This has a literary interest apart from its own merits, as the critics, on its first introduction, blamed Mr. Dobson severely for attempting to english the word triolet. “Suppose an audacious person were to extend the license, and introduce cabriolet as a thirdsman?” said _The Academy_, on June 23, 1877. In spite of Mr. W. S. Gilbert, in _Princess Ida_, trying also to rhyme it to violet— “Oh, dainty triolet! oh, fragrant violet! oh, gentle heigho-let! (or little sigh)”— the word remains French; and in a later version Mr. Dobson has re-cast the poem. “I intended an ode, And it turned to a sonnet. I began _à la mode_. I intended an ode; But Rose crossed the road In her latest new bonnet. I intended an ode, And it turned to a sonnet.” This may be better rhyme, but the _raison d’être_ is gone; it has not turned to a sonnet, but is still a triolet. To understand the form more clearly, it is best to take one and dissect it, thereby showing its structure. To avoid mutilating a master’s work, and possibly misinterpreting it, I will take one in my possession, not yet published, printing it, not as it would be, but displayed (to use a technical term), thereby exaggerating the emphasis with which the writer intended it should be read. “A WAVERER. She has a _primrose_ at her breast: I almost wish I were a Tory. _I_ like the Radicals the best, _SHE_ has a primrose at _HER_ breast, Now is it chance she so is drest? Or must I tell a story? She _HAS_ a primrose at her breast: I almost _wish_ I _WERE_ a Tory.” Here we see the whole is a soliloquy in the historic present tense. The first two lines explain the incident, the third the speaker’s own comment on it, noting in the fourth how it differs from his own opinion. In the fifth he meditates on the reason which has affected him. In the sixth he wavers between insincerity and politeness or truth and the chance of conveying a sense of unfriendliness; while in the last he concludes that it is a fact they differ, and, still undecided in action, wishes the reason had not existed so that he might sincerely agree with the supposed Primrose lady, and avoid feigning a political acquiescence of opinion. So trifling an incident will not bear analysis on its own merits, and is merely dwelt on to explain the structure of the verse. A triolet should be complete in itself. In a very able article in the _Cornhill Magazine_ (July, 1877) Mr. E. W. Gosse points out the danger of a fascinating tendency to connect a sequence of triolets. The constant recurrence of the lines would soon become fatally monotonous. One or two at the most are bearable.