.
Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by
the necessity of distinguishing between this and that--of pronouncing
upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were
careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this
rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it. Unluckily,
the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse
of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in
essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking,
it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as
opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling.
Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The
one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the
natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is
exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of
verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is
derivable from their work.

They must not, however, all be grouped together under one embracing
appellation. If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and
verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with
the inferior article. There are many different sorts of verse. There is
that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly
comic, and there is that which is something between the two--neither
over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and
marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse
has been given, in general, the name of _vers de societe_ or _vers
d'occasion_--verse of society or for the moment. Mr. Frederick Locker,
nearly twenty years ago, thus labelled his volume of 'Lyra
Elegantiarum'--still, even at this distance of time, the best available
collection of our lighter verse. But the label is not sufficiently
distinguishing; it is too haphazard and too narrow. The term _vers de
societe_ will not include all that is commonly ranged under it. For
what, in reality, is _vers de societe_? It is what it professes to
be--it is the verse of society, the verse which deals with the various
phenomena of the fashionable world. The writers of genuine _vers de
societe_ have themselves been men and women of society, who had caught
its tone and could reproduce it in their rhythmic exercises. Mr.
Lock