Punch, or The London Charivari Volume 107, September 15, 1894 edited by Sir Francis Burnand [Illustration: OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. "HI, BILLIE! _'ERE_'S CHEAP GLOVES!"] * * * * * ALL MY EYE! OR, RHYME AND REASON. (_By Baron Grimbosh._) Since first the Muse to melody gave birth, And with rhyme's chymings blest a happy irth, Poetic seekers of a "perfect rhyme" Have missed the bull's-eye almost every thyme. We want a brand-new Versifiers' Guide, And he who Pegasus would neatly ruide, Must shun bards' beaten highways, read no hymn, Nor by phonetic laws his stanzas trymn. The eye's the Muse's judge, and by the eye Parnassian PITMANS must the poet treye. Rhyme to the ear is wrong; at any rate, Rhyme that greets not the eye cannot be grate, And though by long wrong usage sanctified, It may not pass my new Poetic Gied. These new Rhyme-Rules let bardlings get by heart, For from the New Parnassus must depeart, From TOPLADY to TENNYSON, all those Who prove sweet Poesy's false phonetic fose. COWPER and ROWLAND HILL must be arraigned; In KEBLE, HEBER, NEWMAN, are contaigned False rhymes the most atrocious upon earth, Which might move MOMUS to derisive mearth. Of Rhyme's true laws I'm getting to the root, And a New Poetry will be the froot, The Muse, now by the few acknowledged fair, Shall then be warmly welcomed everywhair, And not, as now, in one loud howl sonorous, As "footle" banned by Commonsense in chorous. Then a verse-scorning world, in pleased surprise, Will to Parnassus lift delighted ise; And from St. Albans to the Arctic Pole, The "lyric cry" (in Grimbosh rhymes) shall role. The people then not hymns alone shall praise, But the sweet secular singer's luscious laise, Phonetic laws to wish to change at once Must prove a man a duffer and a donce, The laws of spelling are less fatal foze. (You can spell "does" as either "duz" or "doze," And if you wish to make it rhyme with bosh, What easier than writing wash as "wosh"?) If TENNYSON were all rewritten _thus_, His verse indeed would be de-li-ci-us; And ISAAC PITMAN'S spelling would add lots Of charm to the great works of ISAAC WOTTS. There! Grimbosh sets the world right once again! May lesser poets mark! A-main!! A-main!!! * * * * * LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. SCENE--_A Sea-side Library._ _Visitor (wearily, after a series of inquiries and disappointments)._ What I want is a _recent_ novel. I haven't read _The Vermilion Gillyflower_ yet. It's been out six months or more. Surely you've got _that_? _Shop Attendant._ I don't _fancy_ it's in our catalogue. I don't _remember_ hearing of it. (_Brightly._) We've got _Ivanhoe_. _Visitor (ignoring the suggestion)._ Well, then, I could do with CONAN DOYLE'S last, or STANLEY WEYMAN'S. _Shop Attendant._ STANLEY, did you say? Oh yes, we've _ordered_ the _Life of Dean Stanley_, but it hasn't come yet.