la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu,Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu.
The French have an ingenious kind of Nonsense Verses called Amphigouries. This word is composed of a Greek adverb signifying about, and of a substantive signifying a circle. The following is a specimen, elegant in the selection of words, and what the French called richly rhymed, but in fact they are fine verses without any meaning whatever. Pope's Stanzas, said to be written by a person of quality, to ridicule the tuneful nonsense of certain bards, and which Gilbert Wakefield mistook for a serious composition, and wrote two pages of Commentary to prove this song was disjointed, obscure, and absurd, is an excellent specimen of these Amphigouries.
AMPHIGOURIE.
Qu'il est heureux de se defendre
Quand le cœur ne s'est pas rendu!
Mais qu'il est facheux de se rendre
Quand le bonheur est suspendu!
Par un discours sans suite et tendre,
Egarez un cœur éperdu;
Souvent par un mal-entendu
L'amant adroit se fait entendre.
IMITATED.
How happy to defend our heart,
When Love has never thrown a dart!
But ah! unhappy when it bends,
If pleasure her soft bliss suspends!
Sweet in a wild disordered strain,
A lost and wandering heart to gain!
Oft in mistaken language wooed,
The skilful lover's understood.
These verses have such a resemblance to meaning, that Fontenelle, having listened to the song, imagined that he had a glimpse of sense, and requested to have it repeated. "Don't you perceive," said Madame Tencin, "that they are nonsense verses?" The malicious wit retorted, "They are so much like the fine verses I have heard here, that it is not surprising I should be for once mistaken."
In the "Scribleriad" we find a good account of the Cento. A Cento primarily signifies a cloak made of patches. In poetry it denotes a work wholly composed of verses, or passages promiscuously taken from other authors, only disposed in a new form or order, so as to compose a new work and a new meaning. Ausonius has laid down the rules to be observed in composing Cento's. The pieces may be taken either from the same poet, or from several; and the verses may be either taken entire, or divided into two; one half to be connected with another half taken elsewhere; but two verses are never to be taken together. Agreeable to these rules, he has made a pleasant nuptial Cento from Virgil.84
The Empress Eudoxia wrote the life of Jesus Christ, in centos taken from Homer; Proba Falconia from Virgil. Among these grave triflers may be mentioned Alexander Ross, who published "Virgilius Evangelizans, sive Historia Domini et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi Virgilianis verbis et versibus descripta." It was republished in 1769.
A more difficult whim is that of "Reciprocal Verses," which give the same words whether read backwards or forwards. The following lines by Sidonius Apollinaris were once infinitely admired:—
Signa te signa temere me tangis et angis. Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.
The reader has only to take the pains of reading the lines backwards, and he will find himself just where he was after all his fatigue.85
Capitaine Lasphrise, a French self-taught poet, boasts of his inventions; among other singularities, one has at least the merit of la difficulté vaincue. He asserts this novelty to be entirely his own; the last word of every verse forms the first word of the following verse:
Falloit-il que le ciel me rendit amoureux
Amoureux, jouissant d'une beauté craintive,
Craintive à recevoir la douceur excessive,
Excessive au plaisir qui rend l'amant heureux;
Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux,
Lieux où plus surement l'ami fidèle arrive,
Arrive sans soupçon de quelque ami attentive,
Attentive à vouloir nous surprendre tous deux.
Francis Colonna, an Italian Monk, is the author of a singular book entitled "The Dream of Poliphilus," in which he relates his amours with a lady of the name of Polia. It was considered improper to prefix his name to the work; but being desirous of marking it by some peculiarity, that he might claim it at any distant day, he contrived that the initial letters of every chapter should be formed of those of his name, and of the subject he treats. This strange invention was not discovered till many years afterwards: when the wits employed themselves in deciphering it, unfortunately it became a source of literary altercation, being susceptible of various readings. The correct appears thus:—Poliam Frater Franciscus Columna Peramavit. "Brother Francis Colonna passionately loved Polia." This gallant monk, like another Petrarch, made the name of his mistress the subject of his amatorial meditations; and as the first called his Laura, his Laurel, this called his Polia, his Polita.
A few years afterwards, Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus employed a similar artifice in his Zodiacus Vitæ, "The Zodiac of Life:" the initial letters of the first twenty-nine verses of the first book of this poem forming his name, which curious particular was probably unknown to Warton in his account of this work.—The performance is divided into twelve books, but has no reference to astronomy, which we might naturally expect. He distinguished his twelve books by the twelve names of the celestial signs, and probably extended or confined them purposely to that number, to humour his fancy. Warton, however, observes, "This strange pedantic title is not totally without a conceit, as the author was born at Stellada or Stellata, a province of Ferrara, and from whence he called himself Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus." The work itself is a curious satire on the Pope and the Church of Rome. It occasioned Bayle to commit a remarkable literary blunder, which I shall record in its place. Of Italian conceit in those times, of which Petrarch was the father, with his perpetual play on words and on his Laurel, or his mistress Laura, he has himself afforded a remarkable example. Our poet lost his mother, who died in her thirty-eighth year: he has commemorated her death by a sonnet composed of thirty-eight lines. He seems to have conceived that the exactness of the number was equally natural and tender.
Are we not to class among literary follies the strange researches which writers, even of the present day, have made in Antediluvian times? Forgeries of the grossest nature have been alluded to, or quoted as authorities. A Book of Enoch once attracted considerable attention; this curious forgery has been recently translated. The Sabeans pretend they possess a work written by Adam! and this work has been recently appealed to in favour of a visionary theory!86 Astle gravely observes, that "with respect to Writings attributed to the Antediluvians, it seems not only decent but rational to say that we know nothing concerning them." Without alluding to living writers, Dr. Parsons, in his erudite "Remains of Japhet," tracing the origin of the alphabetical character, supposes that letters were known to Adam! Some, too, have noticed astronomical libraries in the Ark of Noah! Such historical memorials are the deliriums of learning, or
