t me down,
Or Death, as come he must, to hush my voice,
Her laugh would wake me just as now it thrills me--
That little, giddy laugh wherewith she kills me.'

'Tis the very laugh of Millamant in _The Way of the World_! 'I would
rather,' cried Hazlitt, 'have seen Mrs. Abington's Millamant than any
Rosalind that ever appeared on the stage.' Such wishes are idle.
Hazlitt never saw Mrs. Abington's Millamant. I have seen Miss Ethel
Irving's Millamant, _dulce ridentem_, and it was that little giddy
laugh of hers that reminded me of Marot's Epigram and of Frederick
Locker's paraphrase. So do womanly charms endure from generation to
generation, and it is one of the duties of poets to record them.

In 1867 Mr. Locker published his _Lyra Elegantiarun. A Collection of
Some of the Best Specimens of Vers de Societe and Vers d'Occasion in
the English Languages by Deceased Authors_. In his preface Locker gave
what may now be fairly called the 'classical' definition of the verses
he was collecting. '_Vers de societe_ and _vers d'occasion_ should'
(so he wrote) 'be short, elegant, refined and fanciful, not seldom
distinguished by heightened sentiment, and often playful. The tone
should not be pitched high; it should be idiomatic and rather in the
conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the
rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be
marked by tasteful moderation, high finish and completeness; for
however trivial the subject-matter may be--indeed, rather in
proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of
composition and perfection of execution should be strictly enforced.
The definition may be further illustrated by a few examples of pieces,
which, from the absence of some of the foregoing qualities, or from
the excess of others, cannot be properly regarded as _vers de
societe_, though they may bear a certain generic resemblance to that
species of poetry. The ballad of "John Gilpin," for example, is too
broadly and simply ludicrous; Swift's "Lines on the Death of
Marlborough," and Byron's "Windsor Poetics," are too savage and
truculent; Cowper's "My Mary" is far too pathetic; Herrick's lyrics to
"Blossoms" and "Daffodils" are too elevated; "Sally in our Alley" is
too homely and too entirely simple and natural; while the "Rape of the
Lock," which would otherwise be one of the finest specimens of _vers
de societe_ in any language, must be exclud