e little book at once introduced him to a larger
public. The period was an interesting one for a first appearance, since
the air was full of metrical experiment. Swinburne's bold and
dithyrambic excursions into classical metre had given the clue for an
enlargement of the borders of English prosody; and, since it was
hopeless to follow him in his own line without necessary loss of vigour,
the poets of the day were looking about for fresh forms and variations.
It was early in 1876 that a small body of English poets lit upon the
French forms of Theodore de Banville, Marot and Villon, and determined
to introduce them into English verse. Mr Austin Dobson, who had already
made successful use of the triolet, was at the head of this movement,
and in May 1876 he published in _The Prodigals_ the first original
ballade written in English. This he followed by English versions of the
rondel, rondeau and villanelle. An article in the _Cornhill Magazine_ by
Mr Edmund Gosse, "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse," appearing
in July 1877, simultaneously with Mr Dobson's second volume, _Proverbs
in Porcelain_, drew the general eye to the possibilities and
achievements of the movement. The experiment was extremely fortunate in
its introduction. Mr Dobson is above all things natural, spontaneous and
unaffected in poetic method; and in his hands a sheaf of metrical forms,
essentially artificial and laborious, was made to assume the colour and
bright profusion of a natural product. An air of pensive charm, of
delicate sensibility, pervades the whole of these fresh revivals; and it
is perhaps this personal touch of humanity which has given something
like stability to one side of a movement otherwise transitory in
influence. The fashion has faded, but the flowers of Mr Dobson's French
garden remain bright and scented.

In 1883 Mr Dobson published _Old-World Idylls_, a volume which contains
some of his most characteristic work. By this time his taste was
gradually settling upon the period with which it has since become almost
exclusively associated; and the spirit of the 18th century is revived in
"The Ballad of Beau Brocade" and in "The Story of Rosina," as nowhere
else in modern English poetry. In "Beau Brocade," indeed, the pictorial
quality of his work, the dainty economy of eloquent touches, is at its
very best: every couplet has its picture, and every picture is true and
vivacious. The touch has often been likened to that of Randolph