'They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care, They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway share; They charmed it with smiles and soap.' It requires genius, of a kind, to conceive and execute such lines as these, easy as (no doubt) it seems to write them. Not that Mr. Carroll is unapproachable. There are probably many who think that his 'Jabberwocky' is at least equalled by Mr. Gilbert's 'Sing for the Garish Eye,' in which the invented words are truly 'Carrollian': 'Sing for the garish eye, When moonless brandlings cling; Let the froddering crooner cry, And the braddled sapster sing!'-- though, to be sure, Mr. Gilbert could hardly be expected to do anything better than that lovely quatrain of Bunthorne's about 'The dust of an earthy to-day' and 'The earth of a dusty to-morrow.' The example set by Mr. Lear has been followed by many versifiers, who have sought to create their effects after a manner now sufficiently familiar. Thus, we have had multitudinous efforts like the following: 'There was an old priest in Peru Who dreamt he'd converted a Jew: He woke in the night In a deuce of a fright, And found it was perfectly true.' Performances of that sort are, however, easy; and more merit attaches to such studies in unintelligibility as Bret Harte's 'Songs without Sense,' of which the 'Swiss Air' is a good example: 'I'm a gay tra, la, la, With my fal, lal, la, la, And my bright-- And my light-- Tra, la, le. [_Repeat._] Then laugh, ha, ha, ha, And ring, ting, ling, ling, And sing fal, la, la, La, la, le.' [_Repeat._] Probably, however, the poetry of pure nonsense has never been better represented than in these contemporary verses on the suitable topic of 'Blue Moonshine': 'Ay! for ever and for ever Whilst the love-lorn censers sweep, Whilst the jasper winds dissever, Amber-like, the crystal deep; Shall the soul's delirious slumber, Sea-green vengeance of a kiss, Teach despairing crags to number Blue infinities of bliss.' SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTONS.