The _bouts-rimes_ were the favourites of the French nation for a whole age together, and that at a time when it abounded in wit and learning. They were a list of words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the same order that they were placed upon the list: the more uncommon the rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verses to them. I do not know any greater instance of the decay of wit and learning among the French, which generally follows the declension of empire, than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at trouble to see examples of it, let him look into the new _Mercure Gallant_, where the author every month gives a list of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the _Mercure_ for the succeeding month. That for the month of November last, which now lies before me, is as follows:-- Lauriers Guerriers Musette Lisette Caesars Etendars Houlette Folette One would be amazed to see so learned a man as Menage talking seriously on this kind of trifle in the following passage:-- "Monsieur de la Chambre has told me that he never knew what he was going to write when he took his pen into his hand; but that one sentence always produced another. For my own part, I never knew what I should write next when I was making verses. In the first place I got all my rhymes together, and was afterwards perhaps three or four months in filling them up. I one day showed Monsieur Gombaud a composition of this nature, in which, among others, I had made use of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phyllis, Maine, Arne; desiring him to give me his opinion of it. He told me immediately that my verses were good for nothing. And upon my asking his reason, he said, because the rhymes are too common, and for that reason easy to be put into verse. 'Marry,' says I, 'if it be so, I am very well rewarded for all the pains I have been at!' But by Monsieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the severity of the criticism, the verses were good." (_Vide_ "Menagiana.") Thus far the learned Menage, whom I have translated word for word. The first occasion of these _bouts-rimes_ made them in some manner excusable, as they were tasks which the French ladies used to impose on their lovers. But when a grave author, like him above-mentioned, tasked himself, could there be anything more ridiculous? Or would not one be apt to believe that the author played booty, and did not make his list of rhymes till he had finished his poem? I shall only add that this piece of false wit has been finely ridiculed by Monsieur Sarasin, in a poem entitled "La Defaite des Bouts-Rimes." (The Rout of the Bouts-Rimes).