disraeli tells that "a Persian poet read to the celebrated Jami a 'gazel' of his own composition, which Jami did not like; but the writer replied it was notwithstanding a very curious sonnet, for the letter Aliff was not to be found in any one of the words! Jami sarcas

tically replied, 'You can do a better thing yet : take away all the letters from every word you have written!""

The following example of a lipogrammatic song does not contain the letters:

COME, LOVE, COME.

Oh! come to-night: for naught can charm
The weary time when thou'rt away.
Oh! come; the gentle moon hath thrown
O'er bower and hall her quivering ray.
The heather-bell hath mildly flung
From off her fairy leaf the bright
And diamond dewdrop that had hung
Upon that leaf-a gem of light.

Then come, love, come.

To-night the liquid wave hath not—
Illumined by the moonlit beam
Playing upon the lake beneath,

Like frolic in an autumn dream-
The liquid wave hath not, to-night,
In all her moonlit pride, a fair

Gift like to them that on thy lip

Do breathe and laugh, and home it there.

Then come, love, come.

To-night to-night! my gentle one,

The flower-bearing Amra tree

Doth long, with fragrant moan, to meet
The love-lip of the honey-bee.