and complete poetic instrument than French alexandrines, that the
imperfections which they aver are inherent in the latter exist only in
their British ears, impervious to a thousand subtleties. Mr. Matthew Arnold
does not hesitate to say that the regular rhyming of the lines is
monotonous. To my ear every line is different; there is as much variation
in Charles V.'s soliloquy as in Hamlet's; but be this as it may, it is not
unworthy of the inmates of Hanwell for critics to inveigh against _la,
rime pleine_, that which is instinctive in the language as accent in
ours, that which is the very genius of the language.

But the principle has been exaggerated, deformed, caricatured until some of
the most modern verse is little more than a series of puns--in art as in
life the charm lies in the unexpected, and it is annoying to know that the
only thought of _every_ poet is to couple _les murs_ with _des
fruits trop murs_, and that no break in the absolute richness of sound
is to be hoped for. Gustave Kahn whose beautiful volume "Les Palais
Nomades" I have read with the keenest delight, was the first to recognise
that an unfailing use of _la rime pleine_ might become cloying and
satiating, and that, by avoiding it sometimes and markedly and maliciously
choosing in preference a simple assonance, new and subtle music might be
produced.

"Les Palais Nomades" is a really beautiful book, and it is free from all
the faults that make an absolute and supreme enjoyment of great poetry an
impossibility. For it is in the first place free from those pests and
parasites of artistic work--ideas. Of all literary qualities the creation
of ideas is the most fugitive. Think of the fate of an author who puts
forward a new idea to-morrow in a book, in a play, in a poem. The new idea
is seized upon, it becomes common property, it is dragged through newspaper
articles, magazine articles, through books, it is repeated in clubs,
drawing-rooms; it is bandied about the corners of streets; in a week it is
wearisome, in a month it is an abomination. Who has not felt a sickening
feeling come over him when he hears such phrases as "To be or not to be,
that is the question"? Shakespeare was really great when he wrote "Music to
hear, why hearest thou music sadly?" not when he wrote, "The apparel oft
proclaims the man." Could he be freed from his ideas what a poet we should
have! Therefore, let those who have taken firsts at Oxford devote their
intolerable leis